If Miliband wants to be PM, he’ll need to answer the “Putin question”

Sometimes in politics you’re really fortunate with events and timing, and sometimes you work incredibly hard to achieve something, only to find out that Russia has invaded the Ukraine and no-one is taking any notice of you anymore.

Ed Miliband will have left the ExCel centre on Saturday in high spirits, having steered party reforms past a special conference without either abandoning the radicalism of his early proposals, breaking the crucial union link or leaving blood on the carpet. As I wrote at the weekend, it went about as well as he could have hoped.

And yet Miliband’s party reforms – important as they were – have been unsurprisingly overshadowed by events in the Ukraine over the past 48 hours. As Russian troops roll into the Crimea, journalists begin to dust off their geopolitics atlas to work out how long that region has been part of the Ukraine (60 years, give or take) and exhibit a hitherto unspoken knowledge of the linguistic and political split between East and West Ukraine.

In such a situation a radical redistribution of power in a political party doesn’t get the headlines.

The test for Miliband’s leadership now – if he wants to become PM – is not whether he can persuade, cajole or even “take on” his own party. It’s whether he could do any or all of the above with Vladimir Putin.

That’s not to say that David Cameron is someone the British people can look to with any particular confidence on the Putin issue. Cameron – the consummate salesman who says much but believes in little – is not someone who you would choose to send into negotiations with the brutalist Mr Putin. He often appears to lack depth, and whilst he has undoubted charm it’s unclear whether or not that’s backed by any real gar vitas on the international stage. High-fives over ping-pong with Obama are one thing, but he has no track record of delivery. And that’s before we even mention that (until this afternoon at least) the Tories sit in a group on the Council of Europe with United Russia – Putin’s party.

Yet Miliband has many of the same weaknesses. Before the Syria debacle (and whatever your views on the matter, it was a debacle – opposition to intervention was reached as a result of impasse, not positive choice) Miliband’s only real interventions in international debate had been to (sort of) rule out an EU referendum and push impressively for a climate deal at Copenhagen.

No doubt this is someone with significant intellect and knowledge about the international issues of the day, and cerebral thinker who can think through the different moves of his opponents and allies. He would not have beaten his brother, taken on Murdoch/the Mail or passed party reform without some level of strategic ability. And yet he’s unproven at international diplomacy – and each repetition of the words “One Nation” is a reminder that Labour’s current policy agenda is domestic, with a dark silence lurking where a foreign policy agenda needs to be.

If Miliband wants to be PM, he’s going to have to develop a compelling answer to the big foreign policy question of our time – the “Putin question” – how should the West handle Russia?

Because without an answer to the Putin question, Miliband’s critics will have a weighty line of attack against him, and Cameron – unless he’s seen to have made a mistake in his handling of the Ukrainian crisis – will be able to advance the argument that he is a national leader, and Miliband isn’t.