Take the long term view of Britain's future - Miliband

Mr Miliband expressed fears years of blaming Brussels for British problems would “come home to roost” in the referendum but hoped “common sense will prevail”.

The former South Shields MP has restricted his interventions in British politics since leaving Parliament three years ago to become the New York-based chief executive of the International Rescue Committee.

But he has re-entered the fray in recent weeks to make the case for Remain.

Mr Miliband told The Yorkshire Post he had come to agree with Hull MP Alan Johnson, chairman of the Labour In for Britain campaign that the referendum is more important than a general election.

“The last 40 years of my life, the opportunities, the changes, have benefitted in a fundamental way from the decision of the government in 1973 to join and the decision of the British people in 1975 to stay,” he said.

“This is a decision that goes beyond the term of a general election, it’s not reversible and it is important.”

Mr Miliband insisted he understood frustrations about aspects of the European Union but wanted voters to take a broader view.

He said: “The reservations about individual policy issues, be it the way the Common Fisheries Policy works, the way immigration works, the way that the governance of Europe works, on individual policy issues you can see that people have got concerns.

“What I think is noteworthy is that across the piece I think it has been very hard for people to get a birds eye view and the debate has become very mired in some details.

“In a way, the debate often has a lot of focus on the short term issues. I actually think the long term consequences are even more striking than whether or not pound goes down 20 per cent on Friday and peoples holidays are more expensive.

“It’s one of those cases where the long term stakes are bigger than the short term stakes.

“The truth is that for someone like me the argument for remaining and building on the success of Britain in Europe is overwhelmingly strong. If the country is indeed very divided we need to ask hard questions about why.

“I think the choice we face is one where not just head but heart, logic and emotion, point me very strongly to the view that we have a very positive case to make about why Britain is stronger, safer and fairer in Europe and why we are throwing it all away if we pull out.”

Mr Miliband insisted it was wrong to lay the blame for Britain’s problems at the door of the European Union.

“I think the truth is that there is a lot of anger about the way bits of British government works and this is an occasion to have a kick at European government because the truth is trust in institutions has fallen generally.

“When you stop and think about it its been part of politics for a long time to slag off the European Union and blame it for the ills that people have and I think that’s coming home to roost but I still think common sense will prevail.”

The former foreign secretary expressed hope that following a remain vote, Britain would change the way it approaches its dealings with the European Union.

“It’s not like the rest of Europe doesn’t have arguments about Europe. Greece has been through hell the last five years but Greece is still passionately pro-Europe and we’ve got to have our arguments about how to make Europe better not whether or not we’ve got our hand on the door.”