Learning to speak English and enrolling at the London School of Economics, he became involved in left-wing politics and made a personal commitment to the cause of socialism at the grave of Karl Marx.

By the 1960s, he was a prominent member of the New Left movement in Britain, which was critical of established socialist governments in the Soviet Union and Central Europe (the Eastern Bloc).

He published several books on Marxist theory and the criticism of capitalism, such as Parliamentary Socialism (1961), The State in Capitalist Society (1969), and Marxism and Politics (1977), and he edited the Writings of the Left series (Jonathan Cape and Grove Press, 1972–1973).

[11] His father, was a skilled craftsman who made leather goods, and his mother, Renia (or Renée, née Steinlauf 1901–1975), travelled around selling women's hats.

[11] She was embarrassed by having to work in this profession, hiding it from her neighbours, but required the extra income due to the economic troubles of the Great Depression during the 1930s.

They missed the train to Paris and, although Adolphe – who was then sixteen – wanted to walk to the border, the family recognised that his younger sister Anna Hélène, who was only twelve, was too young for such a trek.

[13] In London, Miliband abandoned the name Adolphe due to its connection with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and instead began calling himself Ralph.

He and his father gained work in the Chiswick area removing furniture from houses bombed in the Blitz and, after six weeks, were able to send news to Renia and Anne-Marie that they were in London.

Discovering that the Jews of Belgium were being rounded up by the Nazis to be sent to extermination camps in the Holocaust, Renia and Anne-Marie managed to escape to a rural farm, where they were hidden by a French family until after the end of the war, when they were reunited with Sam and Ralph.

[14]Learning to speak English, Ralph gained a place at Acton Technical College (now Brunel University)[15] in west London with the help of the League of Nations' Commission for Refugees in January 1941.

[11][16] His initial exhilaration soon wore off as months passed without seeing action, then in June 1944 he took part in supporting the Normandy landings which he wrote was "the biggest operation in history" and he "would not miss it for anything".

Miliband published his first book, Parliamentary Socialism, in 1961, which examined the role that the Labour Party played in British politics and society from a Marxist position, finding it wanting for a lack of radicalism.

In 1967 he wrote in the Socialist Register that "the US has over ... a period of years been engaged ... in the wholesale slaughter of men, women and children, the maiming of many more" and that the United States' "catalogue of horrors" against the Vietnamese people was being done "in the name of an enormous lie".

In the same article, he attacked Harold Wilson for his defence of the United States' action in Vietnam, describing it as being the "most shameful chapter in the history of the Labour Party".

[19][20] In 1985, his essay "The New Revisionism in Britain" appeared in the 25th anniversary issue of the New Left Review[21] in which he responds to writers associated with the Marxism Today magazine such as Eric Hobsbawm and Stuart Hall.

David would step down from politics in 2013, but Ed would later serve as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero in Keir Starmer's Cabinet, following a stint as a backbencher in the aftermath of the 2015 General Election and during the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

The journalist Andy McSmith of The Independent, in comparing the lives of Ralph, David and Ed, said that the elder figure had a "nobility and a drama" that was lacking in his sons' "steady, pragmatic political careers".

[13] On 27 September 2013, the Daily Mail published an article disputing Ralph Miliband's patriotism with the headline "The man who hated Britain".

Three days later after negotiations the paper published a response by Ed Miliband describing his father's life, and saying the Daily Mail's article was character assassination.

[28] The Labour leader's office responded:[Ed Miliband] wanted the Daily Mail to treat his late father's reputation fairly.

It will be for people to judge whether this newspaper's treatment of a war veteran, Jewish refugee from the Nazis and distinguished academic reflects the values and decency we should all expect in our political debate.

Miliband invited both John Saville, his wife Marion, and other notable scholars, academics, and experts in socialist education, such as Hilary Wainwright and Doreen Massey to the Trust.