PEACE campaigners criticised Labour’s “hypocritical and muddled” approach to foreign policy after a keynote speech by Ed Miliband on the issue yesterday.

In his address he accused David Cameron of being partly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of migrants in the Mediterranean by failing to plan for the aftermath of 2011’s air strikes on Libya.

He said Mr Cameron was wrong to suppose that the country could recover from the ousting of Muammar Gadaffi without more outside help — claiming its descent into chaos “should have been anticipated and could have been avoided.”

Mr Miliband did not specifically refer to the deaths of hundreds of migrants fleeing to Europe via Libya.

But Labour made clear that his message was that “the refugee crisis and tragic scenes this week in the Mediterranean are in part a direct result of the failure of post-conflict planning for Libya.”

The comments, met with outrage by Tories, also sparked claims of hypocrisy from peace campaigners who pointed out that Labour had backed the actions in Libya.

Mr Miliband also used the speech to pledge his party’s commitment to multilateralism and global institutions yet at the same stroke reiterated Labour’s support for Britain retaining Trident.

CND’s general secretary Kate Hudson said: “Labour can’t have it both ways.

“Ed Miliband is trying to situate the party as one of multilateralism and international institution-building, but the party’s record is one of supporting disastrous and bloody misadventures — from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya.

“Worse still, Labour’s one concrete message in the speech is that they will spend up to £100bn to ensure Britain is a nuclear-armed state for the next 30-40 years.”

Mr Miliband’s comments come the day after EU leaders — including Mr Cameron — met at an emergency summit in Brussels to discuss the deepening humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean.

A number of states, including Britain, pledged to provide additional resources, ships and aircraft to search-and-rescue operations.

But despite the mounting human cost there was no suggestion that there was any intention to expand the much reduced effort back to previous levels.