It took three speakers to introduce David Miliband to a packed audience at Highgate Synagogue on Thursday.

First up came Rabbi Nicky Liss. Well, it is his shul. He was, as it were, the foreword. Next, the preface — lawyer, businessman and philanthropist, Sir Harry Solomon, followed by the introduction, with Lady Esther Gilbert.

Finally, the star turn appeared — David Miliband, gloriously unbound and unconstrained by the pressures of either government or opposition.

The title of the talk given by the former foreign secretary — in London to give the shul’s second Sir Martin Gilbert memorial lecture — was “Brexit and the Anti-Liberal Moment”.

After paying generous tribute to Sir Martin, the “definitive historian”, he was soon up and running. Quickly realising he was among friends, he delivered, in the next hour, a tightly structured and, at times, passionate 5,000-word defence of core liberal values in an age of increasing political extremism and growing fake news.

He was relaxed, confident, fluent, engaging. Perhaps because, as President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), he is used to no longer being interrupted. In the Commons he would have been heckled by enraged Corbynistas behind him or jeering ERG ultras on the Tory benches opposite.

In Highgate, with former local Lib Dem MP Baroness Lynne Featherstone present, he mentioned “liberal” and “democratic” so often you wondered whether he was pitching for Jo Swinson’s job. But he wasn’t. He was speaking as a committed, but frustrated, Labour Party centrist, and as an acute and knowledgeable observer of British politics.

It was easy to understand why President Bill Clinton had called him “one of the ablest, most creative public servants of our time.” Hillary liked him too.

Early on he praised Sir Martin as a “patriot who was also an internationalist.” He might have been describing himself. He branded Brexit a disaster, something akin, he said, to a journey through the seven stages of hell — from the ill-judged initial decision to hold the referendum to the lacklustre campaign to Remain; from the pre-emptive triggering of Article 50 to the shambolic efforts at negotiating an exit; the incredible Theresa May commitment to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market to the Labour leadership’s “Jobs-first Brexit” policy — which meant, he suggested, jobs for Holland, Germany and France.

Speaking a week before the “do or die” Brexit deadline, he rejected the claim that the danger to democracy from not honouring the referendum result justifies leaving whatever the economic cost. He argued forcefully in favour of a further, this time more informed, referendum, now that the issues have been better explored and explained. And if, in the end, the voters still decide to leave, then so be it. That’s proper democracy.

He also defended the Supreme Court. Far from being “enemies of the people”, the judges were, he said, “defenders of the rights of the people”. This was fortunate since the post-speech questions were moderated by James Libson, the solicitor who instructed David Pannick QC on behalf of Gina Miller in her successful appeal to that court to prevent Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament.  

In response to the inevitable question about antisemitism in the Labour Party, he replied sadly that it was very painful these phrases were now commonly linked in the same sentence. But he said he would be a party remainer as well as an anti-Brexiteer for as long as Dame Margaret Hodge stays.

The loudest applause came when an audience member asked plaintively whether he would return to British politics. He said he was privileged to lead the IRC. It was founded by Albert Einstein in 1933 and had benefited millions of people in dozens of countries. But, he added, “I don’t know what I’ll be doing next.” David Miliband is 54. He looks ten years younger. Boris Johnson became Prime Minister at 55.

After his talk, I told him Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency began less than a mile south of the synagogue. I asked who he would vote for if he lived there at the next general election. He seemed grateful he wouldn’t be residing in Islington North any time soon. And mindful of his fractured relationship with his brother Ed, I thought it prudent not to point out that 40 hours after he spoke, Rabbi Liss would leyn Bereshis from the same spot and recount the homicidal story of Cain and Abel.