This is how the UK could end up getting dragged into the Iran war
In the five days since the war in Iran began with blasts at the heart of Tehran, Sir Keir Starmer has been setting out his case for not getting involved.
It started with his decision not to allow the US to use British bases to launch those offensive strikes.
Even after he rowed back slightly and permitted the use of the sites for US attacks on missile depots and launchers on Sunday, the PM was at pains to make clear this didn’t count as participation.
But in the heat of chaotic conflict, as the Iranian regime sprays missiles and drones out at targets across the Middle East, there’s always a chance something happens to change the game eventually.
And there’s no sign of the situation calming down soon.
This afternoon, Starmer announced the UK was sending four more Typhoon fighter jets and Wildcat helicopters with anti-drone capabilities to the region, to help ‘keep our people safe’.
Want to understand more about how politics affects your life?
Metro's senior politics reporter Craig Munro breaks down all the chaos into easy to follow insight, in Metro's politics newsletter Alright, Gov? Sent every Wednesday. Sign up here.
What would it take for the government to decide there was no choice other than to get directly involved in the Iran war?
Metro asked Dr Patrick Bury, a former British Army captain and Nato analyst who now teaches at the University of Bath, what the possible scenarios were.
UK or Nato casualties
Just a few hours after Israel and the US fired the first shots of the conflict on Saturday, an Iranian missile and drone attack hit a US naval base in Bahrain.
Around 300 British personnel were on the site at the time, and the strike happened within 200 metres of them.
Dr Bury said: ‘The biggest risk is if there’s some UK casualties, and what does that do to the public appetite and the political decision-making?’
The same could go for Nato more widely – a missile heading into Turkish airspace was destroyed yesterday, but if a member country came under more sustained attack they could call for Article 5 to be invoked.
Threat to civilians
More than 140,000 British citizens have registered their presence in the Middle East through the Foreign Office so far, with more than 2,000 arriving back in the UK yesterday alone.
A significant portion of these people are based in the United Arab Emirates, where some luxury hotels have been hit by Iranian attacks.
According to Dr Bury, the threat to ‘those people stuck in Dubai who want to leave’ could spur the UK into action.
Direct attack on a British base
‘The major risk for the UK is if one of their bases get attacked, they share a lot of the bases with the Americans over there,’ said Dr Bury.
Of course, a one-way drone did hit the RAF base in Akrotiri, Cyprus, on Sunday night – but a more direct, full-on assault might change the perspective.
Dr Bury also raised the possibility of British aircraft – currently engaged in defensive action, taking out missiles and drones that have already been launched – being shot down.
However, he suggested those incidents may be more likely to simply lead to further escalation rather than straight to war.
He said: ‘Ultimately, it’s a decision in those scenarios, how much weight you want as a political leader to put on them as a cause for war.
‘You can also take casualties and decide it’s still not worth it, or look at the circumstances and go, “That’s just a shot across the bows that’s gone wrong,” for example.’
In Dr Bury’s assessment, the ‘most likely’ cause for a broader war would have been the US and Israel running out of ammunition early in the conflict and telling Nato: ‘We’re going to lose this unless you get stuck in’.
But he added: ‘I don’t think we’re there.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.