Starmer’s Latest Political Snafu: The Iran War
Starmer’s Latest Political Snafu: The Iran War
The Labour prime minister’s indecision and the abject state of the British military have created an embarrassing display.
Forty-four years ago, Margaret Thatcher sent a British task force 8,000 miles to liberate the Falkland Islands. They had been invaded by Argentina. Last week Britain wasn’t even able to send a frigate to protect British personnel and their families in Akrotiri in Cyprus against Iranian drones.
The HMS Dragon was still in dock in Portsmouth even as Iran was attacking the UK’s base on the Mediterranean island. The French, Britain’s historic rival, had to step in with a gunboat to deter further aggression. The humiliation of the British military and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s government was complete. Had Thatcher still been around, she would have sacked the defense secretary and half the military top brass.
From the start of this war, the state of Britain’s leadership has been dire. “This is not Winston Churchill,” said Donald Trump last week after Starmer refused to allow the U.S. to use British air bases to refuel planes headed for the Gulf. The prime minister had said the America-Israeli action was illegal under international law. (Britain’s closest military allies in the Commonwealth, Canada and Australia, seemed to think the strike against the weaponry of Iran’s regime was legitimate.) But after the American-Israeli success in taking out Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Starmer changed his tune. He conducted what has become a typical U-turn and agreed to let U.S. warplanes land at Diego Garcia and Fairford in Gloucestershire. Suddenly, international law wasn’t a problem.
Number 10 tried to cover itself by saying that the U.S. could only use British bases in “defensive operations”—as if bureaucrats were going to log every American assault on Iran’s military establishment to ensure that they waited until ballistic missiles were actually launched before targeting them.
Tony Blair, the former Labour Prime Minister and sometime Starmer mentor, was aghast. At a private meeting he remarked that “if your ally is the indispensable cornerstone of your defence strategy… you’d better turn up”. The Brits belatedly let it be known that the aircraft carrier Prince of Wales was being placed on alert. This didn’t impress the POTUS. “That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer,” he said on Truth Social, adding, “We don’t need people that join wars after we’ve already won!” Ouch. Starmer then hit the phones, desperately trying to reduce the damage to the so-called special relationship.
So how did he get into this mess? According to Tim Shipman in the Spectator, Starmer had initially been minded to help the U.S. But his left-wing Energy Secretary Ed Miliband rounded up a few Cabinet colleagues and told Starmer that he could not risk being an accessory to U.S. imperialism. Didn’t he remember the disaster in Iraq, they said? There’s no plan. You can’t have regime change from the air. It is time to make a break from Trump, who is deeply unpopular with British voters.
A stronger leader might have told Miliband to stick to net zero. Starmer is himself massively unpopular with British voters and decisive action over Iran might have improved his image. Instead he conducted yet another classic Starmer U-turn.
The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, had no hesitation in supporting the American-Israeli actions and called out Starmer’s “dither and delay”. She said that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a direct threat to the UK and it would therefore have been perfectly legal for Britain to support the U.S. from the start. Starmer, she added, was now a hostage to his left wing.
Yet parties on the left were hardly more supportive of the PM than the Tories. The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, also condemned the PM’s equivocation. He thought the UK should have remained aloof throughout from what he described as a “unilateral and unlawful act” by the Americans. The Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, accused Starmer of dragging Britain into an illegal war and said that all British bases should be off limits to Trump’s warmongers.
The right-wing Reform UK might have been expected to support full British participation in the U.S.-Israel action, since its leader, Nigel Farage, has had a close relationship with Donald Trump. But it was not entirely supportive. Indeed, its Treasury spokesman, Robert Jenrick, told BBC TV on Sunday that, while it was OK for the U.S. to use British bases for refueling, it would not be right for British planes to take part in offensive bombing raids over Iran.
Why this hesitation? Well, Reform realizes that the British public is very much opposed to the war, according to opinion polls. YouGov reported that voters here opposed US strikes on Iran by 49 percent to 28 percent. It is safe to say that Donald Trump is not exactly popular with the Brits. His net approval rating is minus-70.
A lot of this has to do with the president’s infelicitous language and his recent claim that British armed forces had “stayed a little back from the front lines” during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. This apparent accusation of cowardice went down very badly with many working-class voters who have close ties to the military. Even the Farage-supporting pop star Rod Stewart said it was offensive to the memory of the 450 British soldiers who gave their lives in those American-led actions. Trump’s triumphalism over Iran is also a vote-loser here.
Things could have been different. When America and the UK bombed Serbia during the 1999 Kosovo conflict, there was widespread public support for the action, even though it had not been sanctioned by the United Nations. Outside university campuses, there is very little support in Britain for the regime in Iran. In times past the British might have backed more positive action against the ayatollah’s arsenal.
But right now the prospect of Britain participating in any military action seems pretty remote. The last 40 years have seen a rejection of military values in Britain in favor of elite self-flagellation over the supposed evils of the Empire. In a YouGov poll last year, only 11 percent of young Britons said they would definitely fight for their own country, let alone someone else’s.
If Argentina decided to launch a second invasion of the Malvinas, as they call the Falklands, they would likely find it a walkover.
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