Nothing has shown up the UK as a second-tier power quite as much as the last few days.
Last week, after a G7 summit dinner in Canada with Donald Trump, Sir Keir Starmer expressed his certainty that the President would seek to de-escalate tensions with Iran.
That statement was shot to smithereens just like the attack on Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility on Saturday night. Starmer’s pleas for peace and de-escalation are not so much a scream into the void, as a polite but futile bleat.
But Starmer is also powerless in a way few have yet considered. Parliament simply would not back military action on Iranian targets, even if the Prime Minister advised it.
“There has been a generational shift in thinking that means people just don’t want to get involved in foreign wars anymore. I think there’s also a recognition that just taking out the bad guys doesn’t mean that the nice people take over,” a Government source told The i Paper.
“At the moment the ball is in Iran’s court. If, for instance, they were to strike RAF Akrotiri [Britain’s base in Cyprus], that would be different, we would be responding in self-defence and there wouldn’t be any legal argument. But otherwise, there is no appetite to proactively attack them; let America do it,” the source added.
Were the UK to authorise the US air force to use its base at Diego Garcia for an attack on Iranian targets, then Tehran’s retaliation would almost certainly include attacking RAF Typhoon jets on Cyprus or its accompanying signal station.
Leaked advice from Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, warned that the UK should not join direct strikes by Israel against Iran as it might breach international law. But that’s not the only thing holding Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs back.
A distaste for Trump, a genuine fury at Israel’s treatment of Gazans and alarm at the ballooning defence budget at the expense of domestic spending are all playing on the minds of left-leaning MPs when they examine the current conflict.
But there is also a wider reluctance to engage in any overseas conflict. This stems from the 2003 ill-judged decision by former prime minister Tony Blair to “sex-up” the dossier on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq as he played the junior partner to another Republican president.
The former premier’s attempts to retro-fit removing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as the prime driver of Britain’s involvement compounded public anger at the Iraq War. Simply put: Blair spoiled it for everyone.
“The key difference is in those days when the British prime minister came to the House and said that there was a real threat to British national interests that we needed to commit forces because X country was a threat – in the case of Iraq, because it had a WMD programme – that the convention was that you accepted the word of the prime minister, and that on the whole, you backed him, unless you really had a strong reason not to,” according to Chris Doyle, director at think-tank the Council for Arab-British Understanding.
square ALASTAIR CAMPBELL Iran is not like Iraq in 2003 - we should be warier of Trump’s US
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“I think Iraq changed all that, and in the many discussions I’ve had in various interventions, including Syria, Libya, Iraq again over Isis and Syria again over Isis, there was a much stronger feeling that there was a burden on each and every single MP that they were more responsible themselves for that decision if it came to a vote and that they had to answer for that decision in years to come in a way that I don’t think was the case in 2002-3,” Doyle told The i Paper.
Right now the Tories seem gung-ho, determined to support the US and Israel because they think the ends justify the means. Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme needs to be stopped, they argue: the world should thank them for doing the job. Meanwhile Starmer’s only tacit approval of the campaign is “pathetic,” former Tory defence secretary Grant Shapps told Times Radio on Monday.
Starmer’s decision not to update Parliament on Monday, instead sending Foreign Secretary David Lammy in his place, did not land well. Even Labour MPs told The i Paper Starmer should have made a statement.
Convention on whether Parliament should have a vote before deploying troops has ebbed and flowed in recent years. Former prime minister Theresa May didn’t consult Parliament over a deployment to Syria.
When Starmer stood for the Labour leadership in 2020 he pledged to get the “consent” of MPs before launching military action, a promise he effectively broke in January last year when he backed then prime minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to authorise air strikes in Yemen. Starmer also deployed two RAF jets in defence of Israel last year without consultation.
But the escalating situation – Israel sent a follow-up bombardment to the Fordo nuclear site on Monday – could yet draw the UK into a wider conflict it does not want. If Iran struck US assets, it could trigger Article 5 of Nato – where an attack on one is an attack on all – and draw the UK into military action. If Iran chooses to attack the US via proxies, then UK bases and assets could also be under threat. MPs would demand a say.
The world is waiting for Iran to respond. Even in his hiding place Ayatollah Khamenei faces three choices: unconditional surrender, secretly continuing his nuclear programme, or resorting to aggressive actions like closing the Strait of Hormuz, assassinations, and cyber attacks.
Iran may bide its time before launching a spectacular response. Meanwhile it could use asymmetric attacks and targeted operations against US and Israeli assets and citizens.
A full-scale military occupation of Iran, including ground troops, would be necessary for the US to completely dismantle Iran’s nuclear programme; air strikes alone can only temporarily hinder the country’s nuclear progress, even if they have been as successful as Trump claims.
It’s not just in the UK where there is little appetite for conflict. Trump’s Maga base is spitting feathers about another foreign intervention. US Vice President JD Vance – an Iraq veteran himself – batted away concerns about another drawn-out war in the region with an amusing if unconventional analysis.
“I empathise with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East,” he told NBC at the weekend. “I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives.”
You could imagine a more diplomatic version from Starmer: Blair got it wrong, but I won’t, he could say.
The trouble is: no one is buying it. Unless Britain’s assets are attacked by Iran, Starmer won’t be able to convince Parliament to go to war. Not even if he wanted to.
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