ONE of the paradoxes of Sir Keir Starmer’s position on war with Iran is that he insisted that Britain must stay defensive but was unprepared to defend British interests and assets from Iran.
How can Starmer insist on the lawfulness of defensiveness and still be defensively unprepared?
For months, Donald Trump has been publicly warning that the US might attack Iran (if Iran does not halt its weaponisation of nuclear materials).
Starmer’s administration had a taste of US-Israeli strikes against Iran in June 2025. These lasted 12 days. Iranian retaliation reached into Israel and Syria. Iran did not strike against Britain, but shouldn’t the Government have planned for contingencies where British interests, persons or assets are exposed?
From mid-November war fever was back. Western governments (including the British) publicised intelligence conclusions that Iran is rebuilding its nuclear capacity and accelerating its weaponisation.
Coincidentally, by late December, another wave of domestic protests broke out in Iran, which its government brutally suppressed with the loss of up to 33,000 lives.
Trump warned Iran to halt weaponisation and repression. He sent US military reinforcements to the region, including two carrier groups.
On January 19, during the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington DC, Trump said the world would find out ‘over the next, probably, ten days’ whether a meaningful nuclear deal could be reached with Iran. When pressed later, aboard Air Force One, he elaborated: ‘I would think that would be enough time, ten, fifteen days, pretty much maximum.’ He said that if no deal was made ‘bad things’ would happen.
But US forces were not ready within those ten or 15 days.
The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group arrived in the Arabian Sea by January 26. On February 12, Trump ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford (the world’s largest carrier) to the Middle East, with escorts and more than 5,000 additional personnel.
In subsequent days, the US deployed another 150 aircraft (including F-22 Raptors to Israel, F-35s to Jordan), amassing a total of about 300 ready aircraft (land and carrier-based), excluding strategic bombers based outside the region.
Starmer must have known that the attacks were imminent by February 18 when he refused Trump’s request to use Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire, as bases for strategic bombers to strike Iran.
Starmer should not have expected his refusal alone to stop Trump. Strategic bombers can use other bases, although the British bases are safer and closer.
On the night of February 27-28, US and Israeli aircraft attacked Iran and Starmer stated that ‘the United Kingdom played no role in these strikes’.
But, he said, given Iranian retaliation against states throughout the Middle East, where more than 300,000 Britons are living or visiting (particularly in the small Gulf Arab states most exposed), ‘we’ve recently taken steps to strengthen’ the ’defensive capabilities’ already in the region.
Surely, if Britain insists on being legally defensive, Britain must be prepared defensively?
Alas, no.
Starmer said: ‘British planes are in the sky today as part of co-ordinated regional defensive operations to protect our people, our interests, and our allies – as Britain has done before, in line with international law. We’ve stepped up protections for British bases and personnel to their highest level. We are also reaching out to UK nationals in the region and doing everything we can to support them.’
This statement betrays the Government’s unreadiness.
Notice that Starmer did not describe what the Government had prepared proactively – but what it was doing, reactively, as of Saturday.
And what it was doing, reactively, as of Saturday, was limited to putting planes in the sky.
Even on Sunday, Britain’s military posture remained unclear. Defence Secretary John Healey refused to answer the BBC’s questions about whether the government supported US-Israeli operations. He reiterated that Britain had ‘played no part’.
At 9pm on Sunday, Starmer released a video on X, reiterating his legal position, adding that the US could now use British bases for ‘specific and limited defensive purposes’.
Around the time Starmer tweeted his video,an Iranian-made drone, launched from Lebanon by Hezbollah, struck the RAF Akrotiri base on Cyprus. On Monday morning, Cypriot forces intercepted two other Iranian drones.
The Ministry of Defence said on Monday that British personnel suffered no casualties, and would be relocating non-essential staff elsewhere on Cyprus. Shouldn’t it have done that already? They cannot be flown out because Cypriot airports are closed and the RAF runway is damaged.
On Tuesday evening, Starmer confirmed a plan, already leaked to the Times, to send an air defence ship, HMS Duncan, a Type 45 destroyer, and two counter-drone Wildcat helicopters to defend RAF Akrotiri. Shouldn’t they already be there? They will take days to arrive.
An aircraft carrier would have been better but HMS Prince of Wales is in Portsmouth, preparing to deploy to the Arctic as part of a Nato group. Reorienting it south is not a big deal. The Government just needs to accelerate the mustering and equipping.
But the Government insists that Britain doesn’t need a carrier in the Mediterranean because it already has RAF Akrotiri. It repeated that line on Tuesday.
Two Conservative former defence secretaries, Sir Gavin Williamson and Sir Grant Shapps, thought differently. They said Britain should send Prince of Wales. Williamson pointed out: ‘The current pressure is not in the Arctic . . . the threat is in the Gulf and in the eastern Mediterranean and we should be very rapidly redeploying forces to address that.’
Shapps said: ‘The idea that this country can sit out a war against arguably the most evil regime on the planet is completely bonkers.’
Kemi Badenoch had already said that the Conservative Party ‘stands behind America taking this necessary action against state-sponsored terror’. She condemned Starmer’s ‘weak’ stance.
Nigel Farage said Britain should ‘obviously’ send the aircraft carrier.
A British carrier would also have been useful in the Indian Ocean, stopping Iranian naval vessels and anti-ship missiles so that the Strait of Hormuz can reopen; it is vital to every country’s economy, even Net Zero-mad Britain.
Britain has two carriers but HMS Queen Elizabeth is in dry dock at Rosyth, Scotland, for maintenance and upgrade, after scandalous design and use failures within the first five years of its operational life.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the French government announced it was sending a carrier, even though it too considers US-Israeli attacks illegal. The Charles de Gaulle will be off Cyprus within days.
In the meantime, Greece has reinforced Cyprus.
So while Greek aircraft and ships protect Brits on Cyprus, British planes already based in the Middle East finally got to concentrate on defending Arabian allies. On Monday, a RAF Typhoon out of Qatar destroyed an Iranian drone. On Wednesday, a British-crewed F35B out of Jordan shot down an Iranian drone in Iraqi airspace.
The Foreign Office was still discussing plans for evacuation of Britons from Gulf states on Monday. Over the weekend, only about a third of them had registered with the Foreign Office. They could not be evacuated, except by bussing them to Saudi Arabia (the nearest country with any airports not closed to civilian traffic), for which the Government had not prepared.
Tuesday passed by with no progress, except that Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told MPs that Oman would likely be the first country from which a repatriation flight would leave. She reiterated that the ‘safety and security’ of British nationals is a ‘top priority’.
On Wednesday, the fifth full day of the war, the Government announced it had chartered a single flight out of Oman that evening. The Foreign Office warned Britons not to head to Muscat International Airport unless it confirms their seats. The ‘most vulnerable’ would be prioritised. Of course, most of the ‘most vulnerable’ in the region cannot get to Oman. And only a few hundred can board a single aircraft. By Tuesday, 130,000 Britons had registered their interest in evacuation.
In the event the evacuation flight did not leave Oman until yesterday. The Foreign Office says it is working with airlines. But most airports in the Middle East remain closed, and all air and overland routes are exposed to Iranian missiles.
Dubai airport said it was scheduling some outbound flights for Wednesday, on which hundreds of Brits fled, but none was chartered by the Government.
On Wednesday afternoon, Starmer told the Commons that Britain will charter two more repatriation flights from Oman in the coming days. He also said he had ‘spent the week protecting British lives’.
Three flights amount to about 1,000 evacuees.
Who expects that by the end of this week all British citizens will have been evacuated who want to be evacuated, or that British forces will be in positions to defend all British military assets in the region?
Britain seems weeks away from such security, despite months of warnings.
Tragically, while the Government didn’t dissuade the US and Israel from attacking Iran, it didn’t prepare to defend British persons and interests within range of Iranian retaliation.
