SIR Keir Starmer’s central claim about the current war with Iran is deceptively simple: Britain should and could avoid it.
From the first day, he insisted that ‘the United Kingdom played no role in these strikes’.
Yet Iran immediately went to war with Britain. Nevertheless, nearly four weeks later, Starmer continues to insist Iran is not targeting Britain, even while he complains about Iranian attacks.
How on earth did Starmer expect Iran to react?
Iran has regarded Britain as an enemy since its theocratic revolution in 1979. Britain is Western, an ally of the United States, a host of American forces, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement, deploys military forces to Iran’s antagonistic neighbours, helps to counter Iranian proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, and has spent 50 years promoting freedom of navigation from the Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea.
Iran ‘backed more than 20 potentially lethal attacks on UK soil’in 2025 alone, Starmer admitted in his first official statement on the current war. We know of two of those conspiracies from the government’s reticent admissions in May 2025: a plot to attack Israel’s embassy in London, and the firebombing of property connected to Starmer.
Yet the PM appeases Iran – or at least his Muslim base.
Before the war, Starmer refused US requests to fly offensive missions from British territory. Starmer condemned US-Israeli strikes on their first day.
Yet he failed to appease Iran.
On the second day of the war, Iran (through Hezbollah in Lebanon) launched drones at the British Akrotiri base on Cyprus.
Meanwhile, Iranian ballistic missiles and drones struck Israel and Gulf states, exposing ‘at least 200,000 British citizens in the region’, Starmer admitted on that second day. The next day, we learned the government’s estimate of more than 320,000 Britons in the region. The government was unready to evacuate any until the end of that first week.
Some of the resident Britons are military personnel, deployed on long-term missions to defend Bahrain, UAE, Qatar and Jordan. They were reinforced belatedly, but for only the defence of allied airspaces.
Downing Street authorised US use of British bases for ‘collective self-defence’ under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Counter-attacks are allowed under self-defence, but Starmer disingenuously told the House of Commons that Britain would not join ‘offensive strikes’. In his argument, he claimed to be learning lessons from the Iraq war of 2003, which is a false analogy.
Despite his U-turn on US use of British bases, Starmer kept repeating the fiction that nothing has changed in his pre-war policy(he repeated himself on Thursday of the first week of war).
Yet his defensiveness did not dissuade Iran’s offensiveness.
On the Friday of the first week, police in London arrested four Iranian nationals on suspicion of surveilling Jewish targets for attack.
In the second week, Iran attacked maritime shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, including ships, owned, crewed or insured by British companies and persons. Under international law of the sea, under the international right to self-defence, Britain has a right to act militarily to re-open the Strait and to counter the Iranian attacks at source.
Starmer refused the US call to re-open the Strait militarily. At the start of the third week, he offered a vague diplomatic-humanitarian alternative that he called a ‘collective plan.’ But Iran escalated its attacks on shipping, which drove up energy prices again, to which Britain is over-exposed.
Indeed, two days after Starmer announced his ‘collective plan’, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan and Canada indicated they would help to re-open the Strait militarilyafter all, although they were coy about offensive action.
On the Thursday/Friday night of the third week, Iran launched missiles against Diego Garcia. In other words, Iran targeted British territory even while Britain refused to operate beyond its own and allied borders.
That was beforethe UK government confirmed (on Friday) that the US could use British bases to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
That same Friday, Iran’s foreign minister (Abbas Araghchi) telephoned UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper to warn that Britain’s permission for US use of British bases is ‘participation in aggression’ and should cease. He also criticised the UK’s ‘negative and biased approach’.
Diego Garcia is British sovereign territory – not an overseas territory, protectorate, or ally, but as much British as the home isles.
The hitherto unknown missiles travelled as far towards Diego Garcia as the distance to London. While they failed, their mission might have been to demonstrate the type’s threat to all of Europe.
Yet the British government covered up the attack on Diego Garcia. Reports emerged in the American press on Saturday. Later on Saturday, the Ministry of Defence confirmed the attack, and described it as ‘reckless’ and a ‘threat to British interests and British allies’. Later still, Yvette Cooper joined broadcasters to condemn ‘reckless Iranian threats’ and ‘reckless attacks’.
Overnight Sunday/Monday, three hooded men set alight four Jewish volunteer ambulances in north London. A pro-Iran group claimed responsibility, using communications similar to Iran-funded terrorists. But the government describes the attack as locally anti-Semitic. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s) uncharacteristic admission, during an uncharacteristic speech to a Jewish group, that anti-Semitism is still on the rise in Britain is likely motivated to distract from Iran’s culpability.
Starmer stayed silent until Monday, when he said there is ‘no assessment’ that the UK is being targeted by Iran!
In an appearance before a Parliamentary committee, he reiterated that Britain would not be ‘drawn into a wider war with Iran’. This is ‘not our war’.
Consider the extraordinary juxtaposition.
On the one hand, Starmer insists that Britain is not being targeted by Iran. On the other hand, his own government acknowledges that Iran is striking British interests, endangering British citizens, and fighting British forces.
This contradiction exacerbates the risks. First, Britain’s denial of Iran’s threat encourages unpreparedness. Remember that the British government had not pre-positioned any assets to defend its bases and citizens in the region from Iranian drones and missiles, despite months of warnings of war. Cyprus was undefended until Greece and France surged assets to the Eastern Mediterranean. Britain’s government belatedly ordered a specialist anti-aircraft destroyer to Cyprus, but did not hurry its contractors. HMS Dragon arrived in the eastern Mediterranean on Monday (fourth week!) The Defence Secretary said the ship would start ‘operational integration into Cyprus’s defence’ in the following days. The government has ordered none of the other five Type 45 destroyers to make ready.
Second, Britain’s constant messages of restraint encourage Iran to escalate – both against Britain, as an unprepared and passive adversary, and against all adversaries, given their incoherence. Just this Tuesday, Iran vowed to fight ‘until complete victory’ after rejecting US claims that the two countries had held ‘productive’ talks.
Third, Britain’s denial of Iran’s threat confuses allies. Gulf partners have expressed frustration with the British government’s rhetorical responses to their requests for material support.
Fourth, Britain’s unreadiness helps foreign opportunists to press their claims against Britain. Mauritius can add to its argument for sovereignty over the Chagos Islands that Britain proved unwilling to defend Diego Garcia. Turkey can add to its argument for sovereignty over Cyprus that Britain was unprepared to defend RAF Akrotiri. Spain can add to its argument for sovereignty over Gibraltar that Britain could not deploy to the Mediterranean a single warship until the fourth week of war.
Fifth, Britain’s denial of Iran’s threat undermines the credibility of a government that claims to defend all Britons but repeatedly privileges Islamists in general, and Iran’s resident apologists in particular, while zealously abusing the powers of the state to persecute its political opponents and to leave Christians and Jews under-protected.
