Starmer faces reckoning over his support for Trump's illegal war on Iran
“This is a rogue state carrying out war crimes and threatening more. The UK government must grow a spine and stop our bases being used for this war.”
Who said this in response to US and Israeli attacks on civilian targets in Iran and Donald Trump’s threats that "a whole civilization will die tonight"?
Clearly not Keir Starmer. The UK prime minister's response to these genocidal threats? Silence. It was in fact Green Party leader Zack Polanski. His party is now polling higher than Labour, something that was unimaginable only a year ago.
Another opposition leader, Ed Davey, called on Starmer to immediately block US bombers leaving British or US-British airbases, including Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, saying failing to do so "risks making the United Kingdom an accomplice to war crimes".
Starmer, let us remember, initially denied access to Diego Garcia at the start of the US-Israeli war of aggression on Iran, but then, after threats by Trump, he caved. He gave permission for so-called defensive bombing raids against Iranian missile sites that were being used to hit UK allies in the Gulf.
There will be a reckoning for Starmer over his enabling of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
In less than two years as prime minister, Starmer has aided Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and has capitulated to Trump’s threats by allowing the Epstein-linked president to use UK bases for bombing Iran.
Labour facing wipeout
On 7 May, the UK goes to the polls in local and devolved assembly elections, and Labour faces a wipeout, with predictions it will lose around 2,000 councillors. Of course, the cost of living and other local issues are key for voters, but the Middle East war and Starmer’s foreign policy will also be factors.
After Trump issued one apocalyptic threat after another this week - first to return Iran to the "Stone Ages" and then to end Iran’s civilisation in one night - the UK government stayed silent.
The lack of pushback from London stands in contrast to the reaction of major European Nato allies, including Spain, France and Italy, all of whom have denied access to their bases for the US war of aggression.
Starmer supporters say his position was unenviable as a key ally of the US, and that he made the right call by only allowing "defensive" bombing of Iranian missile sites. But like the schoolboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he then claimed unconvincingly that "this is not our war".
A cynic would say this fudge is simply an attempt to protect the UK from future war crimes charges. Starmer’s legal advice must have warned him that the war was illegal under international law, in the absence of any imminent threat from Iran.
The published government legal advice on the UK’s role in the war was as follows: "The UK is acting in the collective self-defence of regional allies who have requested support. The UK and its allies are permitted under international law to use or support force in such circumstances where acting in self-defence is the only feasible means to deal with an ongoing armed attack."
From day one of the war, UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper condemned Iran’s reactive strikes against Gulf states that hosted US military bases, but had no word of criticism for the initial attacks against Iran that took place in the midst of advanced negotiations with Tehran.
Likewise, she has condemned Iran’s blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, but did not say a word about US and Israeli targeting of Iran’s civilian infrastructure: a girls' school full of students, universities, bridges, energy facilities, heritage sites and civilian buildings, killing thousands.
Even in the face of Trump’s recent threat that "a whole civilization will die", the Labour government had no comment.
Even in the face of Donald Trump’s recent threat that 'a whole civilization will die', the Starmer Labour government had no comment
The UK is a key staging base for US bombers flying to Iran. B-52 Stratofortress and B-1 Lancer heavy bombers have landed at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire before flying to bomb Iran. B2 bombers and US fighter jets have been landing at the Lakenheath base in Suffolk, refuelling and loading bombs, watched by curious plane spotters.
One F15 that flew from Lakenheath was shot down over Iran, sparking a costly rescue mission to save the crew.
A group of protesters opposing UK support for Trump and Israel’s illegal war on Iran blocked the gates of the base by locking on this week. More than a dozen were arrested. The group Lakenheath Alliance for Peace said protesters had seen more than 116 US bombers leaving the base since the war began a month ago.
The protesters have public opinion on their side. Less than a third of Britons support allowing the US to use British military bases to launch attacks on Iran. Only one in five believe Starmer is doing a good job handling this war.
Failed diplomacy
Starmer arrived in Abu Dhabi on Thursday as he sought to find a new diplomatic role among UK Gulf allies in efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But UK attempts to play a role in the region have so far failed to achieve anything, with an online summit last week most notable for the absence of major regional countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
By allowing the US to use British bases, Starmer has made the UK a participant in the war. He can't be an honest broker. He has never criticised US and Israeli attacks on Iran, or on Lebanon, including the latest massacre of around 250 people in strikes clearly timed to torpedo the fragile ceasefire.
As ever, the BBC launders the Israeli claim that their bombs are targeting Hezbollah, even though anyone can go online and see the destruction of Beirut, southern Lebanon and the Beqaa valley. What Israel ludicrously calls “Hezbollah command centres” were a funeral, bridges, apartments and homes where whole families were dismembered. It was a bloodbath.
Underlying this media-political consensus is the longstanding British imperial ideology that armed resistance by nonwhite victims of occupation or attack, in Lebanon, Palestine, or elsewhere, disqualifies the civilian population of those countries from any legal or moral protection. When they are white Ukrainians, it is a different story.
Dangerous alliance
At the same time, the UK wants to distance itself from the war on Iran and Lebanon.
The foreign secretary said on Thursday that the Israeli escalation was "completely wrong" and that Lebanon should be included in the ceasefire agreement with Iran. This means London agrees with Tehran and the EU that the ceasefire should apply across all fronts, and that Israel must stop its brutal assault against Lebanon.
But this stance is weak and late. Starmer has, since his election in 2024, put UK support for the transatlantic alliance, Israel and Nato ahead of what is Britain’s real national interest - to end its dangerous role as junior partner and lapdog for US imperial wars on behalf of Israel.
Dangerous because these illegal wars invite backlash, whether in the form of terror attacks against the general public as we saw in 2005 after the invasion of Iraq; in Manchester in 2017 in the wake of UK-backed regime change in Libya; or attacks on British Jews, as has happened since the UK became an accomplice in the Gaza genocide.
The majority of the public wants nothing more to do with US regime change wars and Israel’s genocidal campaign for regional dominance
Pretending you can give material support for wars in the Middle East without any blowback at home is delusion. It puts national security and the security of people in Britain at risk, never mind that it destabilises an entire region and causes untold death and suffering to millions.
The lives of Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East have never been a deciding factor for UK government policy, while Israel’s "security" remains its priority.
The majority of the public wants nothing more to do with US regime change wars and Israel’s genocidal campaign for regional dominance. Starmer and Labour are fatally wedded to this dangerous alliance, but electoral defeat is beckoning.
After the local elections in May, perhaps Labour will finally wake up from its Blair-era delusion and return to the path of peace and international law. In the meantime, other parties, including the Greens and Liberal Democrats, will reap the rewards of the backlash against the forever wars.
As for Reform and the Conservatives, their supporters should be aware that their party leaders backed the fascist in Washington and his fascist allies in Israel as part of a global far-right axis. But for the vast majority, the UK alliance with Israel and Trump’s America must end, and soon.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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