The United Kingdom will not come to the aid of its allies the United States and Israel in Iran, no matter what pressure there is to join and no matter who asks, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said.
The British Armed Forces will act to defend itself and British citizens in the Middle East but will never be “dragged in” to the war against Iran, Sir Keir Starmer said.
The remarks came in Starmer’s speech launching his Labour party’s local elections campaign for the forthcoming May 7th votes. While geopolitics and foreign war discourse may not seem like traditional fodder for local government elections, which in Britain tend to be fought on neighbourhood issues like refuse collection and road repairs, UK politics has taken on distinctly ethno-religious qualities that have led to claims it is developing a new sectarian politics.
For many voters in the United Kingdom, that the government doesn’t bomb Muslim countries is a primary concern at the ballot box, and several Labour Party MPs are privately concerned they stand to lose their seats to single-issue sectarian parties.
Promising his government wouldn’t engage in the joint American-Israeli attempt to reduce Iran’s capacity to hold the global economy to ransom, Sir Keir said in Wolverhampton on Monday that he wouldn’t change his mind “whatever the pressure and whoever it’s coming from”. He said:
We’re facing on a war on two fronts: the Ukraine war, now four-and-a-bit years in, and let’s salute the bravery of Ukrainians over so many years both on the frontline and the civilians as they fight for the values that matter to us.
And the other war … the Iran war, which I know is causing huge concern. People look at their screens and they’re worried when they see explosions, infrastructure blown up, the rhetoric that goes with it, worried about whether this is going to escalate even further.
And therefore it’s really important that I reiterate where I stand and where this government stands, because this is not our war and we are not going to be dragged into it.
While Starmer’s rhetoric has remained firmly anti-war and scornful of President Trump’s decisions — repeatedly implying the campaign was legally questionable and badly thought-through in his public pronouncements — the British government has softened its zero involvement position over the past few weeks.
While U.S. forces were initially blocked from launching from key joint UK-U.S. airbases in the early stages of the war, that has now been rowed back and loaded B-52s, B-1s, and Stratotankers launch from England daily. The British government is also preparing for future deployments to the Gulf region to secure the strategic Strait of Hormuz, although insists it won’t put its warships in harm’s way until after hostilities have actually ceased.
