Sir Keir Starmer promised the nation that he was determined to deliver “calm, level-headed leadership” as the conflict in the Middle East widens – “no matter the pressure to do otherwise”. This is admirable, as is his general reluctance to see Britain dragged inexorably into the increasingly unpredictable and deeply unpopular war on Iran, launched last weekend by the US and Israel. As the prime minister has indicated, it is not part of his job to simply ask “How high?” every time Donald Trump tells him to jump.
International law matters, but so does the British national interest, and it is not going to be served by deeper and deeper involvement in a campaign with no clear aims and no plan for what to do with Iran when the fighting eventually stops. Indeed, turning it into yet another failed state, torn apart by a civil war, is in the interests of no one in the region or the wider world – with the possible exception of Israel, now apparently taking the chance to occupy southern Lebanon again. Britain should have no part in that.
