Sir Keir Starmer, as is often noted, is by profession a lawyer. It is only to be expected that he respects international law and upholds it where he can.
He is also, it hardly needs adding, a politician by trade, and a highly pragmatic one at that. Those are reasons enough to understand his change of heart and his decision to – partially – now back the attacks on Iran by Israel and the United States. He knows, rather better than his critics, the risks he runs as he attempts to navigate his way through one of the biggest international crises this century.
In the first place, the prime minister was right to keep Britain out of this war. It was, we may assume, on the basis of legal advice that a serious military assault by any nation on another where there is no immediate threat of aggression is unlawful, breaches the United Nations convention, and represents a return to the dangerous principle that “might is right” in settling international disputes.
It’s hardly the first such incident, but it is heavily laden with jeopardy, and unusually naked and unashamed. Unlike, say, the multinational invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, there was not even a token effort by the US and Israel to gain UN authority for the action.
Indeed, according to the Omani foreign minister chairing the talks between the US and Iran on nuclear weapons, an agreement had been all but signed off when Operation Epic Fury was launched. In truth, diplomacy was working, as it had been under the previous Iran nuclear deal Donald Trump tore up, and there was no need for any kind of fury, let alone the epic version unleashed on Iran.
There was, in other words, a very obvious alternative to war. Sir Keir may also have worried about the risks of the fighting spreading across the Middle East, with obvious dire consequences for security and the world economy. If so, then he was right to be, as the whole region is being overtaken by an unpredictable chain of events.
Shielding British interests in the region and the country’s honour as a responsible member of the international community were more than adequate reasons for the UK government to deny the US permission to use bases on British territory for the bombing raids.
No doubt it must have irritated President Trump. Some of his allies accused the British, and their partners in the emerging “E3” (including France and Germany, the voices of the other largest economies in Europe), of something like treachery in the treatment of an old and trusted ally. To which there is an eloquent one-word answer: Ukraine. “Tariffs” might also be added to the response for the sake of completeness.
As it happens, however, the successive decisions by the Iranian leadership, before and after the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to lash out at targets in the Gulf states, changed the context of the situation radically. British citizens in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Israel and elsewhere were obviously in danger, and the Iranian drone attack on RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus obviously raised the justification of self-defence as the basis for a change in British policy.
That is covered by international law, and happens to be consonant with assuring the US in neutralising the Iranian bases whence the missiles, rockets and drones came. The prime minister is clear that there is no permission for the US to use RAF Fairford and the US base at Diego Garcia for operations on civilian infrastructure or aimed at civilians.
It seems reasonable to suppose that, over the course of the past few days, the prime minister would have come under some pressure from Mr Trump to make it somewhat easier for US forces to conduct their operations, though they are formidable enough to do without the British if needs be. If the “change of mind” by the UK is something that satisfied the president, then so much the better.
At such times, it is preferable in the national interests for partisan point-scoring and aspersions to be avoided. Yet even before Sir Keir laid out his case to the Commons, the leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, engaged in dog-whistle politics about the initial reluctance to support the American-Israeli attacks.
She said: “In towns and cities across Britain, there are large blocs of voters – that Labour see as their voters – whose political loyalties are swayed by conflicts in the Middle East, not the British national interest. So we watch our prime minister and cabinet ministers squirm and obfuscate in interviews because they cannot say what needs to be said because too many of their voters do not want to hear it.” That is unworthy of her.
In any case, for weeks to come, at least, the prime minister will need to balance the sometimes conflicting demands of international law, of peace, the national interest and the historic alliance with the United States. It will take the utmost skill and statesmanship, and, in principle, he deserves continuing support.
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