UK walks diplomatic tightrope over Trump's attack on Iran
Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey discuss how Keir Starmer's government is responding to the US president's decision to launch attacks on Iranian nuclear sites. What might happen next? And what could it mean for the UK and the world?
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Times
10 minutes ago
- Times
How did Britain get it so wrong on Trump and Iran?
Shortly before 11pm on Saturday Sir Keir Starmer received an unexpected call. The US, the prime minister was informed, had decided to bomb nuclear facilities in Iran. B-2 stealth bombers had already been dispatched, and the targeted bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities would begin shortly. He did not have to wait long. At around 11.40pm the lead B-2 dropped two 30,000lb 'bunker-buster' bombs on the Fordow enrichment facility, Iran's heavily fortified nuclear site built inside a mountain. Over the next 25 minutes, there was a succession of massive ordnance strikes aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear ambitions. Trump confirmed the attack on social media shortly afterwards, once the US aircraft were on their way back. The prime minister, who was staying at Chequers, stayed up until 2am, got a few hours' sleep, then started work again on dealing with the aftermath. • Operation Midnight Hammer: how the US strikes on Iran unfolded Trump's decision took the prime minister and the wider government by surprise. Starmer and David Lammy, the foreign secretary, had been convinced that there was a 'window of opportunity' to attempt to de-escalate the conflict. They appeared to have taken Trump at his word when the White House suggested on Thursday there would be a pause to ensure that there was a 'chance for substantial negotiations'. Ministers point to the fact that few in the US administration knew about the plans, with Trump's sheer unpredictability being a significant factor. 'The point is Trump's mind changes on a two-hourly basis,' one government source said. Another claimed that the UK was the only ally outside Israel given advance notice of the airstrikes, even if it was just an hour's warning. But the fact that the government's fundamental calculation — that there was time for negotiations — was clearly wrong raises questions about both the prime minister's judgment and the UK's broader relationship with the US. The government was effectively blindsided on a matter of huge geopolitical importance. On Tuesday, Starmer had been adamant that Trump would not intervene in Iran, saying he had 'no doubt' about the matter after sitting next to him at dinner at the G7 summit in Canada, despite very public indications to the contrary. The comments were unusually forthright for Starmer, who is generally far more cautious. His view changed a few hours later when Trump took to social media, threatening to kill Iran's supreme leader. As Starmer flew back to London, a Cobra emergency meeting was hastily arranged for Wednesday afternoon to consider options. The meeting discussed preparations to protect British citizens and soldiers in the Middle East, with 14 RAF Typhoons stationed at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and soldiers in Iraq put on a high state of readiness. It was attended by Lord Mandelson, the US ambassador, who, by coincidence, had flown to the UK earlier in the week for his first visit back to London since starting the role in February. As well as meetings with ministers, he was there to attend the rededication of the George Washington statue in Trafalgar Square. At Cobra, Mandelson highlighted the growing impatience of the US with Iran. Also on the table was the legal advice of Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, who warned that the UK would be at risk of breaching international law if it allowed the US to use the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean to launch its bombing the wake of the meeting, Lammy headed to Washington, accompanied by Mandelson, who cut his pre-planned trip short. During the flight, Mandelson briefed the foreign secretary on America's thinking. On Thursday, Lammy met Senator James Risch, a close ally of Trump and an Iran hawk. He left them in no doubt of the desire of the US administration for action. Their second meeting later in the afternoon was with Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state and national security adviser. Mandelson was also in attendance. The mood ahead of the Rubio meeting was bleak, with ministers and officials increasingly convinced that the time for talking was over. However, that changed when the White House issued a statement suggesting that it was going to pause, to conduct negotiations with Iran. The White House statement was carefully worded, stating that a decision would be taken 'within the next two weeks'. Nonetheless, it was met with relief in No 10 and taken at face value, with Rubio appearing to reinforce the message. Rubio asked Lammy to act as an interlocutor between the US and Iran, passing on an uncompromising message demanding surrender to bring about peace talks. Lammy emerged from the meeting, which was also attended by US special envoy Steve Witkoff, convinced that Trump 'genuinely wants a deal'. He flew to Geneva on Friday to meet Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, alongside his French, German and EU counterparts. • Offer of talks went unanswered — so Trump sent bombers instead The talks did not go well. Lammy spent three hours pressing the US position but received a forthright response from Araghchi, who stated in no uncertain terms that Tehran was unwilling to return to talks until the US had called on Israel to stop its attacks. Lammy stressed the point that it was not unusual for opposing sides to undertake diplomatic talks even while hostilities were continuing. But there was no middle ground. Lammy flew back to the UK, and the US was informed that Iran was unwilling to stand down. The US B-2 bombers took off from Missouri shortly after 5am BST, but for most of the day the government was unaware. Contingency plans were stepped up after suggestions that the bombers were en route to Guam in the Pacific, but the truth — that they were on a direct mission to bomb Iran — was far from the government's radar.
Times
10 minutes ago
- Times
Starmer's constant evasiveness is disturbing
Sir Keir Starmer's defining characteristic is lack of leadership. It's not just his lacklustre manner, his pedantry, his absence of inspiring rhetoric. It's that he so often says one thing that is promptly undermined by the next; that he ducks saying what he actually believes, and even when he does vouchsafe this he fails to follow through by leading from the front. Last week, two momentous pieces of legislation were approved by the Commons. The assisted dying bill, proposed by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, narrowly passed its third reading and now proceeds into the Lords. A few days earlier, MPs voted to decriminalise abortion for women who terminate their pregnancy after 24 weeks or without the approval of two doctors. Both were immensely consequential measures that challenge fundamental moral precepts. Neither has been treated by the government with anything like the seriousness it deserves. The assisted dying bill, which gives terminally ill adults in England and Wales who have fewer than six months to live a route to medically ending their lives, crosses a moral Rubicon in medical ethics, clinical practice and the relationship between vulnerable individuals and the state. Evidence from abroad suggests it will propel Britain on to a slippery slope leading to a variety of needy people, including those suffering mental illness or learning disabilities, choosing to end their lives instead of receiving help to improve them. The Lords may put up a fight on the basis that the bill's details, including a key safeguard of judicial scrutiny that was watered down, have not been given adequate scrutiny by the committee that examined it and seemed to want to short-circuit inconvenient argument. One of the bill's opponents, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, has also said there are no plans, or budget, for measures to ensure that people will be able to make a properly informed and supported choice to choose to end their life. Starmer has let it be known that he supports the bill. So why didn't he provide a blueprint for such measures? Why didn't he ensure enough time for such an intensely controversial and consequential bill to be properly examined? He behaved with similar evasiveness towards the no less momentous abortion measure. By allowing a viable baby to be killed, this crosses the legal line under which it's a crime for anyone to intentionally destroy the life of an unborn child if it is capable of being born alive. Yet this undermining of the moral import of infanticide was tabled only as an amendment by the Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi to the Crime and Policing Bill. Fewer than 100 MPs sat through a mere two-hour debate on this amendment. Starmer wasn't even present for the vote because of the G7 summit in Canada. It's deeply disturbing that such a destruction of the delicate balance of the 1967 Abortion Act, presenting a fundamental challenge to core moral precepts, should have been introduced and effectively waved through in such a cavalier manner with no direction at all from the government. The impression is that Starmer ran away from identifying himself with these two issues because they are so controversial. This has been the pattern of his prime ministership on one divisive issue after another. On Iran, the results have been excruciating. A week ago, having sat next to President Trump at the G7, Starmer declared Trump would not get involved in that conflict. Four days later, the US attacked Iran's three principal nuclear sites. Despite the attorney general, Lord Hermer, having advised the government about the legality of Israel's attack on Iran, the government refuses to say what it thinks. Asked repeatedly on the Radio 4 Today programme whether the US attack on Iran was legal, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, refused to answer, saying, absurdly, only that 'we were not involved'. If the government backed Trump, it would have said this attack was legal. It's clear, therefore, that it thinks it isn't legal — but isn't prepared to say so. Instead, Starmer's language was as studiedly noncommittal as it was slippery. 'Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat,' he said. In other words he desires the ends, the eradication of Iran's nuclear weapons programme, but he won't support the means of achieving it. Persisting in the lethal fantasy that religious fanatics who have outwitted the UK and the West for decades can still be defanged through diplomacy, he has left it to Israel and the US to suffer the consequences of taking the unavoidably necessary action to achieve this. The result is that he has made Britain irrelevant on the world stage and regarded as an unreliable ally. It seems he neither volunteered nor was asked to provide support for the US attack on Iran; nor was he told about the Israeli strike until it was under way. He is not sitting on the fence. Starmer is a dogmatic disciple of progressive shibboleths that, under the guise of promoting justice and defending the oppressed against abuses of power, are in fact amoral, manipulative and cowardly. And he tries to conceal this. Starmer once said that Labour is a moral project or it is nothing. He will have made Britain much diminished, more callous and less independent; and he will have reduced the Labour Party to nothing.
Reuters
13 minutes ago
- Reuters
Iranian parliament committee approves general plan to suspend cooperation with IAEA, news agency reports
CAIRO, June 23 (Reuters) - The national security committee of Iran's parliament approved the general outline of a bill meant to fully suspend Tehran's cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on, citing committee spokesperson Ebrahim Rezaei. Rezaei said that according to the bill, installing surveillance cameras, allowing inspections, and submitting reports to the IAEA would be suspended as long as the security of nuclear facilities is not guaranteed. Parliament still has to approve the bill in a plenary.
