I am becoming rather fond of Prime Minister Starmer’s major foreign policy announcements. In early January, after US forces swooped into Venezuela and took President Maduro to New York to face trial, Keir Starmer was keen to get straight out in front of the cameras. There he said that he wanted to stress that ‘the UK was not involved in any way in this operation’. As though the whole world had been expecting to hear that the British armed forces were indeed central in snatching the narco-terrorist from Caracas.
This week it was again Starmer’s turn to stand behind a podium, British flags behind him, and deliver another statement that absolutely no one thought necessary. Speaking about the US-led strikes on Iran, he announced solemnly: ‘I want to set out our response.’ What could it be? The world wondered. ‘The United Kingdom played no role in these strikes,’ he declared.
The Prime Minister speaks as though he is a man of far greater significance than he is
A day later the Prime Minister could be found speaking to the camera from a corridor of Downing Street – the Union flag behind him. Again in a tone of the utmost gravity, this time he said: ‘Yesterday I spoke to you about the situation in the Gulf and explained that the United Kingdom was not involved in the strikes on Iran.’ What on earth could be coming next? The world was waiting. And then the big one: ‘That remains the case,’ the Prime Minister said.
This is all starting to remind me of one of those internet memes when someone famous is accused of sleeping with some beautiful celebrity and a denial has to be issued, after which a lot of internet wags tend to chime in with formal public statements confirming that they too have not slept with the gorgeous celebrity in question.
The point being that Starmer speaks as though he is a man of far greater significance than he is. It saddens me that this is the case, but in fact Britain’s role in the world is so diminished that nobody any longer believes that the British are somehow leading the way in all world affairs.
As it happens, about the only place in the world where some people did still believe that was Iran. The late regime leaders in Tehran had for decades been fond of claiming that Britain was behind almost everything nefarious in their region and the wider world. Adopting the old Jewish joke from 1930s Germany, I have often told British friends that if they want to feel good about our country during its decline in the world, they need only read the Iranian government’s media organs. There they would have learned that we are central to absolutely every-thing. The Iranian government professed to believe that there is not a thing that America does that they are not manipulated into by the wickedhand of the British state. MI5 and MI6 gained particular credit for world affairs in Tehran’s media outlets.
Alas that has not been the case for years, and it is not the case now. So it is strange that Starmer should choose this moment to reflect the ayatollahs’ views back at them. For a long time Britain has managed to punch somewhat above its weight internationally by means of the ‘special relationship’ with Washington. Starmer himself has been keen to look after this fluttering flame. But when America asked Britain for permission to use its military bases if it needed them during this mission, the British government said ‘no’ – which suggests that the special relationship isn’t all that special. Or at least that is how Washington is going to read it.
Some observers think that Starmer is pivoting away from Washington in order to tack his foreign and economic policies more tightly towards the EU. One problem with that is it means in the direction of inertia.
Starmer’s carefully worded statement about Venezuela mentioned that the UK was opposed to the criminal regime in that country. It’s just that we are not willing to do anything about it. Likewise his statements on Iran have stressed that the UK government does not like the Ayatollah’s regime, or its plans for nuclear weapons. But again, like our European neighbours, we just weren’t willing to do anything much about it.
During one of his statements this week, Starmer mentioned that the Iranian government has been caught trying to carry out 20 terrorist plots in the UK in the past year alone. Ordinarily, that is the sort of thing that would offend a country – the sort of thing that might make a country seek to act. It is at least the sort of thing that would allow you to say that although you haven’t joined in the attack by your allies, you wish them well and wish them success – as Germany has.
The reasons why Starmer can’t and won’t do that seem to be twofold. The first reason is that he knows that all such foreign conflicts – particularly in the Middle East – now have the potential to cause serious domestic disturbance. Anyone doubting that need only read what Ministry of Defence sources told the Guardian a decade ago, when they stressed that, thanks to mass migration, there were now multiple foreign theatres of conflict which the UK could not risk getting involved in. Or they might take note of the number of planned events in the UK to commemorate the deceased Ayatollah Khamenei.
The second reason is that this government is run by international lawyers. As The Spectator has noted before, Starmer, Lord Hermer and the rest of them really do seem to believe that there is no such thing as a sovereign government. International law – of an especially nebulous, if left-wing variety – reigns supreme above mere national governments, let alone electorates. And so Starmer and the rest cannot make judgments based on Britain’s national interests or even their preferred policy. They simply sit back, wait for the legal advice – and then do nothing.
It is a strange place for a once-great world power to find itself in. But it makes for a logic of a kind. An island of strangers busily trying to set an example that absolutely none of the rest of the world is looking to follow.
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