For decades the Middle East has haunted British politics: the Iraq war, the Syrian civil war and the war in Gaza. In his 2010 memoir A Journey, Tony Blair writes of his refusal to call for a ceasefire during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war: “[It] probably did me more damage than anything since Iraq. It showed how far I had swung from the mainstream of conventional Western media wisdom and from my own people.” As the election of four independent pro-Palestinian MPs last year proved, the boundary between the foreign and the domestic has become increasingly blurred.
Israel’s long-anticipated strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities on Friday mark a dramatic new phase in the region (more than 200 jets were involved in raids on at least 100 targets). No 10 has said that the UK did not provide military support for the action or help down the Iranian drones that targeted Israel in a counterattack this morning.
This stance prompted condemnation from Conservative MPs with Suella Braverman declaring that “the UK government has shamefully decided to try and appease the despotic mullahs in Iran rather than support our close ally and only liberal democracy in the Middle East”.
But in a statement following a call between Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz, No 10 emphasised the leaders’ “long-held grave concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme” and “called on all sides to refrain from further escalation that could further destabilise the region”. It added: “The leaders reaffirmed Israel’s right to self-defence, and agreed that a diplomatic resolution, rather than military action, was the way forward.”
The UK’s position contrasts with that taken last October – when British fighter jets defended Israel from Iranian ballistic missiles – but it mirrors a wider shift in government policy. Earlier this week the UK, along with countries including Australia and Canada, placed sanctions on two Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for “repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities” (a move that resulted in a rare split between the US and the UK).
Britain has also suspended trade talks with Israel, an act that the Business and Trade Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, defended at a Parliamentary Press Gallery lunch yesterday. “We took the decision to suspend the aspiration to have a new and wider and deeper trade agreement with Israel, because, frankly, to be in a position where we’ve had to impose arms export [controls] on Israel and then sanction members of the Israeli cabinet… it’s just not realistic or practical to do that,” he said.
But pressure for the UK to go further will endure with demands from MPs to impose a full arms embargo – as Margaret Thatcher did following Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon – or to label Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide (a subject Starmer refuses to be drawn on in his interview with Tom McTague in this week’s New Statesman).
For the UK, a new period of tumult in the Middle East also threatens further global economic instability. The oil price has today increased at its fastest rate since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 with Brent crude rising by 13 per cent to more than $78 a barrel. Higher inflation would intensify Labour’s already daunting economic challenges. Once again, Rachel Reeves, whose first Budget was followed by Donald Trump’s election and whose Spring Statement was followed by the tariffs of “Liberation Day”, has proved to be an unlucky Chancellor.
[See more: Netanyahu realises his lifelong dream]
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