Is the United Kingdom at war with Iran or not?
At first blush, this may seem like a simple yes or no question. But depending on whom you ask, the answer varies wildly. According to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the answer is a resounding “no” — for an obvious reason: his Labour government does not want to be drawn — or at least seen to be drawn — into another disastrous West Asian war, especially given its already anaemic levels of public support.
On Wednesday, Starmer began a televised address by laying out his ongoing opposition to the US-Israeli war on Iran and his steadfast refusal not to be drawn into the conflict:
There has been a good deal of pressure on me to change my position in relation to joining the war. I am not going to change my position on the war. Whatever the noise, I am the British prime minister and I have to act in our national interest.
Starmer maintains his, to put it politely, nuanced position that while the UK is in a deep state of logistical and kinetic integration with the US-Israeli war on Iran, allowing the US to use British territory and overseas bases as logistic hubs for its operations — for purely “defensive” purposes, of course — it will not be drawn into the wider war.
Starmer has come under pressure to engage more fully in the conflict — and not just from Trump. When missiles were fired at the UK’s military base on Diego Garcia ten days ago, the UK press were quick to amplify Israel’s breathless warnings that Iran has the firepower to strike London, in eerie echoes of The Sun‘s “45 Minutes from Doom” headline of 2003.
BRITS 45 MINUTES FROM DOOM https://t.co/qKXTVSN7bQ
— Peter Oborne (@OborneTweets) March 22, 2026
“Crisis of Honesty”
The problem for UK citizens is that any pledge from Starmer’s mouth, even on a matter as serious as this, is virtually worthless. As the veteran journalist Peter Oborne warned in early 2024, just months before Starmer’s election, “there is crisis of honesty” in UK politics, and “you would be very unwise to believe a word Starmer ever says — he has a long record of making promises which he then goes on to break.”:
There’s a crisis of honesty in our national life. I documented Boris Johnson’s lies. Tragically Keir Starmer is turning out to be little better.
Political lying depends on media complicity, that’s why Starmer continues to get away with itpic.twitter.com/pYWnledqPd
— Peter Oborne (@OborneTweets) September 27, 2023
Since the US and Israel began their illegal war on Iran on February 28, the UK has already pivoted from an initial refusal of base access to a state of deep involvement in the conflict while insisting it is not really involved. Not only are British bases hosting US bombers but RAF fighters are also intercepting Iranian drones that are targeting UK allies in the West Asia region.
As the Guardian reported a couple of days ago, the UK is sending more military support to the Gulf, taking the total deployment to 1,000 troops, even as Donald Trump mocks Britain for not getting more involved:
Speaking from Qatar where he met UK troops, the defence secretary, John Healey, said the extra deployment was in response to an “expanding threat” from Iran.
He confirmed that the UK would send more Typhoon jets to Qatar, as well as the Sky Sabre anti-drone and missile system to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait.
Healey said: “What’s struck me being here over the last couple of days is how clear it is in the Middle East that Iran is expanding its attacks, which I totally condemn as it’s continuing to menace the region.”
In his speech on Wednesday, just seconds after denying any possibility of the UK entering the war, Starmer spoke of his government’s plans to host “a meeting of 35 nations around our statement of intent to push as one for maritime security around the Gulf.” He offered no details of how that would be achieved without the UK getting involved in the war.
The goal, Starmer said, is to make the Strait of Hormuz, which is under the de facto control of Iran, “accessible and safe”. He then added the caveat: “This will not be easy”.
At said meeting, held on Thursday, UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper did what most senior European politicians appear to be doing these days: she pinned all the blame for what is happening in the Middle East, and all the resulting global economic carnage, on Iran, accusing Tehran of “holding the global economy hostage”.
At no point did Copper even acknowledge the two antagonists in the war, the US and Israel. Which is reminiscent of someone else we know:
Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen seems to have slept through her classes on the Nuremberg tribunals, which dealt with the Nazi legacy.
Nuremberg defined a war of aggression – of the kind committed by the US and Israel in attacking Iran – as the “supreme international crime”… https://t.co/brRe9ZwgdE
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) April 2, 2026
Here’s another European leader calling for Iran to open the Strait while not once acknowledging the US and Israel’s role in the hostilities…
Alexander Stubb, president of Finnland, calls on Iran to stop firing at its neighbors and open the strait of Hormuz, but conveniently leaves out that it is Iran that is being attacked by his NATO Ally and by Israel, using the territories and airspaces of those neighbours to do… https://t.co/t9Z8ggOiuC
— Pascal Lottaz (@PLottaz) April 2, 2026
Coincidentally or not, Cooper is one of 13 (out of 25) Labour cabinet members to have received funding from pro-Israel lobby groups. In her former role as home secretary, she was the one who proscribed the campaign group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation — a move that was later ruled unlawful by London’s High Court.
The double standards and the deliberate omissions help explain public disdain for much of the political class. https://t.co/p5Vmx0htHy
— Mark Seddon (@MarkSeddon1962) April 2, 2026
A list of the countries that participated in the meeting:
United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Denmark, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Czechia, Romania, Bahrain, Lithuania, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Trinidad & Tobago, Croatia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Panama, North Macedonia, Nigeria, Montenegro, Albania, Marshall Islands, Chile, Moldova, Greece, Somalia.
The international effort has drawn comparisons with the international “coalition of the willing” that has been assembled, led by the UK and France, to underpin Ukraine’s security after a future ceasefire in that conflict, and will probably have similar levels of success. Note that all of the participants are US vassal states with very strong ties to Tel Aviv. None, to my knowledge, have done anything of note to oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza and other related war crimes.
All these countries have SUPPORTED “Israel’s” illegal maritime blockade of Gaza for two decades, calculated by “Israel” to inflict suffering on the civilian population caged there.
No pompous words about “freedom of navigation” there. https://t.co/WUVtpYUppZ
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) April 2, 2026
Enabling War
In another meeting this week, this time with UK business leaders, Starmer was slightly more forthcoming about the UK’s real involvement in the US-Israeli war on Iran (emphasis my own).
“The political position we’ve taken, I think, is straightforward which is we’re not going to get drawn into the conflict proper. We will defend British lives in the region, particularly in the Gulf allied states and (indecipherable)… allies there”.
That word, “proper”, is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. After all, there is a marked difference between not being in a conflict, full stop, and not being in a conflict “proper”. The UK may not be “in” this war — as in sending its own troops, vessels and fighters into battle — but it is most certainly enabling it, arguably more so than any other European country.
Since the very beginning of this war, US bombers have been taking off daily from UK bases to conduct sorties against Iranian targets. And their number is apparently growing.
The US now has 23 heavy bomber aircraft at ‘RAF’ Fairford in Gloucestershire, according to military-watching social media sites this weekend.
Keir Starmer’s Britain is heavily involved in Trump’s illegal war of aggression on Iran. https://t.co/LkkBqOMtxo
— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) March 29, 2026
The Starmer government still maintains, apparently with a straight face, that the bombers are being used for exclusively “defensive” purposes. As Declassified UK’s Matt Kennard notes, “any journalist writing “defensive strikes” without quote marks when describing US bombs dropped on Iran from UK bases…is not a journalist, but a propagandist for war and terrorism.”
This is even truer today, after both Trump and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth have spoken openly of bombing Iran back to the Stone Age.
Trump: “We’re gonna bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong”. Keep in mind that an initial justification for the war was to “help” Iranians. pic.twitter.com/lTlFoJjiN5
— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) April 2, 2026
So Starmer are those bombers with 2,000 lb bombs taking off from RAF Fairford bombing Iran “defensively” back to the Stone Age?
— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) April 2, 2026
The UK government is refusing to comment on whether US bombers from RAF Fairford or Diego Garcia are being allowed to use cluster bombs.
Britain has signed an international treaty banning cluster munitions, whereas the US has not. https://t.co/SGzLnyPjlC
— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) March 14, 2026
Media Complicity
Generally speaking, the British press seems content to parrot Starmer’s claims of the UK’s non-involvement in the war while ignoring or downplaying the increasing role played by British air bases in facilitating US air attacks on Iran. It is reminiscent of the media’s wall of silence on the UK’s well documented complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
As Oborne notes in the video above, political lying on this scale depends on media complicity. The bigger the lie, the greater the complicity. A case in point:
#trevorphillips repeating the lie that Starmer has kept us out of the war on Iran & framing the story as potential Iranian aggression.
Meanwhile US bombers are taking off from the UK to bomb Iran and destroy their ability retaliate against an unprovoked & illegal war. pic.twitter.com/oyuLZisVUe
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 22, 2026
One rare exception in all of this is Scotland’s The National, which on Wednesday ran with the headline, “US Bombers Increase at UK Base ‘Exposes Keir Starmer Iran War Lie‘:
On Monday, UK Defence Journal reported that the US has deployed two additional B-52H Stratofortress bomber planes to RAF Fairford as part of Operation Epic Fury.
The increase takes the total number of long-range jets – which are capable of firing nuclear cruise missiles or nuclear gravity bombs – at the base to eight.
UK Defence Journal also reports that there is a larger contingent of B-1B Lancers operating from the Gloucestershire base.
The B-52 jets can carry up to around 70,000 pounds of weapons, and can operate over 8800 miles before needing to refuel.
It comes as Prestwick Airport has come under increased scrutiny in recent months, due to the US Air Force’s use of the publicly-owned airport amid the conflict in the Middle East.
In response to the increase in US aircraft, Stop the War national convenor Lindsey German said:
“RAF Fairford is being used to illegally attack Iran and Keir Starmer is lying to the British public when he claims it’s just ‘defensive’ action against missile sites targeting British interests. He should not allow the US to use British bases, he must stop collaborating with Donald Trump in his illegal wars and he should break with the US entirely over foreign policy.”
Keir Starmer’s complicity in the illegal US-Israeli war started way back in January when British and American assets started moving to the Middle East, documents Declassified UK :
American planes have been transiting through British military bases on their way to the Middle East since early January after Trump said the US was “locked and loaded” and ready to help Iranian protesters.
Planes have been tracked passing through RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, both in Suffolk, and have also moved through Prestwick Airport, a civilian airport in Scotland.
Over 100 fighter jets have left RAF Lakenheath for the region since January, according to the Lakenheath Alliance for Peace, an activist group focused on US activity at the base.
Additionally, the group says more than 25 C-17 transport planes, which can carry troops and cargo and are typically deployed before an operation, have transited through during that period.
Activists tracking the activity argue that the quantity of American planes passing through British military bases show how important they have been for the US strategically.
At least one of the jets from Lakenheath, an F-15, was reportedly among those which crashed in Kuwait during the war, confirming their involvement in the conflict.
Yet the government continues to insist that such actions fall short of direct participation in the war. Others are not so sure.
“In the narrow sense of formal co-belligerency, the government can argue Britain is not at war if UK forces are not conducting offensive strikes and if any interceptions are framed as self-defense,” Iain Overton, executive director of Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), told Anadolu.
“The moment the UK provides bases, logistics, intelligence and air-defense cover that make allied strikes possible, Britain is no longer a bystander,” he added.
As Shanaka Anslem Perera points out, any claims of non-participation are directly contradicted by all the UK bases hosting US bombers, the RAF fighters intercepting Iranian drones, and the UK government ministers seeking to play a leading role in reopening the Strait of Hormuz:
B-2 Spirit stealth bombers take off from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire to strike Iranian missile sites. Tankers refuel American fighters at RAF Mildenhall. Long-range aircraft fly from Diego Garcia, a British territory Iran targeted with missiles on March 21. The runways are British. The fuel is British. The airspace is British. And on March 31, the Prime Minister stood in Wolverhampton and said: “This is not our war and we are not going to be dragged into it.”
The statement is politically brilliant and structurally absurd. Britain is not in the war. Britain is the runway from which the war is conducted. The distinction between participation and facilitation is the legal fiction that allows Starmer to claim non-involvement while American bombers climb out of English countryside at full afterburner carrying ordnance destined for targets 4,000 miles away. Every sortie from Fairford or Mildenhall requires UK Ministry of Defence approval. The approval was granted for “specific and limited defensive operations” after Iran attacked British interests. The word “defensive” is doing more load-bearing work in that sentence than any word in the English language has been asked to carry since Blair called Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction a “serious and current threat.”
…
Every bomber that returns to Fairford from a strike on Isfahan lands on British tarmac carrying the political liability of a war the Prime Minister says is not his. If an Iranian retaliatory strike hits Fairford, the fiction collapses. If a B-2 launched from British soil kills Iranian civilians, the fiction collapses. The defensive framing holds only as long as Iran chooses not to test it. And Iran has already tested it at Diego Garcia.
That last claim is arguable, as NC readers are well aware. Iran itself has denied accusations that it was behind the long-range missile attack on Diego Garcia, characterising it as a false flag attack, of which Israel is more than capable. NATO Secretary General Rutte said the military alliance could not confirm whether Iran had fired the missiles at Diego Garcia.
That said, the attack did come just after the UK caved in to Trump’s demands and allowed US forces to use the base in its attacks against Iran, so who’s to say?
A couple of days ago, Iran’s ambassador to the UK, Seyed Ali Mousavi, warned that Tehran is considering whether British military bases are legitimate targets after being used by American bombers for strikes on Iran. From The Times of London:
In an interview with The Times and Times Radio, Seyed Ali Mousavi praised Sir Keir Starmer’s “initial position” not to get involved in the “criminal act of the American side and the Israeli regime” in striking Iran.
However, he said that the decision to allow American bombers to launch from RAF Fairford could change things. Starmer granted permission for the United States to use RAF Fairford and a base in Diego Garcia for “defensive strikes” against missile launchers aimed at allies in the Middle East or at shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
“This is a very important matter we are considering. This is a very important matter for our self-defence,” Mousavi said. “The military sections of our system will decide appropriately. It depends on your activities. It depends on the British decision about this matter. Every option should be considered. We are very careful and delicate how to defend ourselves.”.
Hours later, Iran launched drone strikes on the oil storage facilities of Castrol, a subsidiary of BP, in Erbil, Iraq. In other words, while some in the UK may be unclear about the country’s status as a belligerent in the West Asian war, Iran appears to be under no such illusion.
Air Strip One?
As readers may recall, George Orwell used the name “Air Strip One” to describe the British Isles in his dystopian novel, 1984. It is perhaps the perfect name for Starmer’s Britain given the role it is now playing in the US-Israeli war in the Middle East. Though the novel does not divulge the reason(s) for the name, notes Wikipedia, some believe it refers to the British isles’ geostrategic location as the most advanced point of Oceania with respect to its superstate rival, Eurasia.
In a similar way, Britain became the main airbase for US aircraft attacking mainland European targets in WW2. Today, the UK may not offer the US the closest base from which to attack Iran, but it does offer one of the most important.
One other thing Starmer’s Britain has in common with the Britain of Orwell’s 1984 is its creeping authoritarianism. Whether it is scrapping trial by jury, one of the world’s most ancient rights, threatening to ban social media platform twitter/X, arresting peaceful protestors for opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, or unleashing live facial recognition cameras across the urban landscape, it seems there is nothing Starmer will not do to concentrate more power in his own hands, even as his approval rating craters to never-before-seen levels.
The fact this is all happening under a prime minister who before entering politics was a senior human rights lawyer makes it all the more disturbing.
