Friday 06 March 2026 9:25 am  |  Updated:  Sunday 08 March 2026 9:05 am

Iran war: blood, sweat, toil and Keir

By: Alys Denby

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Trump is right: weak, vacillating and indecisive Keir Starmer, overly influenced by his worst cabinet minister Ed Miliband, is no Winston Churchill, says Alys Denby

In war, Britain once offered blood, toil and tears – now we must make do with blood, toil and Keir. There is a case to be made that America and Israel have launched a reckless and opportunistic assault on Iran with no aim other than assassination and no plan for what follows. But that is not a case our Prime Minister has made.

Instead he has appeared vacillating and indecisive, at first refusing America permission to use our bases then allowing it once our assets had come under attack. As Trump puts it “this is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with”.

It has now been reported that the initial hesitancy was down to a “petulant, pacifist, legalistic and very political” Cabinet rebellion led by Ed Miliband. Do not forget that it was Miliband who, as leader of the opposition in 2013, whipped his MPs to vote against extended air strikes on Syria after Bashar Assad Al Assad had used chemical weapons on his own people. By not standing by our ally, the UK helped turn America’s declared “red line” in that conflict into an empty threat – weakening western credibility and emboldening our enemies and arguably precipitating the invasion of Ukraine. It is Miliband, too, whose self-harming moratorium on drilling in the north sea will make this country more vulnerable than it needs to be to the coming oil crisis. 

Miliband will never put Britain first

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the war in Iran, Miliband is not the man Starmer should be listening to if he’s putting British interests first.

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The Prime Minister’s decision-making is also being influenced by political realities at home. Let’s not overplay this, Starmer’s motivations often appear more procedural than strategic. But it is nevertheless the case that in many urban seats his party now faces pressure from sectarian voting blocs mobilised around foreign policy grievances. And as the Gorton and Denton by-election has shown, these voters are forming a bizarre alliance with drugs, rainbows and open borders progressives coalescing around Zack Polanski’s Greens. A government already struggling to define its stance abroad risks appearing weak to both sides: too hesitant for the country, too compromised for its activists.

Britain cannot pretend this is a quarrel in a faraway country between a people of whom we know nothing. Iran has repeatedly demonstrated that it has and remains willing to export terrorism onto British soil. Intelligence officials have warned that Tehran represents a “persistent and unpredictable threat” to the UK, with plots involving espionage, kidnapping and murder uncovered in recent years.

So the choices our Prime Minister makes now concern the safety of British citizens and the credibility of the British state. Whether we like it or not, our security, and that of the free world, still depends on the United States. America may today be led by a President who is erratic, unpleasant and perhaps even unbalanced. But when the time comes, Britain cannot sit on the fence. However imperfect the alliance, we can never find ourselves on the side of Iran.

Alys Denby is opinion and features editor of City AM

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Starmer vows to ‘resist pressure’ over Iran policy amid criticism of UK response

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