Just when the world requires strong leadership, Sir Keir Starmer is the option we’re left with. (Image: Leon Neal/PA Wire)
Right now, Israel is engaged in a war to decimate Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. With its dominance of Iranian air space, Israel has inflicted total humiliation on the Islamic Republic, destroying sites such as Natanz and killing key nuclear scientists. It has destroyed the leadership of the hated Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, eliminated the head of Iran’s armed forces, bombed the country’s main broadcaster live on air and destroyed oil refineries and industrial factories. These are feats of technical brilliance and strategic planning that have left onlookers speechless with awe.
Israel felt it had no choice but to act. It is confronted by a regime which calls every day for Israel’s annihilation, and which is counting down the clock until 2040, the date of Israel’s purported destruction. Just days before the start of Operation Rising Lion, the the IAEA released a report which made clear that Iran now had enough enriched uranium to eventually make 9 nuclear weapons. Let us be clear: for Iran to have a nuclear weapon would be a disaster, not just threatening Israel but the entire Middle East. It would lead to a terrifying arms race in which countries like Egypt or Saudi Arabia might seek to join the atomic club, wrecking the non-proliferation treaty and causing deep instability around the world.
There are now reports that the US will intervene, possibly with British help, in order to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons programme and, quite possibly, overthrow the regime itself. Contrary to what critics think, there is a strong case for the UK’s military involvement. At a minimum, this could include allowing the US air force to launch attacks from Diego Garcia, the small Indian Ocean airbase where America already has a number of heavy bombers.
Some may ask why the UK would get involved in what seems to be a dispute between Middle Eastern belligerents. The truth is that the Iranian regime is an enemy of the West. It aspires to regional domination, to be master of the Muslim world, and since 1979, has become the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. Indeed, its attacks have claimed thousands of lives.
During the Iraq War, its much-feared Quds Force planted a vast number of deadly IEDs on the battlefield, killing hundreds of US troops. Iran was also accused of supplying insurgents in Iraq with lethal explosives designed to kill British soldiers.
MI5 Director Sir Ken McCallum has recently stated that since the start of 2022 the UK has responded to 20 Iran-backed plots, presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents.
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The IRGC has tried to kill Iranian-British journalists, among them Pouria Zeraati, who was stabbed in 2024. In addition, we cannot forget the British Iranian dual citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe who spent years in an Iranian jail after being indicted on spurious charges of trying to topple the Iranian government. There is little doubt that the IRGC’s operational methods mirror those of banned groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
The Iran backed Houthis have threatened western shipping in 2023. They have seized and attacked dozens of merchant and naval vessels in the Red Sea, leading to retaliatory strikes by the US and UK. Nor can we forget that Iran has supplied ballistic missiles and drones to Russia for use in Ukraine at the same time that the UK is engaged, quite rightly, in arming and supporting that beleaguered country.
Yet in the face of this blatant state aggression, our Prime Minister offers little more than mealy mouthed, vapid soundbites. He and his hapless Foreign Secretary have spoken of the need to ‘de-escalate’ the region in the interests of regional stability while claiming to support Israel’s self-defence. The problem he ignores is that Iran’s actions are continually escalating tensions, including its funding of terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Under Starmer’s leadership, the government has admitted that it did not help shoot down Iranian drones that invaded Israeli air space. Instead, the government has been more interested in the meaningless sanctioning of far-right Israeli ministers and the partial restriction of arms sales. It has continually criticized the Gaza conflict without offering any suggestion for how to disarm Hamas, the terror group that murdered nearly1,200 people in Israel on October 7.
This is a textbook case of political cowardice, and we all know the reasons why. Starmer is desperate to appease millions of angry Muslim voters who view the Gaza war in apocalyptic terms. Many turned their backs on Labour at the last general election, with some favouring independent ‘pro-Gaza’ candidates. Winning them over is seen as a key political priority.
In addition, Starmer has taken the legal advice of Lord Hermer, the controversial Attorney General who recently drew parallels between the UK’s proposed withdrawal from the ECHR and developments in 1930s Germany. Hermer is said to have expressed grave concerns at the UK becoming involved in the Middle East conflict.
This is not real leadership in any meaningful sense and the UK risks being isolated by our major transatlantic ally in a matter of historic importance. Real leadership would mean supporting Israel and the US in tacking the threat from the Iranian terror regime. This would mean dismantling Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, proscribing the IRGC and calling out Iran for exporting terror across the world, including on October 7.
Above all, the UK should be making the case for regime change in Iran. Iran is a nation of 85 million people who have been brutally oppressed by the ayatollahs for 46 years. Its leaders have persecuted religious minorities, slaughtered thousands of political dissidents, murdered women for what they wear and hanged gay people from cranes. It is an outlaw regime which openly defies international law and basic human rights.
That is why millions of Iranians will be secretly cheering the Israeli strikes and counting down the days until the ayatollahs flee their country.
This is a historic opportunity for change, and the UK should be at the heart of it.
Dr Jeremy Havardi is a historian and journalist based in London. He is currently director of advocacy at the human rights organisation B’nai B’rith UK.