This YouGov poll, issued in the last hour, shows how out of touch Reform and its supporters are with the majority of people in the UK on issues such as the war on Iran:
The Tories are also well out of line with the national mood.
It's not that those on the left lack principles. The whole point is, they have them. This is the gulf war playing out -here.
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So Starmer is 45 points under water with his own party on this issue. Dead impressive, that . . .
🙂
It also reflects the totally different media ecosystem that Reform supporters exist in.
Starmer seems to have been allowed two votes in the poll! But he will be judged by his actions, not his guff in the Commons today.
Starmer opposed the bombing of Iraq, even at the risk of upsetting Trump. That was correct according to international law(he is a lawyer).
When Iran retaliated against UK bases in gulf and Cyprus, he changed his stance to allowing US planes to fly from UK bases and ordered RAF to defend skies over those bases and ,if necessary, attack the source of any bombs or drones. That also seems the correct approach according to international law.
I think the UK public generally agree with that. It wasn’t a hard set of choices for a PM. I would have done the same, in his shoes.
Domestically, Starmer has been very poor and arguably dishonest with his Premiership so far. On the other hand, he has done well on the international stage, chiefly by sticking as far as practable with the law, which he knows.
I will have Tom completely disagree with you.
I see on legality in this, at all. One misfiring drone is justification for nothing but sitting back and waiting to acquire more evidence.
Permitting the use of UK bases for operations that are themselves widely contested as unlawful is, I feel, somewhat problematic.
Surely if the US attack on Iran is unlawful (and it must be) helping to defend US bases from Iranian retaliation is completely unjustified and likely to result in Iranian attacks on UK bases.
Iranian attacks on other Gulf states is problematic.
That is without giving any consideration to the Israeli role in the attacks.
Meanwhile, and in complete contempt for human rights, international law (now being demonised by the right), and public opinion, we call rogue states USA and Israel, our “allies” and FAIL, as we have done for decades, to do all in our power to oppose and prevent genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in territories occupied by Israel, in Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria (both Golan Heights and Syrian Kurdistan) as well as regular human rights abuses (including murder) of Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention centres and prisoners in Israeli jails.
Our crimes are aided, abetted and covered up by a corrupt and enfeebled press and broadcasting industry, along with compliant law enforcement that has criminalised dissent, calling it terrorism.
We pile one crime upon another, thinking we will never be called to account, recognising no higher authority other than that of our current paymasters.
While Rachel Reeves worries needlessly about the scale of the national debt, our government fails to take account of our unsustainable rapidly escalating MORAL debt, despite the writing on the wall being clear – “MENE MENE TEKEL PARSIN” – “YOU HAVE BEEN WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE AND FOUND WANTING”. (Daniel 5,
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel%205&version=CEV
a story of warnings ignored, of kingly hubris, of indulgence, cruelty and greed – that night, Belshazzar’s Babylonian empire fell to the Medes and Persians.)
We have learned nothing. Several thousand years later, ignoring the disasters of Iraq, Libya, and Syria, we, like Belshazzar, ignore the warnings about our predecessor Nebuchadnezzar/Blair/Bush’s hubris, repeat theirfolly, even as we carry on feasting from our corrupt gains.
One of the temptations and abuses of religion, is that its followers regularly assume that god is on their side and will fight for them under their national flag and obey their orders even if they ignore his.
This is idolatrous folly, and we are doing it, right now. It is no accident that this war is happening over Purim (see the book of Esther, which never mentions God once).
This will not end well.