Miliband Led “Petulant and Legalistic” Cabinet Revolt Against Trump’s Iran War
Ed Miliband led Cabinet opposition to President Trump’s military action in Iran and the use of Britain’s bases, reportedly presenting a “petulant, pacifist, legalistic and very political” case for spurning the US. The Telegraph has the story.
In a meeting on Friday ahead of the strikes, Miliband, Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper are understood to have strongly opposed British support for pre-emptive military action, which they believed would be illegal.
Sir Keir Starmer backed them, and resisted pressure from Donald Trump to allow the US to fly bombing runs to Iran from RAF bases in Gloucestershire and the Chagos Islands.
The Prime Minister changed his position less than 48 hours later and American B-2 stealth bombers are due to arrive at Diego Garcia, the military base in the Chagos Islands, in the next few days to fly “limited, defensive” missions.
Trump has warned that major US strikes are still to come, as Iran continues to attack Western allies around the Gulf and the Middle East.
On Wednesday, one missile was intercepted heading towards a Turkish base hosting US troops, threatening to drag another Nato ally into the war.
The US also sank an Iranian warship with a submarine near Sri Lanka, the first such strike since Britain’s attack on the General Belgrano during the Falklands war.
But domestic and international pressure is building on Trump to explain his strategy for the war, with Germany warning that regime change cannot happen without boots on the ground.
Miliband, the Energy Secretary, voiced his strong opposition to the impending US airstrikes at a National Security Council meeting on Friday, convened to discuss the potential impact of the conflict on Britain’s energy supply.
The meeting followed more than a fortnight of angry exchanges with Trump and his officials, including a row between Matt Collins, the UK’s Deputy National Security Adviser, and Elbridge Colby, the Under Secretary of Defence for Policy in the Pentagon.
Relying on a legal opinion by Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, Miliband reportedly presented a “petulant, pacifist, legalistic and very political” case against the strikes and any UK involvement.
A source told the Spectator: “He fundamentally doesn’t like Trump, and he doesn’t like this Iran thing.”
He was backed by the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary, who argued for Sir Keir to hold firm against pressure from Washington to join the war.
John Healey, the Defence Secretary, was reportedly in favour of allowing British bases to be used to defend allies from Iran’s retaliations.
The Prime Minister agreed with Miliband but reversed his position on Sunday after a fresh request from the US to use British bases solely for “limited, defensive” strikes against Iranian missile facilities targeting Western allies.
Sir Keir’s initial decision to block the use of Diego Garcia prompted heavy criticism from Mr Trump.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I’m still not sure if it’s either right or wise to be bombing Iran, but given that it’s happening why would Trump want to reveal his aims or much about how he intends to achieve them.
My guess is that the idea is to significantly degrade their military capability and hope for regime change. I doubt he wants anything protracted. Or maybe this is all theatre.
Hard to tell what’s going on, as you say. The nightmare scenario is a Balkanisation of Iran, with central authority gone, and one zillion angry little splinters running about – armed with drones and missiles, like a repeat of the Afhganistan Mujahideen Stinger blowback. The fact that Kurdish groups have already crossed the border from Iraq is not a good sign.
Persia is one of the most ancient nations on earth so hopefully there’s a decent chance it’ll hold together through this little interlude.
Surely the key objectives are as set out by Rubio. Trump, Rubio and Vance have said there will be no long term physical presence in Iran.
Whether there will be regime change in Iran seems to me to be left to the Irtanians, perhaps with some special assistance. It does not matter to the west or neighbouring middle east countries what sort of hell hole they have in Iran so long as they cease to be able to attack others, including the west.
A coordinated major operation needs to be undertaken to clear out Iranian proxies in western nations. Getting a uniform view will be difficult as the Dems oppose such action in the US, Spain seems to prefer the Mullahs to the US and Germany is immobile. In Britain I doubt the Lasbour Party or Cabinet would permit such action even if Hermer gave it the OK.
If there’s no regime change then they could rebuild and the US would “need” to periodically bomb them. But yes one imagines they will leave it up to Iran, which seems wise.
Hm. All the young Austrians were told it would be done in a fortnight.
If I were Trump, and I’d offered Putin a sack full of carrots, and he’d chosen to continue his ‘stupid war’, I’d be looking for sticks to beat him with. I’d start with his allies, his ‘oil money launderers’. If they were also my enemies……so much the better. The Cuban regime in Venezuela and the Iranians…. top of the list. If they were also a supplier of drones for the war…. double win. The message goes out – support Putin ? watch your back.
Miliband, Reeves, and Cooper require a comprehensive mission statement from President Trump with full details of his aims, goals and objectives, complete with times, dates and locations etc. These three ministers really are lethally naive. More humiliation for our beleaguered nation. BTW paperless people invading our shores are illegal – let them do something about that.
I didn’t realise there was a “Legal” way to wage war. Weaklings.
It’s as if people don’t understand that the definition of war is a situation when laws (however they are to be defined) have failed.
As in all’s fair in love and war – who knew?
Yes, this has always intrigued me. “Putin’s illegal invasion”, “Trump’s illegal war” etc.
What the F is a “legal war”?
Perhaps I should phone the International Police for guidance…
Listening carefully to what Marco Rubio has said, it sounds as if this conflict was triggered by Netanyahu revealing that Israel was going to attack anyway and that USA went along with it because it would have threatened US bases in the region.
All the bluster from Trump was in fact post-rationalisation, which explains why the objectives as stated by USA change from day to day – regime change, degrading nuclear capability(I thought they did that last summer), destroying ballistic missile programme, destroying airforce, navy etc.
So what you are saying is that the USA supported its ally, and ofcourse we don’t, because we have a lot of Muslims living here and one eye has to be on the polls. —–I don’t know why though because Labour is TOAST anyway.
Well yes, the UK polls are probably one factor. But a separate one is whether we want to be all-in on “whatever Netanyahu decides to do, we have to back it”, as the US seems to be. Bibi either blackmailed the US here, or (the other side of the coin), the US has insufficient leverage over him to retort “No. Doing that would escalate threats against our assets in the area”.
We have constant threats from the terrorist regime in Iran in case you hadn’t noticed. NOW seems like the perfect time to put a stop to that, when we have a US Government in conjunction with Israel that have the bottle for it. Because if we don’t they have Nuclear weapons and make no mistake, they will have no hesitation in using them and going to “paradise”.
According to various sources some US bases have been destroyed or severely disrupted and additionally their carrier groups have been moved to a distance that reduces their capability. Worth checking out on YouTube.
A carrier would be one heck of a coup to Iran
Yes, that’s why they’ve been moved out of range, I did see a video somewhere where they said that carriers are obsolete against an enemy that has hyper-sonic missiles, time will tell.
Here’s a vid on the base which was hit very badly in Qatar and US vulnerability, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJlSqYCDgCw
Terrible state of affairs is it not – waging war on a country that has the temerity to fight back.
In the meantime, there have been reports about the USA Congress debate on it all, reportedly allied to the Party lines, as to whether Trump had the right to do it without Congressional approval or not.
And here is Steven Barrett’s view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAFy2J5ddAw&list=WL&index=4 Starmer is wrong, the Iran War Is legal
As I understand it the POTUS can enact military engagement and has 60 days to bring it before Congress
International law has no enforcement mechanism. There is not an International Police Force. —–If there was, then Iranian, North Korean and various other countries politicians would have all been arrested already. But the MIliband’s of this world think we should always fight by the Queensbery rules against opponents who kick us in the balls all the time. —–But MIliband apart from being a squirming Liberal Progressive probably does not want oil and gas prices to skyrocket any further than his insane energy policy is already doing which would heap more pressure on his stupid phoney planet saving garbage and force him into some type of u turn on the policies that are impoverishing us, forcing millions into energy policy and destroying the Industrial base. ——Has there ever been a more disgusting charlatan in Politics than this guy?
Hmmmm. Good question — difficult to say. It would be a very close race between Milibrain, 2TK and Bliar. Cameron wouldn’t be too far behind.
There’s certainly no shortage of candidates is there…
I put Miliband way above those others for the reason that the most important commodity for our prosperity and welfare is ENERGY, and this buffoon UN and WEF ass licker is in charge of it.
Possibly not but let’s not forget that Miliband was enabled by Tony B.Liar and his agreement with George Soros in 1996.
The act where May made net zero legally mandated smacks of Common Purpose of which she is a disciple.
All these people are part of the group that have their own interests at heart, they don’t care about anyone else.
Surprised that the counter argument to US action was “racist”. Would the cabinet more readily have approved if it was a Democrat POTUS.?
Limited defensive? As it is said attack is the best form of defence.
Watching the Dubai and Qatar tennis tournaments I was struck by the sheer beauty of the surroundings, the wide variety of dress, which was obviously a personal choice, and the sophistication and charm of the surrounding buildings. The desert can be helped to flower once you despatch the nihilists. All political systems are flawed, but if they are benign, who cares?
Without Trump, the West is finished. It’s probably finished anyway, but at least he’s delaying the inevitable.
We should never have let his wretched father into the country
Perhaps President Trump remembers that Labour sent 100 activists to help Biden campaign against him.