The UK has agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile sites, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

But the prime minister said the UK had learned lessons from the “mistakes of Iraq”, and was not involved in the initial strikes on Iran and “will not join offensive action now”.

Sir Keir said the basis of the decision to accept the US request was the “collective self-defence” of allies and protecting British lives, accusing Iran of pursuing a “scorched-earth strategy”.

The BBC understands the US is likely to use RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for strikes on Iranian missile sites.

In his video statement on Sunday, Sir Keir said the US would use UK bases for the “specific and limited defensive purpose” of destroying Iran’s missiles “at source”.

He added that the move was in accordance with international law, and the UK government had published what it said was a summary of its legal advice.

  • vane@lemmy.world
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    8 minutes ago

    How many hours it took them to dump his phone memory and find some compromising materials ? 6 or more ?

  • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 hours ago

    Seems pretty consistent for a Government that unwaveringly supports Genocide as long as the aggressors are of the “right” ethnicity and the victims are not.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      13 hours ago

      Okay let’s be honest here, no major actor in the EU has anything resembling spine; they all go weak in the knees when Uncle Sam calls.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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          2 hours ago

          Yeah but it’s not really a major EU actor AFAIK. They’re important to the EU but don’t really shape its policies in the same way, say, France or Germany do. This is probably due to aforementioned spine, but either way if I’m not mistaken Spanish priorities aren’t very relevant to EU foreign policy. I actually added “major” specifically to exclude Spain, though it is debatable whether that was accurate or not.

  • sudo@programming.dev
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    20 hours ago

    Stitch your lips to our assholes because you are now in our murder suicide pact with Israel.

  • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    Understandable, UK tried to stay out, rather publicly denying US use of their airfields for the attack on Iran.

    Iran responded by attacking UK air bases, so now the gloves are off.

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      22 hours ago

      Tbh it’s a rather object lesson in target discrimination.

      If Iran had been strict in their targeting, and had specifically only hit US assets and their host countries (and also, you know, specifically attempted to avoid civilian targets), other countries very likely would have stayed out. But they had to max their own dogma and “strike at all the western devils” - even the ones that were openly objecting to the US. Nobody should be surprised when Iran hits a French or UK or whatever airbase, that the country operating the airbase does not take it kindly, and shifts from nominally neutral to actively hostile.

      • flandish@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        it does not matter to the leaders of all the nations. they still profit while working class people will die in the meat grinder.