As the liberal order dies, Starmer’s Britain is doubling down on its stupidity

The PM is unable to respond to the implosion of the global status quo other than by incanting Leftist platitudes Daily Telegraph 04/03/26 What happened to us? How did we fall so far, so quickly? Where is our moral compass, our self-respect, our pride? Sir Keir Starmer’s Britain stands alone, but for the most deplorable of reasons, unwilling to fight back when our bases are hit by drones, incapable of deploying what is left of the Royal Navy, unable to respond to the implosion of the old world order other than by incanting Leftist platitudes, debilitated, humiliated and disgraced.

America and Israel are waging a moral and just war to punish an evil, millenarianist, Iranian Islamist regime that kills and maims, and yet Britain is a no-show, pathetically asserting the war violates “international law”, sabotaging Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s heroic efforts at every opportunity. Starmer’s non-response to the attack on our base in Cyprus by Iranian proxies is an act of such breathtaking cowardice and strategic self-sabotage that it would have made even Jimmy Carter blush. It is the modern equivalent of the fall of Singapore, a debacle that will obliterate our remaining influence over the region. Labour betrayed Israel ages ago, for the sake of sucking up to anti-Semitic voters; now it has sold out Cyprus, which, embarrassingly, is being assisted by the Greeks and French, and abandoned the Gulf States as they shoot down Iranian missiles. Perfidious Albion was feared; we are pitied. Starmer is the anti-Churchill par excellence, an impostor who despises sovereignty so much he cannot lead, a charlatan who puts his electoral base before justice, a human rights lawyer who won’t act for victims of persecution, a “progressive” stuck in a “liberal order” era that evaporated years ago, his shambles of a Government compromised by luxury beliefs such as pacifism, suicidal empathy, and self-loathing. Thousands of Iranian dissidents, joined by Jewish allies, took to the streets of north London last week, dancing to Persian music and honking horns to celebrate the demise of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They draped themselves in scores of pre-regime Iranian flags, plenty of Israeli emblems and some Stars and Stripes. Heartbreakingly, there were almost no Union flags. Why? Britain isn’t in any meaningful sense on the side of the protesters. Starmer sanctioned Israel over Gaza. He refused to allow Trump to use our bases. He is selling out Chagos to a Chinese (and thus Iranian) ally. He has failed to ban the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He tolerates extremism in our midst, including numerous mosques and student associations organising vigils for Khamenei. It doesn’t matter if the Americans don’t have a “plan” for what they would like Iran to look like “the day after”. Britain didn’t have a blueprint for what Europe would look like after we declared war on Nazi Germany. It doesn’t matter if Starmer is right that regime change cannot happen from the sky. This war would be a triumph if it decimates the ayatollahs and wipes out their nuclear and missile capabilities for years to come – even if, tragically, the regime survives. Doing nothing because perfection is unobtainable is the height of stupidity. The West’s original error was to fail to grasp the scale of the danger posed by Islamism after the Iranian revolution of 1979. Preoccupied by the Cold War, we didn’t grasp that it was as much a threat to our civilisation as Marxism-Leninism, and that both were connected in practice. We subsequently failed to grasp the significance of the rise of China as a rival civilisation. Both threats meant the “rules-based liberal order” that emerged after 1990 was a sham, a false dawn based on a fleeting US hegemony. Starmer still doesn’t grasp this and clings to a world where weakness is glamourised and lawyers and bureaucrats rule the roost. By contrast, Trump gets it. Despite his age, he is very much a 21st century politician who is simultaneously targeting Islamism and Chinese power. America fought back with extreme strength after 9/11, but it over-reached, seeking to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan in its image, rather than merely in its interest. George W Bush’s project was imperialistic rather than realist: he had a messianic belief in the power of the Western idea, rather than focusing on revenge, punishment and deterrence. Bush clung to the idea that history had ended, that economic integration and Jeffersonian democracy could solve almost everything. He sought to extend the Long Twentieth Century, to restore the post-1990 technocratic ascendancy, failing to realise it was a dead end. The war against Iran, by contrast, is borne out of realpolitik and an understanding of the urgent threat posed by the regime. It is not fuelled by hubris or nation-building. September 11 wasn’t the West’s Pearl Harbour, a disastrous blow that led to ultimate triumph: it now looks as if October 7 2023 was. The obscene pogrom was a catastrophic miscalculation by Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar: two and a half years on, the multi-part war it triggered is turning into a historic disaster for Islamism and the authoritarian axis, including Russia (which relies on Iranian drones). It has led to: the destruction of Hamas; the creation of the Board of Peace; the hammering of Hezbollah; the fall of Bashar al-Assad; the onslaught on the Iranian regime itself. It has also created an unprecedented military partnership between America and tiny Israel, which is now the uncontested regional superpower. It has realigned the Middle East: Iran’s demented extension of the war could turbocharge a new Abraham Accord-style rapprochement. Lebanon has banned Hezbollah’s military wing. Syria is condemning Iran. The Gulf States are shooting down Iranian missiles and are effectively in coalition with America and Israel, an astonishing development. The Greeks are fighting Iranian-funded drones. The Turks are angry, though they remain hostile to the West. The Gulf states thought they could stay out of this, especially Qatar, which spent a fortune demonising Israel. They couldn’t. Saudi Arabia’s rapprochement with China is over. The blow to Beijing is profound: its Iranian ally is being blown to smithereens, and it has lost all influence over the region. The change in Europe is also seismic. Friedrich Merz has slammed international law, drastic for a German leader. Emmanuel Macron talks nonsense but his new nuclear doctrine, which involves an expansion in warheads, breaks decisively with the pacifist, legal-driven order. Britain, by contrast, is doubling down on its stupidity. Starmer understands nothing and learns nothing. Our fall from grace is total.