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KEMI Badenoch thinks Keir Starmer is too focused on “catching arrows rather than stopping the archer”.
War has a way of making people talk in such ridiculous metaphors. The Tory leader, backed up by her friends in the press and fellow space cadets in Reform UK, wants Britain in this war as she set out at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.
She wants Royal Air Force planes dropping bombs on Iran as they fly alongside their comrades from the US and Israel.
US secretary of war Pete Hegseth has said America will rain down “death and destruction all day long” on the people of that country and if they kill more than 100 schoolgirls, as American officials believe they did at Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab on Saturday, then so be it.
This is Operation Epic Fury, promoted by White House propaganda which splices clips from Iron Man and Braveheart, and America is “playing for keeps”.
One thing Badenoch did get right is her assertion that “we are in this war” whether Labour “like it or not”.
That much is true. After Richard Knighton, head of the Armed Forces, coached the Americans in making a request in the requisite legalese, their request to launch attacks from British bases was granted on Sunday.
And British forces are already playing a defensive role against Iran’s retaliatory strikes. Helicopters and fighter jets are being deployed to Cyprus and the Gulf and HMS Dragon will be in the Mediterranean before long.
The political punch-up over the speed of Britain’s response and Starmer’s vague pronouncements on the war obscure the reality: the UK is in this war. Top ministers have failed to rule out the possibility of Britain turning defensive operations into offensive ones.
READ MORE: Jeremy Corbyn blasts UK 'obedience' to US amid Iran attacks row
Doing so would see the UK dive headfirst into a pointless, destructive and illegal war to placate lunatics in the White House who spend their time in ludicrous prayer circles around the president while aides pump out social media agitprop peppered with SpongeBob and Grand Theft Auto memes.
Starmer has spoken about learning the lessons from Iraq, but this isn’t Iraq. It shares some similarities – overtures to liberating oppressed people in the Middle East, dodgy claims about nuclear weapons – but we are in a different place, this is a different war.
The pretext for invading Iraq was based on lies, but George Bush at least felt the pressure to dream up some excuse, no matter how flimsy.
Trump – and his lapdogs in Whitehall – talk about the need to ensure Iran never has nuclear weapons: he has simultaneously boasted of destroying their nuclear capabilities last year while walking away from negotiations on this very topic.
He talked about supporting the protesters who rose up against ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime but has since decided it is better to just bomb them instead. What’s left will have the responsibility to rebuild from the rubble once America loses interest.
Add to this Benjamin Netanyahu and his bloodthirsty gang of fanatics in Tel Aviv and you have a situation far more volatile and far more dangerous than was Iraq. Fresh from creating hell on Earth in Gaza, they want to expand the field of annihilation in all directions.
This is the reality of the situation that politicians in Westminster are willing us into. Probably, none of them will die in a conflict and so are happy to send out British soldiers to act out their fantasies. In that respect, this is a little like Iraq.
It is similar in another respect: in 20 years, while those whose loved ones were killed in this conflict continue to mourn their dead, these same ghouls will have retired from “frontline” politics and will fill their days pontificating in podcast studios about what a terrible decision this turned out to be.
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