For a proud island nation, one that still speaks the language of global influence, the UK is looking strikingly absent during the war in the Gulf. Not neutral, not decisive, not indispensable, simply absent. While others have shaped events, the UK has drifted somewhere between hesitation and afterthought, still vulnerable to the geopolitical impact of the conflict but largely irrelevant to its direction.
The debate in Westminster is quickly evolving beyond whether the UK should have been more militarily involved. The bigger question now is whether there is any confidence in the UK anymore from its strongest ally to which it has long-maintained a ‘Special Relationship’—the US. Considering Downing Street’s engagement thus far, the answer seems increasingly to be a resounding ‘no.’
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has adopted the cautionary, indecisive posture he often does. The British government emphasised that the UK was not involved in the initial US-Israeli strikes against Iran, casting this as a measured, lawful and sober choice, one that placed international law and British interests first. How wrong he was. As fighting escalates and Iran’s missile and drone attacks continue across the region, with allies in the Gulf and UK military bases in Cyprus under fire, a mere ‘protective and defensive’ posture was adopted. Such a weak position is a betrayal of the UK’s historic and deep-connection in the Gulf. Whether that be the UK Naval Support Facility, historically HMS Jufair in Bahrain, dating back nearly a century, or other more recent military investments in the region like the UK’s Duqm Joint Logistics Support Base in Oman and its RAF presence at Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, the UK has long been at the heart of the Gulf’s security architecture.
This calibrated approach has not translated to a confident and understood strategy to the war, rather it has projected uncertainty. It is the UK that has appeared to be the late in its arrivals to one of the most significant geopolitical crises of our time, one in which the UK still faces huge risks but wields little influence.
At home, Starmer is subject to political stress on both sides. On the left, he has been accused of not criticising the US/Israel military action enough. For many of his backbench Members of Parliament and activists, who long felt uncomfortable with his approach to Middle Eastern questions, including the Gaza war, the Prime Minister seems too beholden to President Donald Trump, even Israel, failing to condemn their military in strong enough terms. On the right he has been battered just as harshly for quite different reasons, failing to come to the support of the US from the start, for dither and delay, and for making Britain seem wholly unreliable to its closest security partner.
Labour remains split internally by rival instincts that it has never resolved entirely, on one side, an anti-war caution, stemming from its Iraq-war past, hostile to the Blair-legacy, a sentiment that saw Jeremy Corbyn previously rise its leadership. On the other, a residual Atlanticism that requires Britain to stand visibly beside its US allies in times of crisis. Starmer has attempted to manage both camps, but in the process he has appeased neither. He has appeared more as a leader mediating internal party spats than a leader defining the national direction in times of war and crisis.
While the Conservative Party has steadily been gathering its strength under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, it has still struggled to fill the political vacuum following its crushing electoral defeat in the summer of 2024. Rather, it is Reform UK that has been the fastest to take advantage of the government’s weakness. Its leader, Nigel Farage, has attempted to establish himself as the politician who has the deepest access to ‘Trump world,’ and last week’s trip to Mar-a-Lago, has proven valuable to underline the point, he has become an insider with White House links that are likely to prove more politically profitable than the government’s official diplomacy. His deputy, Richard Tice, visited the UAE, where he met ministers, which added to that theatre. Reform gets the optics right, as long as the UK government appears to be at odds with Washington and passive with Gulf partners under Labour, then they can appear much more dynamic, more networked and much more instinctively aligned with allies that are shaping events.
Their message might be raw partisan opportunism, but it lands, because Downing Street has created the space for it. Trump’s comments have further underscored this point, with his ‘[…] no Winston Churchill’ comment regarding Starmer; crude, yet effective. It reflected a view that many Britons no longer feel like they belong to a country acting as a global actor at the heart of the sphere of global influence. Even more damaging, however, the claim painted the UK not as a respected partner, but as a weak and hesitant nation, ridiculed on the world stage.
Nowhere has the UK’s weak stance been more evident than in Cyprus. The UK maintains sovereign bases there, and RAF Akrotiri is still one of Britain’s most important strategic assets in the Eastern Mediterranean. Yet when those bases came under attack in the context of this war, there was no sense of a government responding with confidence or clarity. Rather, the general impression was that of silence, muddle and passivity. British territory was struck but Britain appeared detached from its aftermath. A country that fails to adequately protect its military bases and personnel, and the territory of its hosting ally, does not seem powerful—it looks stranded.
This is the contradiction that lies at the core of the UK’s position. The UK still holds the infrastructure of a serious NATO and G7 power, intelligence reach, strategic alliances, diplomatic access and military assets. But it has become increasingly difficult to turn any of that into visible relevance. The UK is sufficiently engaged to be endangered by this conflict, but not powerful enough to set the terms. It is close enough to be impacted, but not central enough to determine the war’s next moves.
That is why the Iran war is so politically revealing for the Labour government and the UK—exposing tactical disputes over military support and a strategic emptiness in British foreign policy. Downing Street and Whitehall desire the prestige of a global presence without adequate geopolitical investment and decisive action. It wants to reassure Washington, calm Labour backbenchers, avoid public backlash, safeguard regional assets and maintain legal caution, all at the same time. The result of this chaotic and self-defeating approach is to be expected, drift.
Historically, the UK would have played, at minimum, a mediating role, a military role, or at the very least a clearly articulated diplomatic role. Today it seems to be playing none of them convincingly. Others act, Britain just talks and obfuscate.