‘The UK’s right wing is suddenly silent about supporting war in Iran’

Read time: 3 mins

In brief…

• Critics of Keir Starmer’s refusal to offer full support to Donald Trump’s involvement in the invasion of Iran have fallen silent, following soaring oil prices threatening to worsen the cost of living crisis across the globe.
• The News Agents say the UK’s right wing has fallen silent, with politicians, journalists and commentators condemning Starmer’s decision less than a week ago.
• They say it is time for supposed intellectuals to treat Donald Trump with more scrutiny after more than eight years of political chaos, and to end following him blindly in every move he makes.

What’s the story?

A week ago, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage were hammering Keir Starmer in the House of Commons and the press, claiming he should have followed the US and Israel into war in Iran.

Starmer was accused in right-wing media of destroying the ’special relationship’ between the UK and the US, and weakening Britain on the international stage.

Now, those voices have either fallen silent or changed their mind entirely, with the war resulting in a surge in oil prices across the world threatening to worsen the cost of living crisis everywhere.

“There has been a clear shift in position,” says Lewis Goodall.

“So much of the UK's right-wing press and commentators were slamming Starmer last week, saying he had consigned us to complete irrelevance, that he had destroyed the relationship with Washington.”

Badenoch had initially told LBC that the UK was involved in the war with Iran whether it liked it or not – before this week telling the BBC that joining Trump in the offensive would have been a bad idea.

Farage had said Starmer needs to “change his mind” and that the UK’s “gloves must come off” – but less than two weeks into the war in Iran, reversed his position entirely and said the UK doesn’t actually have the “capacity” to join the war.

‘The UK’s right wing only cared about scoring points over Starmer’

Keir Starmer has supported the US. He has allowed its forces to use UK bases and resources for ‘defensive’ action, while refusing rivals’ calls to aid in offensive strikes as well.

Jon Sopel says Badenoch, Farage and the UK’s political right only made their calls on Starmer to join Trump’s invasion in order to challenge the Labour PM’s authority – and now it’s come back to bite them.

“We have opposition politicians so keen to score a win over Starmer, and his rather nuanced position, that they go all-in and say, we've got to back America,” Jon says.

“Over the course of the last 10 days, they've seen that Starmer has a point, that maybe we should be worried about oil prices, and maybe the Americans haven't got a clear plan.

“Now trying to get back on board with Starmer. He is having none of it.”

He hit back at Badenoch and Farage during Prime MInisters’ Questions in the House of Commons this week (11 March 2026).

‘All of this was entirely inevitable’

Trump initially claimed his involvement in invading Iran was to liberate its people, but its bombs have killed hundreds, and his administration has made conflicting justifications regarding nuclear weapons, ballistic weapons to try to justify its military strikes.

Emily Maitlis says it’s time for politicians to treat Trump with a little more scrutiny.

“The world rushes to believe so much of what Trump says because of his position, without ever stopping to think about whether he makes most of it up, checks the intelligence, or has a plan,” she says.

“So many people rush into the idea of strategy, just because it comes from a US president, but nobody steps back to ask if anything that he's done in the past eight years made any sense.”

Lewis says it was entirely predictable that Trump would have no clue what happened next, and that the economic consequences were also entirely inevitable.

‘If Tony Blair tells you to go to war, you shouldn’t go to war’

It wasn’t just the right wing demanding Starmer join the war – former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, best known to many for his involvement in the Iraq war, also said Starmer should be following the US.

Blair said the UK should have offered its full support "from the very beginning”.

But Emily says his comments would only have made Starmer even more certain that he was on the right path.

“Once Tony Blair is telling you to go to war, Farage is telling you to go to war, and Badenoch is telling you to go to war – it's pretty damn obvious you shouldn't go to war,” she says.

The News Agents say Starmer has had “his best week for some time”.

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.