THE Conservatives have backed attacking Iran alongside the US if Donald Trump decides to do so.
Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said that the Tories would stand behind the UK Government if it followed America into war with Iran.
Trump has not ruled out joining Israel’s war with Iran and America is considering sending “bunker buster” B-2 bomber planes to strike the Middle Eastern country.
Uncertainty surrounds the UK position, with Attorney General Richard Hermer reported to have raised concerns that attacking Iran would be illegal beyond offering defensive support for Israel.
As the conflict nears the end of its first week, Foreign Secretary David Lammy (below) is heading to the US to meet his counterpart Marco Rubio to discuss the situation.
A minister told Times Radio that Keir Starmer would act in accordance with international law when asked about legal advice given to the Prime Minister about intervening in the conflict.
Energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh told Times Radio: “Legal advice is for the Prime Minister, and I think that’s where it will stay and you can understand why I won’t comment on that.
“But what I will say is that we have a Prime Minister who is a lawyer and a human rights lawyer, he will obviously do everything that is in accord with international law.”
Fahnbulleh (below) added that Starmer was acting as a “cool, calm head, to urge all partners around the negotiating table and to find a diplomatic route out of this”.
But Patel said: “I don’t think we can hide behind legal advice at a time of crisis and national security when we have to work alongside our biggest ally in the world, the United States, when they look to us for potentially […] setting out operational activities through our own military bases.”
She told Good Morning Britain: “While we want peace in the region, we’re crystal clear that Iran should not be able to obtain nuclear weapons.
“And if the Government judges that such action is necessary to avoid that then we would absolutely support the Government if it deemed it necessary to ensure that we can defend our country, our citizens and effectively a lot of our strategic equities in the Middle East region.”
Iran does not have a nuclear weapons programme but Israel maintains an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction though it does not officially confirm this.
Tehran says its nuclear programme is entirely for peaceful purposes.
Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, said in March that while Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was “at its highest levels”, America “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme that he suspended in 2003”.
