Starmer was right to keep Britain out of this war

Sir Keir Starmer, as is often noted, is by profession a lawyer. It is only to be expected that he respects international law and upholds it where he can.

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He is also, it hardly needs adding, a politician by trade, and a highly pragmatic one at that. Those are reasons enough to understand his change of heart and his decision to - partially - now back the attacks on Iran by Israel and the United States. He knows, rather better than his critics, the risks he runs as he attempts to navigate his way through one of the biggest international crises this century.

In the first place, the prime minister was right to keep Britain out of this war. It was, we may assume, on the basis of legal advice that a serious military assault by any nation on another where there is no immediate threat of aggression is unlawful, breaches the United Nations convention, and represents a return to the dangerous principle that “might is right” in settling international disputes.

It’s hardly the first such incident, but it is heavily laden with jeopardy, and unusually naked and unashamed. Unlike, say, the multinational invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, there was not even a token effort by the US and Israel to gain UN authority for the action.