When Was Caution Ever a Bad Thing? Starmer vs. Trump and The Greens, and Britain’s Empty War Chest
At the beginning of this week, there was… a poll.
According to the poll — conducted by YouGov — the Green Party had ‘leapfrogged’ Labour into second place in national voting intention following the Gorton & Denton by-election, a dissection of which featured in my previous piece.
Reform UK, the insurgent vessel of perpetual grievance, sat on 23 per cent (down one). The Greens climbed four points to 21 per cent. Labour and the Conservatives were tied on 16 per cent, both slipping two. The Liberal Democrats remained motionless on 14. There was no confetti. No emergency Downing Street lectern.
Just numbers. Rearranging themselves.
BUT —
It is difficult to imagine that these numbers were received in Downing Street with tranquil detachment over what Anthony Wells from YouGov calls the “viability” of the insurgent Green Party. The Greens, buoyed by the by-election result, were, in the eyes of pollsters, no longer registering as an expressive indulgence or a “wasted vote,” but as a plausible repository for dissatisfaction.
Protest, once symbolic, had begun flirting with consequence. The Greens are now the most popular party in all age categories under 50. It’s a striking stat.
Ordinarily, such a poll would dominate the Westminster bloodstream for days. Panels would be assembled. Anonymous MPs would brief. Think pieces would proliferate like damp.
Some did, but then the United States and Israel struck Iran, and the news cycle shifted from polling crosstabs to missile trajectories. On the domestic front, however, the conflict allowed Keir Starmer the opportunity to attempt something rare in modern British politics: restraint, risk analysis, and recalibration.
In British politics in 2026, this may not necessarily be the safest path.
The real issue for Starmer began at the weekend when the government initially refused to allow the US to use the UK-US Diego Garcia base on the Chagos Islands as part of an operation to strike Iranian targets.
US President Donald Trump said that he was “very disappointed” Starmer over refusal, and added that it “took far too long” for Starmer to change his mind, stating that:
“[Starmer] has not been helpful. I never thought I’d see that. I never thought I’d see that from the UK. We love the UK.”
To be clear, US jets were eventually given permission to use British bases to target Iranian missile launch sites and weapon storage depots. British planes are also taking part in “defensive” operations by shooting down Iranian missiles and drones, and HMS Dragon is being deployed to Cyprus.
But the fact Starmer offended Trump in the first instance by choosing to err on the side of caution, is risky, but actually good politically.
When the polling frequently shows a deep scepticism bordering on extreme dislike towards the US president in the UK, ‘disappointing’ him (which is also shorthand for annoying the living daylights out of him) and refusing to acquiesce to his demands is risky, but also worth it.
There are also the added elements that Starmer’s position on the bombing risks the right-wing press calling him weak. It also risks being framed as anti-Israel. This too is risky, but may also be worth it.
Amid all of this you have a Reform Party that has hit a ceiling in terms of voting intention. With Reform at around 23% of the national vote share — and slipping — what does doubling down on Trump alignment achieve?
Transatlantic populism, culture war solidarity, and a blind ‘stand with our allies’ framing around special relationships will do little beyond appealing to a core base — particularly when the legally questionable means in which the US and Israel jointly took to strike Iran is open to scrutiny.
For Farage this is a particularly interesting contrast with earlier beliefs.
For much of his political career, Nigel Farage positioned himself as a critic of Western interventionism. He has repeatedly stated that he “totally opposed” the Iraq War and the 2011 intervention in Libya, arguing that Western attempts at regime change frequently made the situations they sought to fix “worse and not better.”
That argument was not especially unusual in the aftermath of Iraq. The war’s legal justification collapsed, the region destabilised, and the phrase “lessons learned” entered the Westminster lexicon as a kind of ritual apology for strategic misadventure.
But Farage’s critique of those conflicts rested on a simple principle: scepticism toward Western military intervention in complex regional disputes where the legal and strategic outcomes were uncertain.
Which is precisely what makes the present alignment curious.
Because if Iraq and Libya were examples of reckless Western interventionism, then supporting Donald Trump’s escalation with Iran — an action already subject to legal scrutiny and international controversy — appears less like consistency and more like political gravity pulling toward Washington.
The opposite approach — or rather, opposition to Trump and interventionism — may bear more fruit.
And so for this recalibration, the response appears to show Starmer ‘doing a Polanski’ — or: being more open in criticism towards Trump and US foreign policy than usual. At least to an extent.
This could also be read as a conscious pivot away from Blue Labour triangulation and toward a softer-left, values-driven approach prompted by electoral shock.
The idea is that Starmer doesn’t need to audition for Washington. On a domestic front, he needs to try and survive May.
A Commons statement followed:
Quotes such as “this government does not believe in regime change from the skies” or insisting that any British military action “must always have a legal basis” explicitly citing “the mistakes of Iraq” were politically good, not because they were pragmatic, but because they upset Donald Trump.
Trump mocked Starmer’s legalistic approach in turn saying:
“It sounds like he was worried about the legality.”
Well, yes, because doing illegal things is generally considered bad, Mr. President.
Trump added to the criticism of Starmer by saying:
“This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with.”
In all fairness, for those who confuse Churchill as an almost saintly figure, not even Churchill was Churchill.
Trump is referring to the theme park Churchill rather than the one who contributed to the Bengalese famine of 1943, fervently supported the use of chemical weapons against people (or “uncivilised tribes” as Churchill called them) of Iraq and Afghanistan, presided over atrocities during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, massacred civilians as part of the suppression of Greek resistance, and (most relevant this week) helped the CIA and US orchestrate the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh for the benefit of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
To name just a few of Churchill’s… foreign policy misdeeds.
Not forgetting Churchill’s views on race that often reflected a belief in racial hierarchy and a casual disregard for the rights of non-white subjects, supported the forced sterilisation of the “feeble minded”, or documented remarks including his 1937 justification of white settlers taking land from Indigenous populations and his 1944 assertion that “Indians breed like rabbits.”
For all intents and purposes, however, Trump is right about Starmer not being Churchill.
Churchill drank scotch for breakfast, smoked cigars the size of a baby’s arm, and had a command of the English language that didn’t sound like it was being generated by a chat-bot trained on human resources manuals. Keir Starmer, by contrast, looks like he considers a sparkling water to be a ‘bit of a hedonistic Friday treat’ and speaks exclusively in clauses that could be admissible in a small claims court.
In that context, Trump’s disappointment in Starmer is understandable.
He purchased the “British Prime Minister” expansion pack expecting a bulldog in a Homburg hat who would blindly shell the “uncivilised tribes” of Tehran while reciting Shakespeare. Instead, he got a Knight of the Realm who reads the Terms & Conditions before clicking ‘Accept’ on a website.
Ironically, it’s precisely this ‘Terms & Conditions’ approach that has caused the current diplomatic constipation over Diego Garcia — exacerbating Trump’s annoyance.
While Trump views the Chagos Islands as an unsinkable American aircraft carrier that happens to be parked in the Indian Ocean, Starmer views them as a ‘complex sovereignty negotiation involving Mauritius and international treaty obligations.’
To Trump, this hesitation is weakness. Legally, to Trump, it’s stoopid.
Starmer’s critics—chiefly Reform UK, failed Conservatives and the right-wing press—frame the handover of the Chagos Islands as a national humiliation, a folding of the Union Jack in the face of international pressure. They use big, colourful, sabre-rattling words like ‘surrender’. They imagine that if we just ignored the International Court of Justice hard enough, the problem would vanish.
To Starmer, the approach is far more cynical, and arguably far more effective: it’s been turned into a landlord dispute.
The UK has effectively agreed to hand over the deed to Mauritius in exchange for a 99-year lease that guarantees the Americans can do whatever they like on Diego Garcia until the year 2125.
True, we have to pay Mauritius an annual fee for the privilege—essentially paying rent on a house we built ourselves—but the alternative was illegal occupation, post-colonial displacement of native Chagossians, and the potential grounding of supply flights by international courts.
By the time that lease runs out, Keir Starmer will be dust, Donald Trump will be a hologram, and the sea levels will likely have reclaimed the runway anyway.
So—
While Trump gives mixed signals by giving the OK on one hand before screaming about ‘ownership’ and ‘strength’ on the other, Starmer has quietly secured the base’s future by wrapping a ruthlessly strategic military occupation in the fluffy language of decolonisation. It is not weakness. It is the geopolitical equivalent of selling your house to the neighbour to avoid litigation, but retaining the legal right to park your tank on his lawn for the next century.
It’s these sort of complexities that make Trump angry and confused, naturally, but the broader point is that making Trump angry and confused might not be a bad thing for Starmer.
It doesn’t mean Starmer has discovered a backbone, however. It’s just that ‘hating on’ Trump is “cool.”
Further evidence of this approach came during PMQs.
Pressed on the issue over why Starmer initially refused to allow the the use of UK based to bomb Iran, he responded:
“What I was not prepared to do on Saturday was for the UK to join a war, unless I was satisfied there was a lawful basis and a viable thought-through plan. That remains my position.”
He also said:
“Hanging on to President Trump’s latest words is not the special relationship in action.”
Is the implication then that Starmer thinks Trump’s war is not only illegal, but also delivered without a plan? Is he saying that the relationship between the UK and the US is bigger than Donald Trump?
Maybe. But the point is, voters won’t mind this Hugh Grant-esque British vs. America rebuke, albeit without the charm or wit.
In fact, for Starmer, this performative hesitation is not just a diplomatic strategy; it is a domestic survival mechanism.
Lurking in the periphery of every Labour MP is the Green Party. Following the Gorton & Denton disaster, the Greens are no longer just an eco-pressure group; they are the repository for every voter even vaguely left or centre-left who feels Labour has lost its moral compass. They are becoming the viable alternative. It’s a growing number of voters that believe so, too — the party now has over 200,000 members (and growing) following the by-election win.
This is dangerous territory for Starmer heading into the May elections and so the approach to this matters; the ghost of Tony Blair looms; the ‘War on Terror’ is still a raw nerve in the memories of many; the criticism of another British Prime Minister hugging another feckless US president so tight that he suffocates is palpable.
It is the nightmare scenario: a pre-written Morning Star headline waiting to happen, currently sitting in the ‘Draft’ folder of every member of the Socialist Campaign Group looking at the numbers and wondering if a Conservative-to-Reform style defection might be in order.
There is, however, a second, darker reason for Starmer’s reluctance to commit British forces to a new Middle Eastern conflict. A reason that has less to do with moral fortitude and more to do with the fact that, militarily speaking, the cupboard is bare.
In short: Starmer’s ‘restraint’ is a virtue born of necessity.
Defence analysts have been screaming into the void about this for months. The Commons Defence Committee has repeatedly warned that the British Armed Forces have been “hollowed out” to the point where our warfighting readiness is effectively theoretical.
We talk a good game about ‘Global Britain’ and ‘projecting power,’ but the reality is a logistical farce.
Reports suggest that in a high-intensity peer conflict, the British Army would run out of ammunition in roughly ten days. Some analysts are even less generous, suggesting that if we fired our artillery at the same rate as the combatants in Ukraine, we would be throwing rocks by teatime on Tuesday.
And then there is the manpower. The British Army is currently at its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars. We ostensibly have a “warfighting division,” but as recent inquiries have noted, we won’t actually have the equipment to make it fight until roughly 2030.
Labour can thank the Conservatives for this.
For fourteen years, the Tory approach to national defence was to treat the Armed Forces less like a military and more like a distressed asset in a private equity portfolio. They didn’t just trim the fat; they liposuctioned the vital organs and sold them on eBay.
The statistics read like a indictment of criminal negligence:
The ‘Efficiency’ Drive: In 2010, the Cameron government slashed the defence budget by 8% in real terms, scrapping the Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft (vital for spotting Russian subs) and selling off the Harrier fleet to the US Marines for parts.
The Shrinking Army: They cut the regular army from 102,000 in 2010 to roughly 73,000 today—the smallest it has been since we were fighting Napoleon. Their “Future Soldier” plan essentially bet the farm on the idea that we could replace 10,000 actual soldiers with ‘cyber capabilities’ and a really aggressive PowerPoint presentation.
The Tank Farce: We have cut our main battle tank fleet from over 300 to just 148 Challenger 3s.
The Procurement Disaster of Ajax: The Conservatives spent £5.5 billion on a new reconnaissance vehicle that, for years, couldn’t be driven faster than 20mph without inflicting hearing loss on its own crew. We effectively spent the GDP of a small nation to build a tank that attacks the people inside it.
It goes on like this. The examples are countless.
So when Starmer says he needs a “viable plan” before committing to action, he isn’t just stalling for the sake of the Greens. He is stalling because he knows that sending the current British Army to fight a major regional war would be like entering a Formula 1 race in a clapped out 2004 Vauxhall Corsa with a big silencer on the exhaust. You might have the spirit, but the wheels are fairly likely to fall off on the first lap.
In this context, ‘restraint’ isn’t a policy choice. It’s a logistical necessity disguised as a virtue.
Put more simply, the adults may appear to be back in charge of a room without furniture, where the windows are smashed, and the landlord is threatening eviction. Starmer is leading a country that desperately wants to be a moral superpower but can currently only afford to be a moral spectator.
It is, in its own grim way, a perfect British compromise. We may get involved. We could ‘consider’ taking part. But we may also not. On the surface, the current decision making looks virtuous, but in reality it’s more likely because we are, quite literally, too broke.
The myth of ‘Global Britain’ is the sort of reality you can never explain to one of the sabre-rattling, flag wielding patriots on the right and far right. We have lived under the delusion of ‘Global Britain’—a nuclear-armed swagger masquerading as a strategy for years.
It’s neither victory for peace, caution or pragmatism. It isn’t a defeat for prestige if Britain decides to be a spectator either.
It is more a strategy of survival, executed with the grim determination of a man trying to assemble flat-pack furniture without the instructions, while keeping the voters happy with a pacifism we didn’t choose.