Keir Starmer finally got his backbone – bottling it now can be disastrous | News World

There’s a version of Keir Starmer that British people have grown wearily acquainted with over the past 18 months.

It goes something like this: he makes a policy announcement, there’s pushback, and he U-turns.

In September last 12 months, he announced a compulsory digital ID scheme for people to prove their right to work in Britain. Inside every week, public support had cratered by 10 points. Faced with that, and backlash from his own MPs, he rowed back and made it non-compulsory.

Or when Labour looked like they were doubling down on the unfair farmer’s inheritance tax, only to alter the edge just before Christmas. Or the winter fuel payments. Two-child profit cap. Welfare reform.

This list goes on.

But something has shifted in recent weeks. Because the Middle East has lurched from crisis to crisis, Starmer has done something miraculous. 

He’s rediscovered his backbone.

I’ve found it thrilling to look at Starmer stand his ground. He’s refused to commit British warships to the Strait of Hormuz. He has absorbed public mockery from essentially the most powerful man on the planet – being called ‘no Winston Churchill’ and ‘not helpful’ by Trump. But, to his great credit, Starmer has shrugged it off and held firm: Britain is not going to be dragged right into a war that’s, at its core, an exercise in distraction and coercion. 

And because it seems, I’m not the just one. The British public relatively likes it too.

A recent poll over the weekend found that Starmer’s net approval rating jumped by 26 points, from minus 40 to minus 14, when voters saw him pushing back on Trump.

He continues to be in negative territory – this will not be an overnight transformation – and the general public hasn’t forgotten that, despite his initial refusal to permit the US to make use of British bases for offensive strikes on Iran, he later sanctioned their use for defensive ones.

But that 26-point gap is the difference between a frontrunner who’s politically finished and one who has found, nevertheless inadvertently, a story that works.

Now comes the hard part: Trump is at it again – and I can’t help but feel apprehensive about whether Starmer can hold his nerve. If he bottles it now, it’s going to surely seal his fate.

Yesterday, the US President posted on Truth Social that the US will ‘completely obliterate’ Iran’s power plants, oil wells and Kharg Island – its most strategically vital oil terminal – unless a peace deal is reached ‘shortly’ and the Strait of Hormuz is instantly reopened.

This follows the recent 48-hour ultimatum, which was quietly prolonged by five days hours before the deadline was reached, with Trump claiming ‘productive conversations’ with Tehran that they outright denied. 

Just one other day in Trump’s administration.

We’ve got been here before; the pattern is established. Trump issues a threat intended to compel and coerce, his opposition holds firm, Trump blinks first, reframes his retreat as diplomacy, and issues a brand new threat. Greenland, Venezuela and Cuba all follow this pattern.

But whatever the President’s volatile geopolitical strategies, his war has a direct effect on Starmer’s room for manoeuvre.

The longer the Strait stays shut, the more pressure builds on Starmer, with prolonged economic strain leading to rising petrol prices, energy bills, stalled economic recovery.

Should the economic pressure eventually force Starmer’s hand within the Middle East, his 26-point approval boost evaporates. The strong character he has spent a month fastidiously constructing – principled restraint, legal basis, lessons of Iraq – collapses immediately.

For our beleaguered PM, I’m unsure there’s any getting back from that.

Trump’s war will not be Britain’s war. Starmer’s position not to have interaction within the conflict will not be just politically popular; it’s legally and morally correct.

The President has now openly threatened to destroy civilian power infrastructure – cutting electricity to hundreds of thousands, knocking out water desalination plants across the Gulf, potentially affecting nuclear facilities.

While attacks on energy infrastructure have long been a part of warfare, there are limits. If civilians are harmed in the method, it’s a transparent breach of international humanitarian law.

And naturally Trump, being the person he’s, will proceed to goad Starmer to take the bait. Today, the President addressed the UK on Truth Social, saying, ‘You’ll have to start out learning fight for yourself, the USA won’t be there to provide help to anymore, similar to you weren’t there for us.’

Within the face of all of this, Starmer must stand firm. Britain will, as he said, ‘never contemplate going to war with out a legal basis’. The painful lessons of Iraq demand nothing less. We want him to carry that commitment to the British people, in order that the person who has kept Britain out of Trump’s war doesn’t change into the one who quietly joins it.

My fear is that Starmer’s instinct could also be to achieve for a compromise. To search out a method to keep everyone completely satisfied, to avoid confrontation. For him, the temptation to pursue this route can be perilous, to say the least.

The local elections in May are already looking grim for Labour. The economy is stalling, and Trump’s war in Iran has wrecked whatever growth projections Rachel Reeves was clinging to.

Anyone who argues that a grand gesture of solidarity with America – ships within the Gulf, boots near the Strait – might project strength ahead of a difficult night on the ballot box, must be ignored.

The British public has given Starmer something rare and helpful: a transparent mandate to remain out.

They are not looking for this war. They’re watching a president threaten to obliterate civilian infrastructure in real time, and so they usually are not cheering it on.

Starmer has stumbled into the precise position almost despite himself. 

The query is whether or not he has the nerve to remain there.

Do you could have a story you’d prefer to share? Get in contact by emailing jessica.aureli@metro.co.uk. 

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