US and Israeli strikes towards Iran not ‘legal in a way that the UK would recognise’ | EUROtoday

US and Israeli strikes towards Iran usually are not “legal in a way that the UK would recognise”, a former UK nationwide safety adviser has warned.

Explosions have been heard over Tehran on Saturday morning after the coordinated “preventative attack”, which has prompted retaliatory strikes from Iran in the direction of Israel.

President Donald Trump confirmed a “major combat operation” in an eight-minute speech posted to Truth Social, stating Iran may by no means have a nuclear weapon and including: “It’s been mass terror, and we’re not going to take it any longer.”

Sir Keir Starmer is about to chair an emergency COBRA safety assembly on Saturday morning and has elevated army and safety on the UK’s army bases in Cyprus. The UK didn’t take part within the strikes.

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The UK authorities is at odds with the Trump administration, having denied permission for the US to make use of RAF bases for the strikes due to issues over worldwide legislation.

That sentiment was echoed by Peter Ricketts, the UK’s former nationwide safety advisor, who stated the UK wouldn’t take into account the assaults authorized.

He instructed BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “None of this, I think, is in any sense legal in a way that the UK would recognise.

“There was actually no imminent risk to the US. This is motion that they selected to undertake, or have been dragged into it by the Israelis.”

Lord Ricketts added that the Israeli government had “pre-empted any threat that the US-Iranian negotiations have been going to succeed in some type of deal on the nuclear programme”.

Responding to news of the strikes, a UK government spokesperson said: “Iran must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and that is why we have continually supported efforts to reach a negotiated solution.

“Our immediate priority is the safety of UK nationals in the region and we will provide them with consular assistance, available 24/7.

“As part of our longstanding commitments to the security of our allies in the Middle East, we have a range of defensive capabilities in the region, which we have recently bolstered. We stand ready to protect our interests. We do not want to see further escalation into a wider regional conflict.”

The UK and US have been at odds over Middle East policy, with Sir Keir refusing to take a role in Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza, although former prime minister Sir Tony Blair has accepted a seat on it.

President Trump was also angered over the UK’s decision, along with France and other allies, to recognise the state of Palestine.

But the row over the use of RAF bases in Cyprus to bomb Iran is also understood to have had wider implications, with President Trump withdrawing his support for Sir Keir’s Chagos Islands deal to cede the British territory to Mauritius.

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Meanwhile, a senior Labour MP has warned that the UK should resist being drawn into a conflict in the Middle East.

Dame Emily Thornberry, chairwoman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she did not think the US-Israeli strikes were legal.

She said: “As far as I’m conscious, we’re not concerned on this. There’s not been British settlement to be concerned on this, and I feel that is the appropriate factor to do. I do not suppose that there is a authorized foundation for this motion.”

She added: “They weren’t beneath imminent risk, and so it is subsequently troublesome to see what the authorized justification is.”

Asked whether the UK should resist being drawn into the conflict, Dame Emily said: “Absolutely, except we’re attacked ourselves, which, as I say, sadly this morning, we do not know whether or not we shall be as a result of there could also be assaults by the Iranians on Western bases within the Arab Gulf, and so then the state of affairs might change.

“We just don’t know.”