Nigel Farage’s chameleon politics has been laid bare once more after an old tweet about backing the US in the Middle East resurfaced.
On Saturday, the Reform leader called on Keir Starmer to “change his mind on the use of our military bases” by American forces in their conflict with Iran.
Farage wrote that the prime minister needs to “back the Americans in this vital fight against Iran.”
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It wasn’t long though before the Clacton MP was reminded that this was quite the pivot from his position a decade ago.
In a tweet from June 2015, when Barack Obama was US president, Farage had written: “We don’t need to take foreign policy advice from the American President.
“The last time we did that it was called the Iraq War.”
On Sunday, Starmer announced he had given the US permission to use British bases for defensive purposes.
In a statement, the prime minister said: “Our partners in the Gulf have asked us to do more to defend them and it’s my duty to protect British lives. We have British jets in the air as part of coordinated defensive operations which have already successfully intercepted Iranian strikes, but the only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source, in their storage depots or the launchers which are used to fire the missiles.”
He continued: “The United States has requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose. We have taken the decision to accept this request to prevent Iran firing missiles across the region, killing innocent civilians, putting British lives at risk, and hitting countries that have not been involved.”
“The basis of our decision is the collective self defence of long-standing friends and allies and protecting British lives – that is in accordance with international law and we are publishing a summary of our legal advice,” he added.
Starmer said the UK had learned lessons from the “mistakes of Iraq”, and “will not join offensive action now” against Iran.
The BBC reports that the US is likely to use RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for strikes on Iranian missile sites.
The PM’s announcement came just hours before a British RAF base in Cyprus was hit by a drone strike. No casualties were reported and the Ministry of Defence said only “minimal damage” had been caused.