In the House of Commons today, the Government made a statement about the Iran-Israel conflict.

I asked the Foreign Secretary whether we are to really believe that strikes led by Trump and Netanyahu – two hard right authoritarian with no love for a rules based international order – are really making Britain or the world any safer. I told the Foreign Secretary that for much of the world, the message is chillingly clear: in a global order where rules mean little and might makes right, deterrence not diplomacy is now the only defense. That makes global security more precarious than ever.

Further comments I have made about this issue:

It seems with the collapse of any meaningful commitment to a rules-based international order – replaced instead by a raw-power dialogue shaped by might over right – every country in the global South watching Gaza burn and witnessing strikes on Iran is asking the same question: Are we next?

Some will now draw the darkest of conclusions. That to avoid the fate of Gaza or Iraq, or Libya – they too must consider acquiring biological or even nuclear capabilities.

Deterrence, not diplomacy, becomes the lesson.

We are not making the world safer. We are making it infinitely more dangerous. And for Britain to so uncritically align itself with the actions of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu – two hard-right authoritarians with little respect for democracy or the international norms that sustain it – is not just morally indefensible. It’s a dangerous travesty that risks dragging us into wars we did not start, and whose consequences we will all have to bear.