Starmer can call this “defensive” all he likes, but once the state is moving families off a UK base within hours, the consequences have already started. Right, so Keir Starmer has said yes to Donald Trump on Iran, and within twenty-four hours a British base has taken a hit. He gives the United States permission to use UK bases to strike Iranian missiles “at source”, he calls it “defensive”, he puts out a legal summary to wrap it up in a ribbon, and then the Sovereign Base Areas Administration has confirmed a suspected drone impact at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and at time of writing sirens are going off and people are being urged to head for shelters. Families get moved. Non-essential people get dispersed. Cyprus’s president, Nikos Christodoulides, goes on record saying his country is not taking part in any military operation. British sovereign territory on an EU member island is now part of the active map, and Starmer still wants you repeating the word “defensive” like it changes what the runway is actually being used for. Green Party leader Zack Polanski has done the simplest thing in politics in response to this, which is to drop the receipts though. He has quote-tweeted Starmer’s own 2020 pledge graphic, one of those infamously broken 10 pledges from when Starmer ran to lead the Labour Party; the one that said “No more illegal wars”, the one that promised a Prevention of Military Intervention Act, the one that promised human rights at the heart of foreign policy and a review of arms sales, and he has put it next to Starmer’s present-day decision to let American strikes launch from British bases in an act of atrocity against Iran that has zero legal basis whatsoever.