Ed Balls Criticises Robert Jenrick Over Iran U-Turn

Ed Balls skewered Robert Jenrick over Reform UK’s shifting position on the war in Iran.

Nigel Farage previously said the UK “should do all we can to support” the US and Israeli strikes on the Middle East country.

Nadhim Zahawi, the former Tory chancellor who defected to Reform in January, went even further by saying “we should join the bombing if needed”.

But in a major shift in the party’s position, Farage said on Tuesday: “If we can’t even defend Cyprus, let’s not get ourselves involved in another foreign war.”

On ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Jenrick said: “We’re actually entirely on the same page and have been all along.

“What we’re actually most concerned about are the British people here. Reform is a party for working people, it’s not a party for war.

“We’re worried about the impact this is going to have on people’s bills here in the UK. You’re seeing that already. People were hard up enough already before the war and we’ve got to be very concerned about what happens next.”

But Balls told him: “The facts are clear. Nigel Farage said on March 2 ‘we should do all we can to support the operation. I make that perfectly, perfectly clear’.

“And you are now saying Reform is not the party of a war which Donald Trump started and Nigel Farage last week wanted the government to support. It’s a blatant contradiction, it’s a change of policy.

“I think ‘well done to you’, Kemi Badenich’s probably thinking that Nigel Farage is now in the firing line. You’re having an impact, I just don’t know why you want to hide your light under a bushel.”

But Jenrick said Farage had been talking about allowing the US to use British bases to strike Iran, which Keir Starmer initially denied them permission to do.

“It has been very harmful for the US to no longer view us as such a reliable ally as a result of the vacillation of the prime minister,” Jenrick said.

“But that’s a very different proposition to saying that we should be doing offensive action ourselves.

“The point that I’ve made, consistent with Nigel, is I don’t think that’s in the interests of the British people right now, and I’m very worried about this war going on longer than it needs to and that having more and more impact on working people in the country.”