David Gauke: Donald Trump is not our friend and all parties should be wary of being too close

David Gauke is a former Justice Secretary and was an independent candidate in South-West Hertfordshire at the 2019 general election.

The Iranian regime is loathsome.

It suppresses its people with extraordinary brutality; it exports terrorism that destabilises its region; and it provides a potentially existential threat to the only true democracy in the region – Israel. If and when the mullahs and Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps lose power, the long term prospects for the Iranian people and the wider world should be much improved.

There are also very good reasons for the UK to maintain close relations with the US.  It is our most important security ally and, for all the ups and downs, we have benefited enormously from the protection the US has provided.  Without the US, there are many ways in which we are exposed and vulnerable.

One can also make the case that the response of the UK Government to recent events in Iran has been slow and unconvincing.  Seeing President Macron portray himself as the defender of Cyprus is an uncomfortable experience.  Gulf allies have felt unsupported. Keir Starmer’s position – ‘we cannot act one day, we can act the next’ – is complicated and is consistent with the critique that he is unduly constrained by obstacles that other leaders might overcome.  It is not implausible to suggest that party management decisions were a consideration in determining the Government’s approach.

All of these factors meant that Starmer was severely criticised in the opening days of the Iranian conflict for being insufficiently supportive of the US.  For many on the right, the UK should have been more hawkish.  Nigel Farage told a press conference on 2 March that “we have to take the gloves off… we have to get rid of this regime”.  On the same day, Kemi Badenoch told the Commons that there is “no point wanting action to make the world a safe place while being too scared to do anything except stand by and watch others” and at the Conservative spring conference five days’ later stated that Starmer was “too scared to make foreign interventions for fear of upsetting a tiny section of the electorate”.

Both Farage and Badenoch have rowed back.  On 10 March, Farage told reporters that “we cannot get involved directly in another foreign war”, while Badenoch insisted that she “never said we should join” the war.

There is no denying that this is a very substantial shift in tone.  For all the desire to remove a totalitarian enemy of the West, determination to stay close to the US, and relish in exploiting the Prime Minister’s uncomfortable position, neither Farage nor Badenoch are taking a markedly different approach than the Government.  All parties are cautious about British involvement.

It is worth identifying why both Farage and Badenoch struck the wrong notes at the outset.  For those urging a more active British role, there was an under-estimation of the Iranian regime’s resilience, and an over-estimation of the competence of the US.

In the former case, there appears to be a case of wishful thinking.  The collapse of the Iranian regime will presumably happen one day, but the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei and much of the regime’s leadership has sadly not created it yet.  Nor should this come as a great surprise. As Rishi Sunak pointed out last week, Ministers have long been advised by officials that the regime would survive the removal of the top tier.

Even more obviously, however capable the US military might be, little confidence should have been placed in the ability of this US administration to formulate and implement a coherent and realistic strategy.  That is a polite way of saying that the US President is increasingly erratic, and that the rest of his administration is unwilling or unable to constrain him.

Everything we have learnt about the Iranian conflict shows an alarming absence of competence on the part of the US.

The failure to set out any clearly stated objectives was not a clever wheeze to maintain flexibility, but proof that the US did not know what it was doing.  There is no evidence that the action was co-ordinated with opposition groups within Iran. Most obviously, there appears to have been no preparation of the Iranians blocking the Strait of Hormuz.  This was hardly an obscure eventuality.  Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the region knew that this was the likely response to an existential threat to the regime.  And yet the Trump administration appears to be taken by surprise and is only now putting in place counter-measures and is calling for support from allies it has previously insulted.

We are all going to have to pay a price for this extraordinary failure. Oil prices have increased which will result in wider inflationary pressures.  This, in turn, will contribute to higher interest rates and lower growth both which will damage the public finances.

Geopolitically, Russia is benefiting.  The US’s stockpile of missiles – which could have greatly assisted the Ukrainians – is being used up; sanctions against Russian oil is being abandoned by the US; and higher oil prices are providing a lifeline to Russia’s previously failing economy.

Nor does it look guaranteed that the long-term threat of Iran has been removed.  The possibility that the regime just collapses remains, but more likely is that either the conflict is prolonged – in which case the economic damage will immense – or that President Trump prematurely declares victory, leaving the regime in place a capable of recovering and knowing that the ability to block the Strait of Hormuz is a very powerful weapon.

Wanting the US action against Iran to succeed in replacing an evil regime with something much better is one thing, but the odds were always that is not going to be the case.  In such circumstances, reticence in supporting the US was not a moral failure, but was perfectly sensible.

The economy will be damaged and whoever is in government will be held accountable.  But Trump will – deservedly – get some of the blame and being seen as being close to him will be no asset.  This is a much bigger problem for Farage (who recently flew out to Mar-a-Lago in the vain hope of an audience with Trump) than Badenoch, but both should put greater distance between themselves and a US President whose policies and behaviour – whether as a consequence of spite, incompetence or (it cannot be dismissed) deteriorating senility – are deeply damaging to the UK.

Trump is a dangerous man and deeply unpopular with the British public.  There is more than enough fault in this Government to provide opportunities to an effective opposition party. But the apparent assumption that if Trump and Starmer are in disagreement the role of opposition parties is to take the side of the US President is very much mistaken.  Donald Trump is not our friend.