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Defence Secretary John Healey warned that Iran was “lashing out in an increasingly indiscriminate and widespread way” with retaliatory strikes that had endangered British forces and allies in the region.

The 86-year-old Ayatollah, who had ruled Iran since 1989, died on Saturday when precision missiles and aircraft struck his fortified Tehran compound as part of the joint assault targeting more than 500 military and strategic sites across the country.

U.S. President Donald Trump publicly announced the leader’s death, describing Khamenei as “one of the most evil people in history” and branding the operation as a decisive blow against what he called a “source of terror”, vowing that strikes would continue until U.S. objectives were met.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) vowed to “take a different and tough step of revenge” after promising to conduct “the most devastating offensive” in Iranian history.

Iran has retaliated with ballistic missile and drone attacks on U.S. military positions in the Gulf and infrastructure in allied states, while air-defence systems have been activated across the region. Explosions have been detected over Dubai, Doha, Bahrain, Iraq and Israel.

Healey said that “few people will mourn” Khamenei’s death, describing the Iranian regime as “a source of evil” responsible for internal repression and the export of terror, including threats to the UK.

Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kussenberg, Healey said Britain is “on top of what’s necessary to keep [the public] safe, to reinforce regional stability, to prevent further escalation”. He refused to say if Britain could join the US-Israeli offensive.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer reaffirmed that Britain was not involved in the U.S.-Israeli strikes, condemning Iran’s retaliatory attacks he urged Tehran to “refrain from indiscriminate military strikes” and to return to diplomatic negotiations.

Starmer also spoke with President Trump on Saturday, discussing the unfolding crisis and clarifying the UK position on defensive operations in the Middle East. Both agreed that Iran must never be able to develop a nuclear weapon, reiterated the need to work closely amongst allies and partners to improve regional security.

British aircraft have been deployed for protective missions, but the Prime Minister reaffirmed that the UK was not a party to the offensive that killed Khamenei, emphasising international law and the need to avoid wider conflict.

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The triumph of the Greens at the Gorton and Denton by-election prompted a renewed chorus of voices declaring the demise of the era of two-party politics.

It showed that incumbents on the centre-left are just as vulnerable to insurgents as incumbents on the centre-right, as voters seek to punish a political system they think no longer works for them.

And while the costs of a protest vote are lower in a byelection or local government elections, party affiliations in the UK are weakening and with them the Conservative and Labour duopoly.

Nobody knows how this new multi-party politics will play out in a first-past-the-post electoral system at the next general election, but it seems unlikely it will lead to a result that is any more stable.

Because one of the great puzzles of today’s politics is why large majorities have not, as in the past, translated into periods of calm, authoritative government.

If Keir Starmer can’t deliver sufficient change to wing round grumpy voters with a majority of more than 150 – just as Boris Johnson failed to make a majority of more than 80 work for him – it starts to look like something is broken.

Christopher Hinchliff, on paper, looks like a chief whip’s dream. A newly-elected MP in a marginal seat, Hinchliff has been a party activist for the Labour Party for half his life and previously served the party in local government.

Conventional wisdom suggests that Hinchliff should not cause too much disruption – MPs with small majorities do not rebel, less so committed activists recently elected.

At 31, Hinchliff might have expected to have a long parliamentary career ahead of him, but in July, a year into a Labour government with a historically large mandate, he found himself without the whip. He voted with the government 97 per cent of the time. But like many youthful MPs, he voiced much of his displeasure publicly – via X.

Among the targets of his ire were bureaucrats on Labour’s governing body, who he called “mouthpieces” for housing developers, while critics in government were guilty of “public schoolboy drinking culture”.

Hinchliff’s suspension, alongside that of a number of newly elected MPs, is one of the quickest in recent history. But it didn’t seem particularly surprising. His suspension (now ended) is symptomatic of a culture of political defiance, which the current and previous occupiers of Number 10 seem to have no clue how to fix.

The raw statistics bear this out. Britain has had six prime ministers in the last ten years, as opposed to eight between 1966 and 2016. Backbench revolts throughout that period, such as those over EU issues in the 90s, rarely ended prime ministerships. Since then, there have been four mid-term transitions in the last decade.

Britain’s generally weak economic performance ever since the 2008 financial crisis, with stagnating real wages, flat productivity and GDP per capita growth, is an obvious factor. When real incomes stagnate, poll decline for whoever steps through the door of Number 10 is unlikely to be far away, and when MPs are fearful for their seats, it makes them more inclined to speak their mind on leadership failings.

Then there are obstacles to delivery. The two leading parties in the polls describe Britain’s state as being broken, and the desire for an overhaul of British polity is spreading regardless of ideology. Attempts to remedy issues with the delivery of policy are underway. Antonia Romeo has been appointed to Cabinet Secretary following the defenestration of Chris Wormald, with Romeo known for getting results across Whitehall for her political masters.  

Morgan McSweeney departed Number 10 as the sixth consecutive Downing Street chief of staff to leave after less than 2 years, many having fallen to protect their boss from party indiscipline.

If MPs know rebels can still get ministerial appointments, there’s less incentive to always tow the line

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Nicholas Allen, Professor of Politics at Royal Holloway, said that MPs’ careers break down to two aims, which until recently have been seen as mutually exclusive.

“In essence, it breaks down the idea of the ‘career politician’ into distinct components. One component — a strong commitment to a full-time political career — makes cross-voting and rebellion more likely. Ministerial ambition has the opposite effect and makes rebellion much less likely.”

“Assuming commitment and ambition are present to varying degrees in MPs, it could be that a large number of MPs are less motivated by ministerial ambition, or MPs have come to the conclusion their ambition is less likely to be fulfilled or rebelling is less of an impediment to getting to high office.

“If MPs know rebels can still get ministerial appointments, there’s less incentive to always tow the line.”

Part of this stems from MPs being much more prominent on social media. Choice briefings by Downing Street officials, which they dislike, are visible to them, and MPs are much more willing to call it out.

Meg Russell, Director of the Constitution Unit at UCL, told The House that social media has caused a two-way feed of rebellion among MPs — voicing their criticism of the government is far easier, and the criticism of voters is far easier to see.

“Perhaps there are some factors about MPs in recent years that make them more rebellious — the most obvious to me is social media, which means that individuals have an outlet, and are to an extent under the pressure, to expect their views on individual policy matters”.

While social media’s role in politics has grown over the last two decades, some suggest the hard edge of the whips to enforce discipline has also declined. The former MP Paul Flynn’s book outlined how some whips previously went around the business of party discipline. He wrote: “I witnessed a cowering, tearful young MP pinned to a wall of the ‘No’ lobby by the fat gut of a sixteen stone whip yelling his charm offensive message: ‘I have two words to say to you – fucking coward’. The whip then waddled off to share the same potent words with half a dozen other Tories who had disobeyed the whips’ instructions.

While a more professional workplace is surely no bad thing, there’s also a question mark over whether such tactics actually worked in the long term. Russell offers a different theory on whipping: the tools of whips are increasingly limited when trying to enforce discipline.

“I think a lot of this is about the recent attitudes of the parties and their leaders. Whipping is a two-way street. It was always exaggerated the extent to which the job of whip was to make MPs do things, and it’s well known that the tools of discipline have declined. For example, whips never controlled speaking time or funding for MPs as they do in some parliaments, and have largely lost control over things like allocation for office space and committee seats”

For the current government, the prognosis still seems poor, as once discipline is lost in a parliament, it becomes very hard to regain.

Phillip Cowley has previously highlighted a research paper in his column for this magazine, which noted that British government MPs were 0.3 per cent more likely to rebel for each month their party was in power, indicating Britain is only likely to get harder to govern rather than easier.

That raises questions for Starmer’s future. If further rebellion is unavoidable, how can he combat it?

Russell said that attempts to use purely the stick in order to fight indiscipline don’t often work well, and a more collegiate approach may be the only way to survive.

“Boris Johnson sought to be a hard man by throwing MPs out for rebelling only once. That behaviour might have worked short-term, but that kind of behaviour just builds up resentment among MPs towards a leader, and of course, he was toppled at the end.

“Starmer seems to have the same hard man attitude, but it was always a myth that MPs voted cohesively because leaders were telling them what to do — leaders have to earn that support. Leaders who misunderstand this end up in a fragile position”.

If Starmer goes the way of Sunak, Truss, Johnson and May before him, his successor will inherit a huge majority. They will also be passed the conundrum that defeated him and his Conservative predecessors – that this no longer brings the power it once did – while voters’ expectations are higher than ever.

Iran 1) Regime confirms Khamenei’s death

“Iranian state media has confirmed the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Tasnim and Fars news agencies have confirmed the death of the country’s leader, hours after President Trump said that he had been killed in US-Israeli strikes. “The Supreme Leader of Iran Has Reached Martyrdom,” state broadcaster IRIB reported on Sunday morning.” – Sunday Times

• How the US pulled off the assassination of the century – Sunday Telegraph
• Trump’s bet on Iranian regime change could be his biggest gamble yet – BBC
• Iranians rejoice at death of ‘the devil’ – Sunday Telegraph
• Panic at Dubai Airport as ‘it is hit by an Iranian suicide drone’ and passengers flee wrecked terminal – Mail on Sunday
• Inside Operation Epic Fury – Sunday Times
• Corbyn joins hundreds of pro-Iran protesters in London carrying banners of the Ayatollah – Mail on Sunday
• Why is the US attacking Iran? Trump’s ‘huge gamble’ explained – Mark Urban, Sunday Times
• How the world has reacted – BBC

>Today: ToryDiary: Iranian interventions are a tricky balance of the price, the prize, and the problem with the Prince of Persia

Iran 2) Starmer calls for diplomatic solution

“Sir Keir Starmer has spoken to Donald Trump following strikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader – as he urged against further escalation in the Middle East. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said Sir Keir ‘set out that the UK was taking part in coordinated regional defensive operations to protect British people and regional partners following Iran’s indiscriminate retaliatory strikes on allies in the region’. The Prime Minister had earlier said that British planes are ‘in the sky’ to ‘protect our people, our interests and our allies’ after waves of missile attacks in countries across the region. He also spoke to European leaders – with whom he issued a joint statement calling for a diplomatic solution.” – Mail on Sunday

• Starmer blocked US from using British bases for Iran attack – Sunday Times
• The world’s most evil regime is on the brink – and Britain has nothing to do with it – Jake Wallis Simons, Sunday Telegraph
• UK forces must be ready to help US against Iran’s murderous terror-backing regime – Leader, The Sun on Sunday
• Shut down Iran propaganda machine operating in Britain, Starmer told – Sunday Telegraph

Iran 3) Bolton: Trump needs Iranian commanders to turn on the regime

“When an authoritarian government begins to come apart, it can be every man for himself, both at government’s highest levels, and among the rank and file. This potential is what the resistance must seek to exploit. Find commanders, especially in the regular military and police force, but perhaps even in the IRGC, willing to split from the ayatollahs. Find even a few ayatollahs willing to call for the country’s religious leaders to withdraw from politics and return to their true vocation. Those who abandon ship from the regime may not have the purest of motives but what matters is that they defect to what they should perceive as the winning side.” – John Bolton, Sunday Telegraph

Other comment

• I want a free Iran, but deep down I don’t trust Trump to do it – Matthew Syed, Sunday Times
• Trump has opened Pandora’s box but now is our chance to shape Iran’s future – Tobias Ellwood, Mail on Sunday
• Iran strikes were 47 years in the making. They must succeed. – Leader, Sunday Times
• With the regime teetering, Trump must now finish the job – Leader, Sunday Telegraph

Simons resigns as Cabinet Office Minister

“Josh Simons, the Cabinet Office minister engulfed in the Labour Together scandal, has resigned. Simons was cleared by Sir Laurie Magnus, the independent adviser to the prime minister on ministerial standards, of breaching the ministerial code. However, Magnus said there was a risk of “distraction and potential reputational damage” if he remained in the government.” – Sunday Times

Farage calls for an end to non-British citizens voting in UK elections

“Nigel Farage has sensationally claimed that Reform UK was robbed of victory by foreign-born voters in last week’s Manchester by-election. Amid mounting allegations that voter fraud and sectarianism contributed to the Green Party’s shock win, Mr Farage makes the incendiary assertion in the Mail on Sunday that ‘Reform UK won the Gorton and Denton by-election among British-born voters’. And he vowed that if he becomes Prime Minister he will rip up rules which allow non-British citizens to vote in UK elections. Zack Polanski’s Greens targeted the Muslim vote in Gorton and Denton, focusing their campaign on Gaza and accusing Israel of genocide. The party, which released leaflets and videos in Urdu, has been accused of ‘whipping up hatred’ and exploiting sectarianism to secure victory for their candidate, Hannah Spencer.” – Mail on Sunday

• A grave threat to our democracy – Leader, Mail on Sunday
• Family voting is a monstrous attack on our democracy – Nigel Farage, Sunday Telegraph
• The invisible man whose millions are transforming British politics – The Observer
• A culture war with the Greens will only harm Reform – James Frayne, Sunday Telegraph
• ‘Unlike the Tories, Reform MPs aren’t constantly at each others’ throats’ says Jenrick – Sunday Telegraph

Peers 1) Docherty suspended by Labour after sixth-form college group sexual liaisons

“One of Sir Keir Starmer’s new peers has been suspended by Labour after it emerged that he resigned from a sixth-form college group after conducting sexual liaisons during working hours. Joe Docherty became Lord Docherty of Milngavie last month after being nominated by the prime minister. He was stripped of the party whip on Saturday, pending an investigation.” – Sunday Times

Peers 2) Limb to delay taking up her seat

“One of Sir Keir Starmer’s new peers has said she will not take up her seat until revelations relating to her past are resolved. Dame Ann Limb, an education expert, admitted lying about having a PhD following a Sunday Times investigation last month. She now faces fresh allegations related to her time at City & Guilds, a historic charity which she chaired. She oversaw the sale of the charity’s assets in a secretive deal that saw two executive receive bonuses in excess of £1 million.” – Sunday Times

By-election 1) Starmer still “up for a fight”

“Starmer is certainly keen to project an image of being “up for a fight” with Reform, arguing that despite the Gorton & Denton result, when it comes to a general election the Greens will not be a serious proposition and Labour will still be the rallying point for the majority of the country that wants to stop Farage. “In the last few weeks we’ve seen Keir taking fights on,” says the person close to Starmer. “Taking on Jim Ratcliffe. Taking on Elon Musk. He feels this is the existential fight for our times and he’s at his best when his back is to the wall. This guy’s not going anywhere.” – Sunday Times

• Green surge at next General Election “will topple at least five Labour cabinet ministers” – The Sun on Sunday
• Starmer must now accept the game is up. Forget talk of another relaunch or how voters were duped by an alliance of hard Left activists and drug-addled eco-warriors – Dan Hodges, Mail on Sunday
• Labour must stop channelling Reform and unite with progressives. That’s the lesson from Gorton and Denton – Sadiq Khan, The Guardian
• Starmer’s response to the Gorton and Denton debacle should be a government that truly, finally, reflects him – Tom Baldwin, The Guardian
• Reeves wants her spring statement to calm Labour. Good luck. – Jason Cowley, Sunday Times

By-election 2) Colvile: The real winners may be Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey

“The rise of the Greens will inevitably drag Labour to the left. Just as the by-election thumping in Chesham & Amersham in 2021 killed any pretence that Boris Johnson was leading a reforming government, so Gorton & Denton is likely push Sir Keir Starmer, or whoever succeeds him, down the same route of desperate and relentless pandering to activists and backbenchers. That, in turn, will open up space in the middle, because many of the things that Labour activists and backbenchers want to do are either bad or unpopular or both. Which could be good news for both the Tories and the Lib Dems, depending on whether Davey can peel off more disillusioned Labour voters than he loses to the Greens, as the new face of protest.” – Robert Colvile, Sunday Times

Ashcroft: Voters think Badenoch has earned the right to a hearing

“The unveiling of Nigel Farage’s senior team illustrated the issue. Some were not sure the line-up of familiar faces from the Johnson-Truss-Sunak years was the change they were looking for. ‘It wasn’t the original plan, was it, to be a load of failed Tories?’ one observed. But the exodus is also an ongoing headache for the Conservatives, signalling the defectors saw little prospect of imminent recovery. Though creeping slowly up, the numbers saying the Tories have changed since their electoral defenestration remain low. Here there is a contrast with Kemi Badenoch herself, who continues to gain recognition with her feisty performances in the Commons and elsewhere. With her most dangerous internal opponent gone, she has begun to rally disheartened Tories and pique the interest of the broader public. Voters think she has earned the right to a hearing. The question is what she is able to do with it.” – Lord Ashcroft, Mail on Sunday

Blair’s Institute warns of minimum wage rise increasing youth unemployment

“Sir Tony Blair’s institute has warned a Government plan to raise the minimum wage for youngsters would choke off the economy. Ministers want to remove age restrictions so that workers aged from 18 to 20 would earn the same as the over-21s. But the Tony Blair Institute says any changes in policy should be “explicitly conditional on economic conditions”. It predicted more rises could “choke off the churn that underpins economic dynamism”. And it claimed higher employer taxes and prioritising Net Zero targets over bills hurts growth. It comes amid warnings the Government’s policies are fuelling record youth unemployment.” – The Sun on Sunday

Poilievre says British Conservatives can learn from Canada

“I ask him about the big debate on the right of British politics: should Reform merge with the Conservatives in Britain, as they did in Canada in 2003 — a move that fundamentally shifted the country’s politics, and led to the new party’s leader Stephen Harper winning three consecutive elections? He pauses, saying he doesn’t want to cast himself as an “oracle that can dictate to our British friends what they should be doing”. He can, however, talk about the journey he was on, having joined Reform in his teens. How do two parties on the right come together? “You start with a Venn diagram of the things that you agree on, that across the coalition you have agreement on. Harper said, ‘Look, we all agree with lower taxes, smaller governments, balanced budgets, tougher criminal justice laws, a stronger military, and so let’s focus on those things as relentlessly as possible’.” By focusing on that, the “tribalism of the different parties kind of melted away … that’s what we did in Canada, and I would say that any conservative coalition today anywhere in the western world has to be very fiercely pro-worker and pro-working class.” – Interview with Pierre Poilievre, Sunday Times

Other political news

• Starmer’s Chagos deal facing legal challenge from Maldives – Sunday Telegraph
• Private schools lose legal challenge over VAT changes – BBC
• Can Anas Sarwar win the Holyrood election with ‘quiet optimism’? – Sunday Times
• Rayner to speak at landlords’ conference about property tax rules in move branded ‘wind up’ – The Sun on Sunday
• Britons in Gibraltar win back lost EU freedom of movement rights – Sunday Telegraph
• Professor who stopped Pathways puberty blocker trial recused over ‘bias’ – Sunday Times
• Man, 38, charged after vandalism of Winston Churchill statue – Sunday Telegraph
• Bank for ultra-rich warns Reeves over entrepreneur exodus – Sunday Telegraph

Hannan: Adam Smith started a revolution 250 years ago. There’s still time to rescue it.

“The best way to soothe these doubts is to read Smith’s book. If you don’t fancy taking on both volumes, Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute is marking the anniversary by bringing out a short, graphic version, like an Asterix book – which, trust me, is much more gripping than I have made it sound. Smith writes about the world as it is. His work, as we might pretentiously put it, is empirical rather than normative. He could not be less like Karl Marx who, while purporting to be scientific, wrote about an imaginary and, as we now know, impossible world. You have your book, comrades, and we have ours; and ours works in real life, as can be seen by comparing East and West Germany, or North and South Korea.” – Daniel Hannan, Sunday Telegraph

News in brief

• The Iran strikes might be Trump’s Sarajevo moment – Jacob Heilbrunn, The Spectator
• Will Iran’s Islamic Republic survive the US onslaught? – Nicholas Hopton, New Statesman
• Gorton and Denton has changed everything – William Atkinson, CapX
• How Poland forged its economic freedom – Harry Phibbs, Foundation for Economic Education
• Reform can’t make Britain Christian again – Jimmy Nicholls, The Critic

They were talking in Geneva the way Iran and the US always talk. Slightly passed each other.

Now we know there was little store set by the White House on any substantive outcome.

Discussions were about stopping the one thing all Western countries have wanted to avoid; a viable and deployable Iranian nuclear weapons programme. Crudely, ‘the Ayatollahs must not have the bomb’ has been British policy towards the Islamic Republic for almost as long as the idea has existed.

It is in no way to sympathise with the Iranian regime to point out these were discussions at US gun point. You don’t have nearly a third of America’s deployable fleet in the Gulf for holiday sailing jaunt.

This morning Iranians start their first full day in 37 years without Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as their ‘Supreme leader’. The truth is he’d been ill for some time and unlike some of the world’s dictatorships the Iranian regime is a hydra.

It’s clear that Trump now wants more than stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. He tried that in June last year, striking Fordow and other sites in a 12-day campaign.  The US President has been explicit in suggesting ‘regime change’ is on the table, and has urged the beleaguered Iranian people to seize this moment to achieve it.

Neutralising Iran and its current rulers permanently, as exporters, fosterers, and funders of global terrorism is what this joint assault by the US and Israel is now explicitly about – and for Israel here read Netanyahu whose aim that has always been.

The British Government pointedly has not taken part in the strikes, and Starmer has called along with the leaders of Germany and France for ‘no further escalation’. That looks unlikely to be heeded, just yet.

Just as Democrats in Washington are gearing up to constrain Trump’s ‘war powers’ in Congress, Starmer has his own political considerations to be aware of, since most of those most pro-Gaza, pro-Palestinian have clubbed him at the ballot box are also open supporters of the Islamic Republic. It’s a problem when someone hates Trump so much it leads them to hold a candle for the thugs in Tehran.

But the UK’s attitude towards Iran, has always been one of its more complex and misunderstood foreign policy areas.

I myself with colleagues have spent many a meeting trying to unravel the reasons and motivations for what is a rather solid default position in the Foreign Office that whilst it produces some very cogent arguments, has often felt inflexible to the moment as if it is some timeless one-size-fits-all policy for every eventuality.

It goes something like this:

The Iranian people, the Persians, are decent, cultured, and dynamic. Their history, art, literature, architecture and academic contribution to the world is enormous and dazzling, which makes the nihilist ugly brutality of their current leaders so stark.

The Iranian people reached a point after the widespread protests over the 2022 killing of Iranian-Kurdish 22 year old, Mahsa Amini by their ‘religious police’ – or Guidance Patrol – for not wearing a headscarf. They recognised two facts of their life in Iran.

First, they would never again be ‘won over’ by the regime. Their tacit support was gone forever. Second, the state security apparatus was too strong to be toppled. The horrible truth of that second fact was demonstrated in blood just recently as widespread protests driven by Iran’s desperate economic situation were brutally crushed. Their ‘cost of living crisis’ makes ours look like a picnic.

The only card beyond repression that the regime has to play in its favour is when it can point to blatant attempts by the Great Satan (America) and Little Satan (Britain) to destabilise Iran. Iranian’s may hate their leaders, but they love their country. I suspect the power of this card has waned significantly in the last two years. Enforced public support for the Palestinians was vocally defied at a number of mass events in Iran.

The Iranian regime – the British government never refers to Iran as having a government – is a complex and shifting conglomeration of powerful individuals and institutions, deeply embedded and protected by a labyrinthine security apparatus. It is many headed and so the “cut off the head of the snake” strategy has always been dismissed as unrealistic.

Well its real now. Trump green lit the assassination of relatively popular Iranian General Qasem Soleimani six years ago with a missile strike outside Baghdad airport. Had Soleimani not been dead, and the regime topples now, you’d have put money on him emerging from the rubble to take control.

That, of course is the final argument made inside the British foreign policy arena. The ‘be careful what you wish for’ line. It is highly unlikely that of all possible scenarios within Iran in the event the Islamic Revolution collapses, that its replacement is a pro-Western, democratic, peace loving respecter of US military hegemony and accepter of the state of Israel.

Iran is a patchwork of peoples and cultures all with rather different aspirations for the future. Like Syria and Iraq, the risk of civil disintegration without the iron hand of state repression is a real one, and not to be dismissed. There is no unified and operational opposition, ready to take over, unless it be from within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

The reasonable and outwardly gentle ‘Prince of Persia’ Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the Shah toppled in 1979, is not universally popular inside Iran, abut far more outside. Therein lies his problem. Many Iranians say he has not spent nearly fifty years enduring inside the country he seems to want back. However his recent position to have an immediate referendum in Iran on the future, including the option of one without him as head of state was a smart move. To make it real you’d need a stable country to do it. Most worry now the dice have been thrown, that’s not what you’ll get if the regime falls.

As I said, these arguments are all solid ones. Former Tory MP and foreign minister Tobias Elwood is out today making them. Like Lord Ricketts former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee and later National Security Advisor speaking on the BBC  yesterday, the warnings, risks and costs of Trump’s actions are being articulated across the media.

Whatever one thinks of the arguments, they are of course behind the curve.

Khamenei, and a number of IRGC security personnel are dead in the rubble of a regime compound. A strike which speaks to the levels of intelligence available to the US and Israel. This is now unfolding whatever the view in Whitehall. The things our system have warned about and warned against involving ourselves in, are happening in real time.

There has been considerable threat to British national security co-ordinated by Iran on UK soil for years. Iran has sponsored and exported terrorism from Lebanon and Iraq to Gaza and Yemen. It supplies drones to Russia for the express purpose of killing Ukrainians. And the regime does so because it shares something with Putin.

Iran thinks it should be a regional power player. It thinks it is not given global respect. It feels it’s isolation as a national slight. Its response was not to enter the international rules based order and gain that respect, but demand it under threat, and via proxies. It no longer encourages hostage takers, but has taken an entire population hostage and put a boot on its collective neck.

The ‘do nothing about it beyond sanctions’ option has clearly run out of steam in Washington.

Is this a very risky ploy? Yes. Are their potentially worse outcomes than a new Ayatollah and a newly embittered regime? Yes. But how far does the regime have to go before somebody decides to act. For better or worse Trump has.

He’s not getting universal support for it in America, but there will be, I guarantee it, voices inside the very system fighting to survive in Iran, telling its Western opponents, ‘if you want change, act now.’

The issue will be whether Trump gets the change Trump wants.

Suella Braverman has been handed a brutal reality check after she hit out at the post-Brexit deal between the UK and European Union over Gibraltar.

The former Tory cabinet minister, who defected to Reform in January, said the Rock was “now British in name only” after a draft treaty set out plans for a “fluid border” with Spain.

Reacting to a Telegraph report that Spain will have the final say on whether UK travellers can enter the British overseas territory, Braverman said on X: “When I predicted that this was going to happen, the First Minster said I was wrong.

“It turned out that he was wrong… or misleading. We have ceded control of Gibraltar to Spain. It is now British in name only. It can’t go on like this.”

The “First Minister” is actually Gibraltar’s chief minister, Fabian Picardo.

Hitting back on X, he said:“Hi Suella Braverman. You have it wrong, starting with the title of my office.

“Please read all the text and the supporting documents and stop playing politics with the People of Gibraltar whose future YOU and your ilk put in great jeopardy with Brexit.

“Stop misleading with your selective quotation of a complex document largely negotiated by YOUR Conservative government when it was in office and YOU were Home Secretary.”