Aid is fundamental to conflict prevention and resolution, and thus to defence. That said, we need to specify in the Statute Law that the United Kingdom's aid to any given country be reduced by the exact cost of any space programme, or of any nuclear weapons programme, or of any nuclear submarine programme, or of any foreign aid budget of that country's own, but with the money thus saved remaining within the Overseas Aid budget, and with the 0.7 per cent target resolutely intact.
At the same time, an extra £70 billion should be given to each of the Royal Navy, the British Army, and the Royal Air Force, instead of Trident. This would not entail depriving anything else of funding. As a sovereign state with its own free-floating, fiat currency, the United Kingdom has as much of that currency as it chooses to issue to itself, with the fiscal and monetary means to control inflation, means that therefore need to be under democratic political control in both cases.
Britain is not at war with Iran because Iran or its proxy had attacked RAF Akrotiri, and that only to the barest possible extent. Rather, that attack was launched because Britain was already at war with Iran. The only function of the British Sovereign Base Area on Cyprus is to drag us into wars in the Middle East, since otherwise that territory "might" be bombed. Its only permanent residents are people who could not move to the new Republic of Cyprus because we refused to compensate them properly. They are Cypriot rather than British citizens. Everyone knows what would be the result of a referendum among them, so let it be held and give us the opportunity to cut our losses. That would make British citizens safer, since while they were unarmed and delivering humanitarian aid, the IDF bombed the British veterans James Kirby, James Henderson and John Chapman three times to make sure that they were dead, using British-made Elbit Hermes 450 drones, and using intelligence from the over 600 nightly reconnaissance missions flown for the Israelis, yet free of charge to them, from RAF Akrotiri.
There is no evidence that Iran has tried to bomb Diego Garcia, and not even any suggestion that it had succeeded, which would be the basis for any claim that Iranian ballistic missiles could hit London. But even if that were true, then it would be an argument for Chagossian self-determination and for Britain to avoid conflict with Iran. As for the execution of Saleh Mohammadi, I am always opposed to capital punishment, and I do not doubt that he and his companions were tortured and were denied a fair trial. They do seem to have attacked the Police with knives and swords, and how much mercy would our foghorns advocate for a 19-year-old British sports star who had done that? How much could anyone who had done that expect in any of the Gulf monarchies that, as the social media posts of the British commanders in them proudly proclaimed, we were at war to defend?
The strongest support for war always comes from the liberal bourgeoisie. That is the class least likely to join the Armed Forces voluntarily, or to see combat even in periods of conscription. Operationally, that is of course just as well. But by closing the Strait of Hormuz, this war is imperilling the lifestyle of that class in Europe, North America, East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. De facto American withdrawal means that NATO has already effectively ceased to exist. Donald Trump is cutting out the spine of political consent for anything remotely like it, anywhere in the world. The free world is defining itself as the world free of the United States. The only British party with a member on Trump's Board of Peace is the one in government, and which is seeking to name new towns after politicians, as ought not to happen in a monarchy, which also ought not to have politicians on its banknotes. If that governing party wanted to name a town after Tony Blair, then it should call it Trumpton. Think on.
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