The Independent is not always aligned with British public opinion. We could not be true to our name if we were. We disagreed with the democratic decision of the people in the 2016 referendum on our membership of the European Union, for example.
But an opinion poll carried out for us by JL Partners suggests that our view of Sir Keir Starmer and the Iran war is widely shared. The poll used a split sample, asking half of respondents for their view of the prime minister, without a preamble, and asking the other half the same question after reminding them of Sir Keir’s refusal to allow the United States to use British bases for offensive purposes. The first subsample gave Sir Keir a net negative rating of 40 percentage points; the second gave him one of 14 points.
We believe this judgement to be broadly right. Sir Keir has made many mistakes in his first year and a half in No 10. He was woefully unprepared for government, has made some bad decisions on taxes and spending, and is a poor communicator. On the other hand, any likely replacement from within the Labour Party would be likely to be worse, and his conduct of foreign policy has generally been excellent.
In particular, he has managed a difficult relationship with Donald Trump about as well as it could be managed, and his attitude to the two wars in Ukraine and Iran that could, as he said on Thursday, “define us for a generation”, has been correct. Sir Keir helped rally Europe and the wider international community in defence of the Ukrainian people, and helped dissuade Mr Trump from pulling the plug on US support for Ukraine altogether.
And he refused to back the initial American-Israeli strikes on Iran, despite intense pressure and subsequent rudeness from Mr Trump, and despite the leaders of the two main opposition parties, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, supporting them. Sir Keir deserves credit for getting it right first time, and is entitled to point out that Ms Badenoch and Mr Farage have since changed their minds and now agree with him.
He is entitled, too, to take some satisfaction from having been on the right side of public opinion from the start, and it is only right that, when voters are reminded of his differences with Mr Trump, their negative opinion of the prime minister is markedly softened.
Sir Keir has also shown good judgement in appreciating the significance of Mr Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s disastrous miscalculation in provoking the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The prime minister has been quick to anticipate the economic dislocation that shutting down one-fifth of the world’s oil supply is likely to cause.
While we are sceptical of the evidence for the allegations made by him and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, that the oil companies and petrol retailers are “profiteering” and “price gouging”, there is some emotional intelligence in taking an aggressive stance on the side of the consumer at this early stage.
Equally, we have our doubts about Sir Keir’s claim that he wants to use the crisis to “change the way the country is set up”. Such windy rhetoric of unspecified “change” is what got this Labour government off to such a bad start, but if it means that Sir Keir and Ms Reeves will try to protect the most vulnerable from the global recession that seems inevitable, that can only be a good thing. The difficult part will be resisting the pressure from public opinion to provide support to everyone, rich and poor.
If that pressure builds up, The Independent may find itself temporarily opposed to the British public again, and urging Sir Keir to resist demands for a universal bailout in the long-term national interest.
