June 23, 2025 • 14 mins
The UK says its military wasn’t involved in American air strikes on Iran, although a cabinet minister expressed support for the outcome. With the US now engaged in a conflict in the Middle East, many are asking if there are echoes of the Iraq War, which still haunts Britain's Labour party. Bloomberg's foreign policy reporter Ellen Milligan and Bloomberg Opinion columnist Marc Champion join for a special edition of the UK Politics podcast. Hosted by Yuan Potts and Caroline Hepker.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hello, you're listening to Bloomberg UK Politics. I'm Caroline Hepcare and.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm you and Potts. We're in your podcast feed today
outside our normal Friday schedule because the US has of
course bombed several of Iran's nuclear sites over the weekend.
Here's Luke Polar, the Forces Minister.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
But what we can say is that we were not
involved in the military action that the US took, nor
have we been involved in the action that the Israeli
government had been taking. Our focus has been on securing
a diplomatic solution.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Polar setting out the UK's difficult dilemma. The government is
not involved, but it does back the idea of Iran
not having nuclear weapons.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
No, of course, but the government is walking a tight rope.
The Foreign Sectary David Lammy, emerged from lengthy talks with
Iran on Friday sounding hopeful that diplomacy would continue. Less
than thirty six hours later, the whole compsation looked completely
irrelevant after the dramatic US strikes on Iran's military facilities.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, and today, the UK Foreign sectors refused to say
whether the UK supported America's military action and in various
broadcast interviews this morning, Lammy also sidestepping the question of
whether he agreed with recent social media posts by President
Trump that seemed to favor regime change in Tehran. I
think the key question is what exactly is the British
and indeed European view on Western military involvement in Iran,
(01:28):
particularly if there's more to come, and domestically, how will
the Labor government avoid deeply uncomfortable comparisons with the other
big military intervention that's of the Iraq War in two
thousand and three.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Or indeed, if the position of the Europeans and the
Brits is actually relevant here or not. Joining us now
to discuss is Bloomberg's international affairs columnist Mark Champion and
our UK foreign policy reporter Ellen Milligan. Welcome to both
of you. Thank you for being with us. Mark, I'd
like to start with you. The US hopes that this
strike over the weekend is effectively one and done. We
(02:02):
are still awaiting the Iranian response. This does seem like
a pretty fundamental change potentially for the Middle East.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
It very much could be, so, you know, it is
a fork in the road. The kind of interesting thing
is that there. You know, which way we go will
be decided by the Iranians, and so it's up to
them whether they hit back hard, as they rhetorically are
saying they will do, and if so, then they will
(02:36):
send us down a very unpredictable road. They they know
the risks they will be very significant the US. You know,
they already are being shown that they have no real
response in conventional military terms to Israel. Add to that
the United States and the extraordinary display of military power
(03:01):
that has just been inflicted on them, and they will
have to swallow hard and decide, you know, if this
is the way they want to go. The problem for them, obviously,
is that the alternate route, which essentially involves capitulation, is
also risky for them. It's a regime that has spent
(03:23):
billions building a nuclear program that is you know, may
now be dust, and it has also sacrificed hundreds of billions,
you know, in that cause through international sanctions, isolation, et cetera,
with a very severe impact on the population. So, you know,
(03:44):
the risks of the regime are very real. Either way,
you know, one of them, we may see the region
go up in flames. The Uranians have to be aware
that that also means they're oil fields going up in
flames and a very uncertain future. The alternative, you know,
looks a lot better, but it you know, requires a
(04:07):
lot of things to go right that in the past
and the Middle East have not.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Mark. I was just thinking back to the parallels with
the run up to the Iraq War, which seems to
go on for months and months, or that arguing with
the Europeans, those votes of the United Nations, you know,
calling the French cheese eating surrender monkeys. I mentally this
is a lot more limited, of course than the Iraq invasion,
but it just feels like a different world, doesn't it.
America has just gone ahead with it, and it's almost
(04:32):
as if nobody really cares what the Europeans think.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
That is true, and you know it's also militarily again.
You know, even if the Brits and the French had
had wanted to, you know, show willing and provide support,
it's quite limited what they would have been able to
do for this kind of operation which involves you know,
(04:58):
bombers that only the Americans have, bombs that only the
Americans have, all these kinds of things. They were just
unnecessary diplomatically. Also, you know, you've got a completely different
American presidency in charge at a different time, you know,
And one other thing that one should say. You know,
these are quite different examples. Iraq was entirely a war
(05:22):
of choice on the part of the United States, going
from you know, zero to sixty. They needed to sort
of persuade everybody that there was a threat there. They
don't actually need to persuade anybody that there is a
nuclear threat in Iran. You know, the Europeans and others,
and Russians and Chinese have been working on that for
decades now, so it is somewhat different example.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Ellen, let me bring you in in terms of where
the UK government sits in this. We've had some quite
awkward conversations and statements from the government from for example,
the Business actually Jonathan Reynolds saying that, you know, he
approves of the outcome, but he sort of wanted a
different way of preventing nuclear weapons being acquired or created
(06:10):
by Iran, and the Prime minister's been consistently calling for
de escalation. How do you think about the UK government's
sort of positioning in all of this.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, the UK government has been at pains to say
that we weren't involved in this strike at all. We
got very short notice of our heads up. The US
didn't even asked for our assistance, and our joint base
in Diego, Garcia wasn't used either, which had there was
speculation in the days running up to this that it
(06:41):
would be used either to launch a strike or to
refiel some of the aircraft. And that is because they
don't want to endorse the military action that Donald Trump
has taken, but they do want to show support for
as the word that they've been using the outcome, because
(07:02):
Donald Trump is a is you know, the US is
the biggest ally of the UK and Starma has been
incredibly keen to have a positive relationship with Trump in
a way that other leaders have been a bit more
combative with him. So and it all comes down to
one Labour's difficult relationship over the past couple of years
(07:27):
with supporting Israel as an ally, but also coming under
pressure to condemn them more for their actions in Gaza.
So you've seen this kind of mixed response that you know,
Israel has a right to defend itself, but also Iran
doesn't need a nuclear weapon et cetera, and so and
(07:50):
it all comes down as well to this international law question.
So the Attorney General has been reported to have express
grave concerns to the Prime Minister, first of all about
whether the UK would be within international law if it
did assist the US, but also on whether Israel acted
(08:11):
within an international law and its original strike on Iran
as well. So all these questions are coming into why
you're getting these carefully crafted responses from the government.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And also this strange position for the Foreign Secretary who
was speaking to media this morning and not being willing
to be drawn on whether or not they thought that
the action by the United States on Iran was legal
or not, which is quite difficult in a difficult position
for the Foreign Secretary to be in.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, and as you were saying before, I mean it's
a real, almost like failure of European diplomacy that David
Lammy went over to have crunch talks with Marcribbean Steve
Witcoff in Washington on Thursday, flew straight to Geneva and
Switzerland for talks with Iran, and Germany and France came
out at that meeting saying that they were hopeful that
(09:01):
talks could resume, but they didn't have a firm date,
they didn't have a follow up meeting planned. He spoke,
he spoke to Rubio and Wickoff again about the outcome
of that meeting, and then shortly later Donald Trump ignored
the Europeans advice and just struck around regardless. And you
heard Trump himself say Europe has not helped in this
(09:24):
Europe and that's a real blow to kind of the
UK and Europe's efforts to try and de escalate this.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Mark. I'm interested in your view on what the European
view really is, because it would it be a little
bit too far to paraphrase the European response as we're
against this military action, but thanks very much for doing it.
It does feel a little bit like there is a
certain amount of relief amongst some European leaders of what
the Americans have done, but they can't say that.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
I think there's an element of that, But I do
think they're in a very complicated position. First of all,
you know, let's recognize that until just a few days ago,
maybe a week or two now, until the Israelis struck,
you know, Donald Trump himself was dead set against taking
(10:13):
military action. He was looking for a diplomatic route. The
Europeans were sort of working along with the Americans in
a sort of you know, almost like a track to
capacity with their own you know, group of three efforts
Whi's been going on for a long time, so you know,
it's they have been wrong footed. They had a different plan,
(10:35):
and you know that they just had no influence. I mean,
there are people within Trump's administration that he cares about
a lot more, including his own vice president who did
not want this to happen. He's got supporters, you know,
very prominent supporters like you know, Tucker Carlson, who was
very much against you know, the US taking action. He's
(10:57):
got parts of his MAGA movement who are against its
about those things. He doesn't really care about the Europeans, so,
you know, the Europeans in a difficult position. The other
thing I would just point out is that you know,
if you're not involved and you don't have any control,
you don't really want to raise your hand and say,
you know, we're with the Americans on that, because that
immediately opens you to any retaliation that the Uranias may take.
(11:21):
And the most likely form of retaliation for them is
going to be you know, a hybrid if you like
the things that they can carry out that you know,
without the sort of conventional superiority that they lack.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, sort of cyber attacks or terrorism or all of
those sorts of things. Okay, where does this leave the
NATO Summit? All of this comes ellen as all of
those leaders are gathering the NATO Summit, the pressure for
Europe to spend more and maybe actually have a seat
at this table if there were more hard power located
(11:59):
on this continent.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I mean, we've been writing about this upcoming NATO summit
for many months and it's all been centered around Ukraine
and the US withdrawal from supporting European security, and the
pressure on governments in Europe and in Canada as well
to get not only up to the two percent that
they agreed a decade ago, but up to this new
(12:24):
target of three point five percent plus one point five
percent related spending to meet Donald Trump's demand of five
percent of economic output on defense. Now it's I mean,
I was just at the G seven in Canada and
that was completely overshadowed by Israel. The Israel Around conflict,
and I think we're going to see the same tomorrow
at the NATO summit, where the Trump comes in and
(12:49):
makes demands that Europe needs to support the US. I mean,
we've seen, as Mark was saying, you know, the US
didn't clearly didn't need Europe militarily to conduct this strike,
They didn't even ask for for their assistance, but that
kind of support, particularly for example, not only are these
hybrid threats from Iran you know could come, but if
(13:09):
Iran decides to target UK and French military bases as
well as US ones, you know, it's it's I've reported
a long time on Diego Garcia because it was this
really controversial agreement with Mauritius over the Chager Silence. But
that is a joint UK US base, So if Iran
decides to target that base because it's a US space,
(13:32):
then it's also a UK base. So and the UK
has flown in fighter jets to protect that base and
their base in Cyprus if it was to come under
attack from Iran. So I'm sure Trump will be making
these kinds of demands at the NATO summit as well.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It's plenty to watch out of that note something this
week going to be fascinating conversation. Ellen, Thanks much for
joining us at Ellen Milligan, our UK foreign policy supporter,
and Mark Champion, our international affairs a columnist.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Well that's it from us for today. If you like
the program, don't forget to subscribe and give it five
stars so that other people can find it on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify or wherever you listen.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
This episode was produced by James Arcott at Allio engineer
was Andrew Gavin.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I'm New and Potts and I'm Caroline Hebge. We'll be
back with more as usual on Friday. This is Bloomberg
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hello, you're listening to Bloomberg UK Politics. I'm Caroline Hepcare and.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm you and Potts. We're in your podcast feed today
outside our normal Friday schedule because the US has of
course bombed several of Iran's nuclear sites over the weekend.
Here's Luke Polar, the Forces Minister.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
But what we can say is that we were not
involved in the military action that the US took, nor
have we been involved in the action that the Israeli
government had been taking. Our focus has been on securing
a diplomatic solution.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Polar setting out the UK's difficult dilemma. The government is
not involved, but it does back the idea of Iran
not having nuclear weapons.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
No, of course, but the government is walking a tight rope.
The Foreign Sectary David Lammy, emerged from lengthy talks with
Iran on Friday sounding hopeful that diplomacy would continue. Less
than thirty six hours later, the whole compsation looked completely
irrelevant after the dramatic US strikes on Iran's military facilities.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, and today, the UK Foreign sectors refused to say
whether the UK supported America's military action and in various
broadcast interviews this morning, Lammy also sidestepping the question of
whether he agreed with recent social media posts by President
Trump that seemed to favor regime change in Tehran. I
think the key question is what exactly is the British
and indeed European view on Western military involvement in Iran,
(01:28):
particularly if there's more to come, and domestically, how will
the Labor government avoid deeply uncomfortable comparisons with the other
big military intervention that's of the Iraq War in two
thousand and three.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Or indeed, if the position of the Europeans and the
Brits is actually relevant here or not. Joining us now
to discuss is Bloomberg's international affairs columnist Mark Champion and
our UK foreign policy reporter Ellen Milligan. Welcome to both
of you. Thank you for being with us. Mark, I'd
like to start with you. The US hopes that this
strike over the weekend is effectively one and done. We
(02:02):
are still awaiting the Iranian response. This does seem like
a pretty fundamental change potentially for the Middle East.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
It very much could be, so, you know, it is
a fork in the road. The kind of interesting thing
is that there. You know, which way we go will
be decided by the Iranians, and so it's up to
them whether they hit back hard, as they rhetorically are
saying they will do, and if so, then they will
(02:36):
send us down a very unpredictable road. They they know
the risks they will be very significant the US. You know,
they already are being shown that they have no real
response in conventional military terms to Israel. Add to that
the United States and the extraordinary display of military power
(03:01):
that has just been inflicted on them, and they will
have to swallow hard and decide, you know, if this
is the way they want to go. The problem for them, obviously,
is that the alternate route, which essentially involves capitulation, is
also risky for them. It's a regime that has spent
(03:23):
billions building a nuclear program that is you know, may
now be dust, and it has also sacrificed hundreds of billions,
you know, in that cause through international sanctions, isolation, et cetera,
with a very severe impact on the population. So, you know,
(03:44):
the risks of the regime are very real. Either way,
you know, one of them, we may see the region
go up in flames. The Uranians have to be aware
that that also means they're oil fields going up in
flames and a very uncertain future. The alternative, you know,
looks a lot better, but it you know, requires a
(04:07):
lot of things to go right that in the past
and the Middle East have not.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Mark. I was just thinking back to the parallels with
the run up to the Iraq War, which seems to
go on for months and months, or that arguing with
the Europeans, those votes of the United Nations, you know,
calling the French cheese eating surrender monkeys. I mentally this
is a lot more limited, of course than the Iraq invasion,
but it just feels like a different world, doesn't it.
America has just gone ahead with it, and it's almost
(04:32):
as if nobody really cares what the Europeans think.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
That is true, and you know it's also militarily again.
You know, even if the Brits and the French had
had wanted to, you know, show willing and provide support,
it's quite limited what they would have been able to
do for this kind of operation which involves you know,
(04:58):
bombers that only the Americans have, bombs that only the
Americans have, all these kinds of things. They were just
unnecessary diplomatically. Also, you know, you've got a completely different
American presidency in charge at a different time, you know,
And one other thing that one should say. You know,
these are quite different examples. Iraq was entirely a war
(05:22):
of choice on the part of the United States, going
from you know, zero to sixty. They needed to sort
of persuade everybody that there was a threat there. They
don't actually need to persuade anybody that there is a
nuclear threat in Iran. You know, the Europeans and others,
and Russians and Chinese have been working on that for
decades now, so it is somewhat different example.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Ellen, let me bring you in in terms of where
the UK government sits in this. We've had some quite
awkward conversations and statements from the government from for example,
the Business actually Jonathan Reynolds saying that, you know, he
approves of the outcome, but he sort of wanted a
different way of preventing nuclear weapons being acquired or created
(06:10):
by Iran, and the Prime minister's been consistently calling for
de escalation. How do you think about the UK government's
sort of positioning in all of this.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, the UK government has been at pains to say
that we weren't involved in this strike at all. We
got very short notice of our heads up. The US
didn't even asked for our assistance, and our joint base
in Diego, Garcia wasn't used either, which had there was
speculation in the days running up to this that it
(06:41):
would be used either to launch a strike or to
refiel some of the aircraft. And that is because they
don't want to endorse the military action that Donald Trump
has taken, but they do want to show support for
as the word that they've been using the outcome, because
(07:02):
Donald Trump is a is you know, the US is
the biggest ally of the UK and Starma has been
incredibly keen to have a positive relationship with Trump in
a way that other leaders have been a bit more
combative with him. So and it all comes down to
one Labour's difficult relationship over the past couple of years
(07:27):
with supporting Israel as an ally, but also coming under
pressure to condemn them more for their actions in Gaza.
So you've seen this kind of mixed response that you know,
Israel has a right to defend itself, but also Iran
doesn't need a nuclear weapon et cetera, and so and
(07:50):
it all comes down as well to this international law question.
So the Attorney General has been reported to have express
grave concerns to the Prime Minister, first of all about
whether the UK would be within international law if it
did assist the US, but also on whether Israel acted
(08:11):
within an international law and its original strike on Iran
as well. So all these questions are coming into why
you're getting these carefully crafted responses from the government.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And also this strange position for the Foreign Secretary who
was speaking to media this morning and not being willing
to be drawn on whether or not they thought that
the action by the United States on Iran was legal
or not, which is quite difficult in a difficult position
for the Foreign Secretary to be in.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, and as you were saying before, I mean it's
a real, almost like failure of European diplomacy that David
Lammy went over to have crunch talks with Marcribbean Steve
Witcoff in Washington on Thursday, flew straight to Geneva and
Switzerland for talks with Iran, and Germany and France came
out at that meeting saying that they were hopeful that
(09:01):
talks could resume, but they didn't have a firm date,
they didn't have a follow up meeting planned. He spoke,
he spoke to Rubio and Wickoff again about the outcome
of that meeting, and then shortly later Donald Trump ignored
the Europeans advice and just struck around regardless. And you
heard Trump himself say Europe has not helped in this
(09:24):
Europe and that's a real blow to kind of the
UK and Europe's efforts to try and de escalate this.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Mark. I'm interested in your view on what the European
view really is, because it would it be a little
bit too far to paraphrase the European response as we're
against this military action, but thanks very much for doing it.
It does feel a little bit like there is a
certain amount of relief amongst some European leaders of what
the Americans have done, but they can't say that.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
I think there's an element of that, But I do
think they're in a very complicated position. First of all,
you know, let's recognize that until just a few days ago,
maybe a week or two now, until the Israelis struck,
you know, Donald Trump himself was dead set against taking
(10:13):
military action. He was looking for a diplomatic route. The
Europeans were sort of working along with the Americans in
a sort of you know, almost like a track to
capacity with their own you know, group of three efforts
Whi's been going on for a long time, so you know,
it's they have been wrong footed. They had a different plan,
(10:35):
and you know that they just had no influence. I mean,
there are people within Trump's administration that he cares about
a lot more, including his own vice president who did
not want this to happen. He's got supporters, you know,
very prominent supporters like you know, Tucker Carlson, who was
very much against you know, the US taking action. He's
(10:57):
got parts of his MAGA movement who are against its
about those things. He doesn't really care about the Europeans, so,
you know, the Europeans in a difficult position. The other
thing I would just point out is that you know,
if you're not involved and you don't have any control,
you don't really want to raise your hand and say,
you know, we're with the Americans on that, because that
immediately opens you to any retaliation that the Uranias may take.
(11:21):
And the most likely form of retaliation for them is
going to be you know, a hybrid if you like
the things that they can carry out that you know,
without the sort of conventional superiority that they lack.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, sort of cyber attacks or terrorism or all of
those sorts of things. Okay, where does this leave the
NATO Summit? All of this comes ellen as all of
those leaders are gathering the NATO Summit, the pressure for
Europe to spend more and maybe actually have a seat
at this table if there were more hard power located
(11:59):
on this continent.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I mean, we've been writing about this upcoming NATO summit
for many months and it's all been centered around Ukraine
and the US withdrawal from supporting European security, and the
pressure on governments in Europe and in Canada as well
to get not only up to the two percent that
they agreed a decade ago, but up to this new
(12:24):
target of three point five percent plus one point five
percent related spending to meet Donald Trump's demand of five
percent of economic output on defense. Now it's I mean,
I was just at the G seven in Canada and
that was completely overshadowed by Israel. The Israel Around conflict,
and I think we're going to see the same tomorrow
at the NATO summit, where the Trump comes in and
(12:49):
makes demands that Europe needs to support the US. I mean,
we've seen, as Mark was saying, you know, the US
didn't clearly didn't need Europe militarily to conduct this strike,
They didn't even ask for for their assistance, but that
kind of support, particularly for example, not only are these
hybrid threats from Iran you know could come, but if
(13:09):
Iran decides to target UK and French military bases as
well as US ones, you know, it's it's I've reported
a long time on Diego Garcia because it was this
really controversial agreement with Mauritius over the Chager Silence. But
that is a joint UK US base, So if Iran
decides to target that base because it's a US space,
(13:32):
then it's also a UK base. So and the UK
has flown in fighter jets to protect that base and
their base in Cyprus if it was to come under
attack from Iran. So I'm sure Trump will be making
these kinds of demands at the NATO summit as well.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
It's plenty to watch out of that note something this
week going to be fascinating conversation. Ellen, Thanks much for
joining us at Ellen Milligan, our UK foreign policy supporter,
and Mark Champion, our international affairs a columnist.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Well that's it from us for today. If you like
the program, don't forget to subscribe and give it five
stars so that other people can find it on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify or wherever you listen.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
This episode was produced by James Arcott at Allio engineer
was Andrew Gavin.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I'm New and Potts and I'm Caroline Hebge. We'll be
back with more as usual on Friday. This is Bloomberg
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