Facing one of the most difficult moments of his premiership, Keir Starmer can at least take comfort from polls showing the British public broadly supports his position on the conflict in Iran.
Almost half (46%) believe the UK’s military posture should be purely defensive, tasked with shooting down drones and defending civilian areas and British military installations, such as an RAF base in Cyprus.
The findings, based on a YouGov survey of 6,285 adults in Britain this week, came as the UK government faced criticism from Cyprus for not doing enough to protect the island. Donald Trump has also claimed that the UK has not supported the US, with the US president saying on social media: “We don’t need people joining wars after we’ve already won.” Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Tony Blair said Keir Starmer “should have backed the United States from the beginning.”
Despite such criticism, it is Starmer’s right-wing opponents who appear to be walking the most political tightrope. Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London and a Conservative historian, said: “The Conservatives and Reformers have more problems with how their leaders are responding in both cases and what their voters want to hear.”
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1. The conservatives
Unlike her predecessors who led the Conservatives in wartime opposition, Kemi Badenoch has gone on the offensive against the government’s position and is expected to try to describe Labor as “unpatriotic”.
During Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, she accused Starmer of failing to take “offensive action” after the attacks on UK bases. However, that position appears to be in line with just 15% of Conservative voters, who, according to YouGov, think the UK should actively join the attack on Iran.
37 per cent believe the UK’s military posture should be “purely defensive”, while a further 37 per cent want it to be “purely retaliatory”. The tradition of Conservative caution about the war was expressed by the veteran MP Edward Leigh in an intervention that contrasted with Badenoch’s criticism of Starmer during Prime Minister’s Questions and which clearly did not go unnoticed by her.
Bale said Badenoch was “clearly out of touch with some Conservative voters”. He added: “She considers herself more of a leader than a follower, but there may be a limit.”
Badenoch’s position was unusual compared to previous opposition leaders who calibrated or avoided criticism of the government’s wartime positions, Bale said, adding: “You probably had to go back to Suez, where the opposition was, then the Labor Party, and eventually they took a contradictory line. Michael Howard supported Iraq, although he later regretted it.”
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2. UK Reform
Nigel Farage leads the party whose voters appear to be most divided when it comes to views on the war. Almost a quarter (24%) of reform voters believe the UK should actively join the attack on Iran.
Farage, who has fully supported regime change in Iran, has insisted that he does not follow public opinion. But he now risks distancing himself from what YouGov identifies as the 28% and 35% of reform voters who want the UK’s response to be defensive or retaliatory, reflecting caution and isolationist currents among his supporters.
Gawain Towler, a Reform board member, said he did not recognize the YouGov poll because of his commitment to Reform’s base, adding: “They almost universally support Farage’s position, they think this is different to Iraq and Libya.”
There are also risks for Farage from his continued association with Donald Trump when it comes to winning support among more ambivalent or “reform-curious” voters. The American president was deeply unpopular with the British public even before the war began.
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3. Labour
According to polls this week, Starmer is broadly in line not only with the state of the country but also with his party’s voter base. “The shadow of Iraq has played a huge role when it comes to the views of Labor voters and, generally speaking, he is where they are,” Bale said.
“While he too is where the country is, he reflects the ambivalence of most people, although this will not rescue him from his difficulties.”
Some 59% of Labor voters wanted the UK’s position to be defensive, according to YouGov polls. While 32% of voters thought Starmer was handling the relationship with Trump well, that figure rose to 53% among Labor voters.
It is a view reiterated by Sadiq Khan on Saturday. “Keir Starmer is right to resist pressure from US President Donald Trump to join attacks on Iran,” the London mayor said in X. “This is a war of choice, one that is not only causing unnecessary death and suffering abroad, but could lead to a huge economic shock at home.”
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4. Liberal and Green Democrats
Both parties have benefited in the past from opposition to UK involvement in wars, with Charles Kennedy’s leadership during the Iraq War being a notable Liberal Democrat moment.
This week, YouGov polling found that 59% of Green Party voters and 61% of Liberal Democrats supported the UK’s stance being purely defensive. However, these are 2024 general election voters, while the Greens have since shifted to the left and are building support that might otherwise have gone to Jeremy Corbyn’s troubled Your Party, a process that could be accelerated by the conflict.
“Since 2024, our voter base has perhaps tripled and the majority come from the Labor left, so anti-war sentiment is likely to be much higher now,” said a Green source.
In terms of political consequences, one future scenario could involve Labor linking the general public’s feelings of insecurity with its strategy of attacking Green leader Zack Polanski’s stated desire to leave an “unreformed” NATO alliance.
