[Maark Abbott]

Back to our regularly scheduled despair, Cardboard Keir has allowed use of our bases to the US in their war of aggression which will (inevitably) make us into a target again.

Well, a bit of hope was nice whilst it lasted.

[QuickTidal]

Maark Abbott, on 02 March 2026 - 05:02 PM, said:

Back to our regularly scheduled despair, Cardboard Keir has allowed use of our bases to the US in their war of aggression which will (inevitably) make us into a target again.

Well, a bit of hope was nice whilst it lasted.

Not that it excuses it, but the Iranians attacked Cyprus, which IIRC is a UK base so does that not force his hand?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 02 March 2026 - 05:26 PM, said:

Not that it excuses it, but the Iranians attacked Cyprus, which IIRC is a UK base so does that not force his hand?

Worth bearing in mind that it was apparently Hezbollah that attacked Cyprus, though of course they're acting as an Iranian proxy.

More to your point, the drone hit hours after Starmer's annnouncement. Though officials are speculating that it was launched prior to the announcement, they gave no indication that they were aware of the launch at that time or that it precipitated Starmer's decision:

Quote

A Cypriot news agency reported that the damage to the airbase had been caused by small low-flying drones launched by Lebanese Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy group from the country – but no formal confirmation had been issued by the UK Ministry of Defence on Monday afternoon. [...]

The drone struck hours after the UK agreed to let the US use British military bases to attack Iranian missile sites, but officials indicate the possible flight times mean it was launched before the prime minister announced the new policy.

https://www.theguard...ed-drone-strike

[Maark Abbott]

QuickTidal, on 02 March 2026 - 05:26 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 02 March 2026 - 05:02 PM, said:

Back to our regularly scheduled despair, Cardboard Keir has allowed use of our bases to the US in their war of aggression which will (inevitably) make us into a target again.

Well, a bit of hope was nice whilst it lasted.

Not that it excuses it, but the Iranians attacked Cyprus, which IIRC is a UK base so does that not force his hand?

The timing, like Tiste mentions, is what makes the UK a target. If we'd disavowed ourselves and THEN been hit, then sure. That's retaliation. But otherwise we're enabling American imperialist aggression and realistically by doing so we've already played our hand.

Also bears mention that (to my knowledge) this decision did not go via Parliament, so the perception of the current government at a time where there are fascist sharks in the tank is that they are weak and not much more than lackeys to America. Of course those same fashy twits will start screeching about small boats and Iranian men as soon as refugees from this begin arriving, but they don't really have the capacity to work out the correlation in most cases.

[Tiste Simeon]

Also those same fascists are constantly puckering up for trump's inglorious behind, but consistency was never a key strength of theirs...

[QuickTidal]

Noted. I was not as informed on the subject in this instance. Thanks for clearing it up.

[Maark Abbott]

QuickTidal, on 03 March 2026 - 12:23 PM, said:

Noted. I was not as informed on the subject in this instance. Thanks for clearing it up.

You're not British and it's not going to be very visible in reporting where you are so it's all good.

Iraq remains a sore point for a lot of brits and the notion of America dragging us into another conflict that opens us up to retaliatory terrorist attacks (in an era where the far right are whipping up fear of muslims as their bread and butter) is one of those things that a reasonable Brit will have a Pot of Petunias moment about.

[Maark Abbott]

Something I've noticed on Twatter today, but our far right party is up in arms about the Orange Fiddler saying Starmer is 'no Churchill'.

Why do Deform want to drag us into another invasion in the Gulf? I don't understand. I assume it's because terror attack risk increases and that lets them play on their fear of brown people but I cannot make any sense of it personally.

[Macros]

Rule Britannia
Us Brits will show them how its done
British Empire isn't dead, we saved the world, rah rah rah

[Maark Abbott]

Macros, on 04 March 2026 - 08:19 AM, said:

Rule Britannia
Us Brits will show them how its done
British Empire isn't dead, we saved the world, rah rah rah

Yeah, this tracks.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Maark Abbott, on 04 March 2026 - 08:37 AM, said:

Macros, on 04 March 2026 - 08:19 AM, said:

Rule Britannia
Us Brits will show them how its done
British Empire isn't dead, we saved the world, rah rah rah

Yeah, this tracks.

We were talking more generally about attitudes in Britain between generations but Mr NAB said in passing last night "It's like there's a proportion of people want to go back to the days of the British Empire" - it does feel like certainly a lot of the older generations are harking back to a supposed glory day that never really existed, and what did exist of it was built on the back of a lot of poor, desperate and subjugated people both in Britain and across the world.

[Tiste Simeon]

Yes the days of vast swathes of the population being in poverty while out of touch elites and super rich people who own the politicians continue their expansionist empires in the name of power, greed and personal wealth are surely behind us?

Tell the idiots that we're basically still in the empire it's just we don't, as a country, own as much land...

[Grief]

Think a lot of it is just the need for opposition parties to oppose.

It is very rare these days that an opposition party will admit the sitting government is actually doing a good job of anything, never mind something very publicly visible and salient.

This is doubly true for populists. They will always be on the attack, and hope people ignore that they are not proposing remotely credible alternatives. It can however put them in an bind in areas where the government is actually doing a decent job. And frankly Starmer had been comparably decent on foreign policy, while Farage has largely been making a fool of himself even towards his base.

[Maark Abbott]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 04 March 2026 - 08:57 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 04 March 2026 - 08:37 AM, said:

Macros, on 04 March 2026 - 08:19 AM, said:

Rule Britannia
Us Brits will show them how its done
British Empire isn't dead, we saved the world, rah rah rah

Yeah, this tracks.

We were talking more generally about attitudes in Britain between generations but Mr NAB said in passing last night "It's like there's a proportion of people want to go back to the days of the British Empire" - it does feel like certainly a lot of the older generations are harking back to a supposed glory day that never really existed, and what did exist of it was built on the back of a lot of poor, desperate and subjugated people both in Britain and across the world.

You see Refash banging on about 'patriotic curriculum' and I was just thinking... but our curriculum at school level is basically here's a man who had loads of wives, also here's WW1/2, aren't we great. Our curriculum is already heavily propagansdised.

[Abyss]

Maark Abbott, on 04 March 2026 - 11:51 AM, said:

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 04 March 2026 - 08:57 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 04 March 2026 - 08:37 AM, said:

Macros, on 04 March 2026 - 08:19 AM, said:

Rule Britannia
Us Brits will show them how its done
British Empire isn't dead, we saved the world, rah rah rah

Yeah, this tracks.

We were talking more generally about attitudes in Britain between generations but Mr NAB said in passing last night "It's like there's a proportion of people want to go back to the days of the British Empire" - it does feel like certainly a lot of the older generations are harking back to a supposed glory day that never really existed, and what did exist of it was built on the back of a lot of poor, desperate and subjugated people both in Britain and across the world.

You see Refash banging on about 'patriotic curriculum' and I was just thinking... but our curriculum at school level is basically here's a man who had loads of wives, also here's WW1/2, aren't we great. Our curriculum is already heavily propagansdised.

It's not that the BE was so great, it's just that no one was willing to argue w them about it at the 'high point'. The nostalgia amounts to 'hey wasnt it great back when everyone was afraid of us (except for the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch so we just married them all)?'.

[Grief]

There's a survey about British pride in the Empire that goes around every few years (2025, 2019, 2014). The level of support for the Empire always shocks me.

There is an obvious divide along political lines. Most right-wing voters believe that colonised countries were better off for having been colonised. 30-40% would like Britain to still have an Empire.

There has been a marked decline in overall pride in the Empire (now at 33% down from 59% in 2014), and that looks set continue since these views correlate clearly with age. But the numbers still always shock me.

To Maark's point, the latest survey has a section about people's views on teaching Empire that more or less amounts to most people staying on the fence regardless of their political affiliation.

[Grief]

Grief, on 04 March 2026 - 11:03 AM, said:

Think a lot of it is just the need for opposition parties to oppose.

It is very rare these days that an opposition party will admit the sitting government is actually doing a good job of anything, never mind something very publicly visible and salient.

This is doubly true for populists. They will always be on the attack, and hope people ignore that they are not proposing remotely credible alternatives. It can however put them in an bind in areas where the government is actually doing a decent job. And frankly Starmer had been comparably decent on foreign policy, while Farage has largely been making a fool of himself even towards his base.

Quoting myself but PMQs is absolutely a case in point here.

Starmer has said he doesn't want to join an war with no legal basis or clear plan. Badenoch, who can't possibly agree with Starmer, says we should go on the attack to support our wonderful allies.

Which of those statements do we think reflects majority British public opinion?

Farage, who is at least more politically savvy, says Starmer is doing it all wrong and calls for us to back the US harder... but shies away from anything very firm and clarifies it can't be boots on the ground. For anyone paying atttention this looks like shifty political point scoring at best.

So long as he can manage it diplomatically and internationally, which is tough, this is a bit of an open goal for Starmer domestically at the moment and I genuinely think it could have lasting consequences. The next election is miles off obviously, and I have doubts it will even be Starmer that capitalises, but having an image as pro-US without question and pro-war-in-the-middle-east-again (and having the soundbites to back that up) could still be very damaging for the right down the line. If the global situation keeps getting worse, then by 2029 people will look at those positions even more harshly than today.

Starmer might not be the nimblest political operator but he knew well enough to back Johnson on Ukraine firmly and consistently. His current opposition seem unable to avoid twisting themselves in knots any time serious foreign policy comes to the table. And serious foreign policy doesn't seem like it is going away any time soon.

[Maark Abbott]

One question I have been putting to Reformers about all this is 'why do you support Iraq 2.0'. They cannot answer this question. The response is either derisive hostility or revisionist talking points. They cannot explain WHY they support the UK getting dragged into another incredibly questionable conflict and opening ourselves up as a target for terrorist attacks again.

I despair that anyone actually gives them the time of day.