Cyprus visit sees UK minister claim Iran is 'not our war'

Defence minister Luke Pollard decided to patronise the British public on his visit to the UK’s colonial bases in Cyprus. Cyprus is part of a network of British bases being used as a node in the UK’s role in the attack on Iran.

Minister for the Arms Trade in Cyprus

The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry (pronounced: Minister for the Arms Trade) posted on X on 28 April during a visit to Cyprus:

Good to speak to our forces in the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus today.

The Iran war is not our war but I’m very proud of the way our UK forces have protected British bases, British citizens and British allies and partners.

Good to speak to our forces in the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus today.

The Iran war is not our war but I’m very proud of the way our UK forces have protected British bases, British citizens and British allies and partners 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/KnUbj3umvN

— Luke Pollard MP (@LukePollard) April 27, 2026

Pollard was echoing the official, ridiculous and widely debunked British position that the UK was only involved in ‘defensive action’.

Here is the truth of it…

Basing agreements with the US

US bombers are attacking Iran from British bases. Pollard’s claim even contradicted his boss at the Ministry of Defence (MOD), defence secretary John Healey. Healey said on 11 April:

Even in this current conflict, the basing permissions that we in the UK have agreed with the US have been invaluable to their military operations.

The key phrase here being “invaluable to their military operations”. The UK is at war with Iran, whether Luke Pollard likes it or not.

Ditto the rubbernecking public who’ve watched Iran-bound bombers leaving RAF Fairford. We corrected the Guardian’s whimsical reporting on that bleak phenomenon here.

RAF Mildenhall and Lakenheath – like Fairford, these are US bases pretending to be British – have also hosted American war machines hitting Iran.

Iran itself also rejects the UK claim it is carrying out ‘defensive’ actions. On 9 April, even the legacy press reported this:

Iran certainly doesn’t agree with the British government’s position that UK bases were only used by the US for defensive rather than offensive missions. Iran’s deputy foreign minister @SKhatibzadeh says some of the bombers which left from UK bases were on missions which led to… pic.twitter.com/paychYXf80

— Emma Murphy (@emmamurphyitv) April 9, 2026

You can read our analysis here. And here is the BBC saying the same:

UK agrees to let US use British bases to strike Iranian sites targeting Strait of Hormuz

Follow live: https://t.co/XUqp5AHwcs

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) March 20, 2026

Moreover, a former RAF officer and a former senior British diplomat have stated that Iran would correctly view the UK as a belligerent in the US-Israel war against it.

The RAF officer told Declassified UK on 7 April:

Keir Starmer’s insistence that the UK is not involved in the war, and that US aircraft at RAF Fairford are only carrying out defensive missions, is becoming increasingly unsustainable.

You can listen to former UK ambassador to Iran Sir Richard Dalton’s analysis here:

But this is the cut-and-thrust of it.

The reality of the UK’s role in the unprovoked and illegal US/Israel attack on Iran doesn’t change based on what Luke-bloody-Pollard thinks. The obligation of an aggressor in these situations is to stop what they are doing. And if the Starmer government won’t do so, it ought to feel it at the polls at the very least.

Featured image via screengrab