HOME Office Minister Alex Norris has denied that Ed Miliband, Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper opposed letting the US use UK bases to attack Iran despite the Defence Secretary being in favour.
He told GB News: “That reporting is not accurate. We have been clear throughout that it is not in Britain’s interest to be part of an offensive war in the Middle East.
“We’ve been clear throughout, similarly, that we will protect Britain’s interest, and that’s why we’ve acted as we have. So, you know, I hear what you say, but it simply isn’t accurate.”
Asked about the cancellation of an evacuation flight from Oman last night, he said: “First of all, there are flights leaving the region that we’ve been supporting to make sure that people who are either in transit or who were living in the region and wanted to come back to the UK have been able to do so.
“We do want to augment that with a charter flight of our own out of Oman. We were hoping that that would go last night. That wasn’t the case. That will go tomorrow.
“We’re working with people in the meantime, because I know that it’s a stressful situation. We’re working with them in the meantime. We’ve got people on the ground, including in the airport. We’ve found them accommodation, and then we’ll get them away, as you know, as soon as we can do, and there’ll be more flights to follow.
“So it is a volatile situation, but we’re moving quickly to support the interests of our nationals. If they want to come back to the UK.”
On why British naval assets were not deployed in advance, Norris said: “I can’t accept that characterisation of things on the ground. What you’ve seen prior to the days of conflict, that we’ve seen over the last few days, we have been building up our assets.
“We’ve built up our air defence systems, we’ve built up our radar systems, we’ve deployed F-35s and you will have seen the impact that they’ve had in recent days. So we have had that capacity. It was ready. It is being effective. Now we are seeking to build on that.
“It’s a matter of record with regards to HMS Dragon, with regards to sending Wildcats to the region. But we have put things in place ahead of time. They are being effective.”
He said he disagreed with criticism of the UK from Bahrain, the UAE, and Cyprus: “I can’t accept that characterisation of things on the ground. What you’ve seen prior to the days of conflict that we’ve seen over the last few days, we have been building up our assets.”
Norris also dismissed criticism from the Cypriot government which is relying on the Netherlands, France and Greece to protect the island: “Again, I would say to people, judge us by what has been achieved in the last few days.
“Judge us by those systems that were built up, whether they’re the air defence ones, whether they’re the radar ones, whether it’s the F-35s, and the impact that they’re having and our role we’re playing in that collective security of ourselves and our allies, protecting British interests in the region.”
