Let’s not slavishly follow US and get sucked into Israel’s war – we don't want another Iraq

As the situation in Lebanon escalates and we get further dragged into another Middle East war, Mirror columnist Paul Routledge says Starmer has no parliamentary mandate and needs to spell out exactly how far the UK intends to get involved

Are we at war with Iran? RAF jets went into action to defend Israel against rockets fired by the regime in Tehran. And Downing Street issued a tell-nothing two-sentence statement insisting that the UK stands with the Israelis.

Fine words, but not good enough. The US seems happy to be dragged into war with the mullahs. But we are not bound to slavishly follow their lead. Not again. Not another Iraq.

Parliament is not sitting, and the Opposition is too busy opposing itself to talk sense, but our government must tell us, the citizens, how far they intend to go.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy lamely bleats about an immediate ceasefire and a two-state solution for the Palestinians. Neither will happen.

Meanwhile, we are being sucked into a Middle East war that has no parliamentary sanction, no rationale and no clear goals. In a Mirror poll, 68% of readers fear we are on the brink of World War Three. Their anxiety is justified.

I ask: Will our airmen be ordered to bomb Iran? Will there be British boots on the ground in the Islamic Republic? Will the Navy fire missiles at Israel’s enemy? If so, why?

Nuclear-armed Israel, the most powerful military nation in the region, bombs anywhere – including Iran – at will. Her right-wing, militarist government already has the total backing of the world’s greatest war machine, the US. If that isn’t enough, I don’t know what is.

I have visited Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt and Israel, sometimes by invitation, sometimes at my expense. I wouldn’t want to live in any of them. And from where I stand, this is not our war.

Burning sense of duty to steel workers

The last coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, closed down this week.

And the last coke-burning blast furnace at Port Talbot has cooled, bringing to an end primary steelmaking in South Wales.

This is the end of an epoch, the final phase of the Industrial Revolution, after almost 300 years. Britain pioneered that process, changing the world for the better.

Coal fuelled the factories, brought electricity to the masses and opened the globe to civilisation. It’s fashionable now to decry these great achievements, but not here. I pay tribute to the unsung generations of workers who delivered the modern society we all enjoy – including self-appointed guardians of the planet.

Our mining communities were destroyed by the Tories. This government must not allow steelworkers and power station workers to share that fate.

Labour has a duty to make the transition to a new way of life as painless and secure as possible. These men and their families did the work. Now it’s payback time.