The “war that isn’t” with Iran has been raging now for two weeks and its effects have been felt across the pond. Anecdotally, petrol prices in an area close to this writer have risen by six pence per litre in the time since it began. But the biggest effects are international, not local.
This rise is yet another gut punch thrusted into the British people at the hands of the permanent state. But it’s not all doom and gloom. This debacle has exposed Reform, led by Nigel Farage, to be the fake anti-establishment party most have suspected for months now. This is a great service in the long run for British politics.
Initially, Prime Minister Keir Starmer stood up to the head honcho and told him where to stick it regarding requests for the British military to involve itself in yet another war in the Middle East. This stance was held for about as long as any other stance the prime minister has taken; the U-turn is definitely being Starmer’s favorite vehicular maneuver. No sooner had he broken ties with the United States, Starmer got on his hands and knees to grovel and offer concessions including the usage of British military bases for “defensive actions.” Fans of Nineteen Eighty-Four will adore this terminology for there is nothing more malleable than the English language.
Starmer’s polling numbers being lower than most graves appears to have been a bulwark against direct involvement in the Iran war since it’s alarmingly obvious that at least half of the country oppose involvement. The environment in which the Starmer government has been making decisions is an incredibly hostile one. Inflation is still high, unemployment is on the up, economic growth is stagnating, and the prime minister is battered and bruised after a recent scandal that threw out the credibility of his experience at the top of the judicial system for years. Starmer had to apologize for his appointment of the former ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson, after he believed the lies Mandelson told him about being close to Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson claimed directly to the prime minister that his involvement with Epstein was minimal, so Starmer appointed him. Not once did it cross Starmer’s mind that perhaps a man known as “The Prince of Darkness,” who has been sacked multiple times from high office for unethical behavior, is a liar.
This is the context in which decisions had to be made. Not wishing to sink his government further down the seven layers of hell, Starmer did what little he could to appease the orange buffoon. Given that it will be exceedingly difficult to become even more unpopular, you could say that the prime minister on this occasion has got the best of both worlds; no popularity dip and appeasement of the United Kingdom’s “most important ally.”
For some time now, Reform has continued to parade itself as the anti-establishment political party that will reach power and seek to destroy the permanent state that has sucked the lifeblood out of the United Kingdom. But rather than walk the walk, every action they’ve taken suggests the opposite. Cue the initiation of the Iran war and Nigel Farage’s immediate support became apparent:
The Prime Minister needs to change his mind on the use of our military bases and back the Americans in this vital fight against Iran!
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) February 28, 2026
Today’s headlines are full of Farage backpedaling, akin to Starmer, on his position, now saying that the United Kingdom should not get directly involved because we do not have the military capability to do so. Farage has accidentally told the truth about the state of the British military but, as is often the case with politicians, the substance is in what Farage didn’t say rather than what he did. Farage has not explicitly stated that as head of the governmen he would not involve the British military in the Iran war. He solely said that he wouldn’t, at the moment, because our military is in tatters. The implication being that, were that not the case, Farage would be more than happy to be a Blair-Bush tribute act and march into the Middle East again at the behest of the U.S. war machine.
With different members of the Reform party announcing different positions on the war with Iran, it further supports the idea that there is a lot of flip flopping going on as they attempt to navigate their way through the real politik of foreign policy, desperate to appear anti-establishment whilst privately bending to vested interests. Nadhim Zahawi, a former Conservative minister who has now joined Reform, appears to have strong links to United Arab Emirates (UAE) interests that could bring in a “huge amount of money” according to Farage.
The past few months have been mired with Reform doing everything they possibly can to sink their chances at cementing themselves as the anti-establishment party. They have taken on multiple former Conservative ministers who took part in the embarrassing, managed decline of the United Kingdom. The list of hires makes for grim reading. Zahawi is key; a wealthy and strong donor base from the UAE is a tool that makes Farage grin from ear to ear. The permanent state has been incredibly effective at infiltrating anti-establishment political parties and movements over recent years. Brexit was infiltrated by soft Tory wets like Boris Johnson who talked the talk on Brexit yet would allow record amounts of immigrants into the country, barely break from European Union policy, and refuse to exploit Brexit freedoms.
The Labour Party was led by Jeremy Corbyn, an outspoken critic of Israel, and as a committed Marxist he demanded the rich pay for sucking the lifeblood out of the United Kingdom (from his garbled points of view, anyway). He would be undone by Boris Johnson’s Conservatives and figures like Keir Starmer, who claimed to be socialists before doing a massive about turn, upsetting the radicals in his own party.
Reform have voluntarily let the foxes in the hen house, either unawares or without objection to their very real connections to the establishment. So deep does the rot go in Reform that their pick for shadow chancellor, Robert Jenrick, is sending his economic speeches to George Osborne, a previous Conservative chancellor who has wriggled to the top of OpenAI despite having zero credentials for this role (apart from his connections to various governments). Farage has spoken out in the past against various wars, including the war in Ukraine, but the statements coincide with ebbs and flows of Donald Trump’s two administrations. Given Farage’s close ties with the Trump White House and Farage’s own lack of ideological rigidity, he seems to sail with the political winds rather than forge his own route. This has allowed a genuinely anti-establishment movement to be captured by the permanent state.
The establishment has been bullishly persistent to marshal the hard-earned resources of millions of peaceful individuals to commit heinous crimes against people who never offended them. A small group of out-of-touch, conniving political elites continuously conspire, with far too great success, to make an entire society responsible for the actions of its illegitimate state. The permanent state has been waging war on the British people for decades. Net zero suicide, endless tax rises, increasing inflation, and creeping joblessness come at the hands of a state that wishes nothing but ill will upon its people.
Whilst the media continue to cover the war with Iran, the Starmer government attempts the normalization and fake moderation of digital ID. The latest battle against the people comes from the justice secretary, David Lammy, who is seeking to scrap jury trials for certain offenses to deal with the backlog that is paralyzing the British judicial system. Centuries of legal tradition scrapped because the state refuses to stop criminalizing free speech, end the war on drugs, and deport foreign criminals. In this case, it is perhaps advantageous for Starmer that the Iran war happened now. Attention can be drawn where it is undoubtedly more palatable for him to take a feigned stand, whilst sneaking through the backdoor the dereliction of the judicial system. Wars very rarely stay overseas. But just as in war, one battle can cover another to ensure its success. And the battle against the British people continues in earnest.
