George Barker

It seems with the collapse of any meaningful commitment to a rules-based international order - replaced instead by a raw-power dialogue shaped by might over right - every country in the global South watching Gaza burn and witnessing strikes on Iran is asking the same question: Are we next? Some will now draw the darkest of conclusions. That to avoid the fate of Gaza or Iraq, or Libya - they too must consider acquiring biological or even nuclear capabilities. Deterrence, not diplomacy, becomes the lesson. We are not making the world safer. We are making it infinitely more dangerous. And for Britain to so uncritically align itself with the actions of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu - two hard-right authoritarians with little respect for democracy or the international norms that sustain it - is not just morally indefensible. It’s a dangerous travesty that risks dragging us into wars we did not start, and whose consequences we will all have to bear.