00:00UK has been on the sidelines during Keir Starmer's prime ministership and it's not just on this
00:06conflict we saw this with Gaza as well we absolutely saw it where we were not leveraging
00:11British influence in the way in which we have done historically Britain has always been very
00:15strong in the Middle East but also when it comes to dialogue and diplomacy and we all know at the
00:21outset of this conflict it was our friends in the GCC that were basically saying very publicly that
00:27they felt let down by Britain and that we were absent that we were not doing enough to protect
00:32our own people a quarter of a million British nationals in the region our bases our military
00:38personnel the likes of our bases our support in Qatar and in Bahrain and across the region so this
00:45is a sad situation for Britain there's no doubt about that but what I would say is that this is
00:51also an opportunity for Britain to demonstrate that we do have influence we can work with our allies
00:57that we are serious about our defense
Comments