A Speech That Showed Britain at Its Worst
6 min read
As Israel was burying and grieving for the six hostages shot in the head by Hamas terrorists to prevent them from being freed by the Israeli military, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy gave a speech.
After a preface in which he described himself as a friend of Israel—“a liberal progressive Zionist,” no less—he announced the suspension of a number of licenses for arms exports to the Jewish state. He admitted that His Majesty’s government had not determined whether Israel had breached international humanitarian law, and he affirmed that the suspensions did not represent a determination of innocence or guilt. But apparently such uncertainties were irrelevant.
At its Churchillian best, Britain has saved Western civilization, not to mention laid the groundwork for the freedoms that those of us in the United States enjoy. At its worst, though, it gives the rest of the world reason to think that the phrase perfidious Albion has something to it. This is one of those occasions.
Begin with the timing, evidence of either exceptional callousness or, more charitably, exceptional incompetence on the part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Lammy himself. Kicking a country as it buried its murdered hostages was bad form. But the best-known of these hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was a U.S. citizen whose parents had spoken with extraordinary dignity and passion at the Democratic National Convention and then, brokenhearted but full of grace, at his funeral. So if the kick was aimed at the Jewish state, it landed on Americans too.
Lammy’s first excuse for suspending the licenses was that Israel could “do more” in Gaza. Precisely what more, he didn’t say, probably because he did not know. We have yet to hear from any British general on how they would have rooted out an army of tens of thousands of Hamas fighters in the most fortified urban complexes to see sustained combat since World War II. The British army today would struggle to put two brigades in the field (the Israelis have deployed more than a dozen in Gaza), and its last experience of urban combat, in Basra, Iraq, was not an encouraging one, as American commanders noted at the time.
Lammy’s second excuse was more absurd yet: that there is a “clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.” Bombs being bombs, missiles being missiles, for that matter bullets being bullets, there is always a clear risk of weapons being used for such purposes.
The final, pathetic note here is that Lammy was announcing the suspension of only 30 of some 350 licenses, and he took pains to ensure that these would not affect anything that matters, certainly not F-35 fighters; nor, in his (admittedly suspect) judgment, would these actions have “a material impact on Israel’s security.” If so, other than a bit of moralistic preening, what was the point? Particularly when this political theater only strengthened the moral position and domestic standing of an Israeli prime minister whom the British surely loathe?
When Keir Starmer became prime minister with just 34 percent of the popular vote but more than 60 percent of the seats in the House of Commons, he promised to “end the era of noisy performance.” The foreign secretary may not have been particularly noisy in his speech, but he most definitely was performative. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Labour was scrambling to buy off its deeply anti-Israel left wing, which, to his credit, Starmer was able to contain but not remove. Still, appeasement remains appeasement.
The episode has a broader significance than what it says about a novice foreign secretary, his inept staff, and an ever-present anti-Israel animus in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It reminds us that the special relationship between the U.S. and the U.K., is, in some areas, no longer so special—which is consequential.
To be sure, the Brits will usually show up when it matters. They took some shots at Iranian missiles heading to Israel; sent troops to fight alongside Americans even in ventures that seemed, to them, doubtful; batted away Houthi missiles flying over the Arabian Sea. Their intelligence services remain remarkable in their ability to gather and analyze both technical and human intelligence. They will, under good leadership, accept far more risk than their American cousins, including putting people on the ground in hazardous circumstances.
They can exercise political leadership as well. Ironically, perhaps the most vilified British prime minister of recent times, Boris Johnson, was positively brilliant in rushing to Kyiv, pouring in such aid as Britain could provide, and keeping up the effort even while not in office by trying to talk Donald Trump out of his hostility toward Ukraine. As American allies sometimes do, Johnson and a successor, Rishi Sunak, followed the United States from in front by getting tanks and long-range missiles to Ukraine, and then by persuading (and shaming) the White House and the Pentagon to imitate their example.
But then there are antics like this one. There will probably be more, because as politically incorrect as it is in modern Britain to admit, the British impulse to lead, to take risks on behalf of a cause like Ukraine, to stand up to Russian aggression, depends on its pride in its past. It is the impulse to do things that have weight and consequence, to take a stand, to dare and if necessary to fight.
As British cultural elites have turned on the British past and obsess about the sins of empire, as its own cancel culture has become worse than that of the United States (note, for example, the treatment of J. K. Rowling), as historical figures are judged only by the standards of early-21st-century principles, Britain’s will and ability to lead have declined, and will continue to do so.
And then there is the matter of Britain’s atrophying muscle. As much as Americans prize the Anglosphere, the fact is that the other English-speaking peoples, as Churchill once termed them, are militarily a disturbingly feeble lot. The British armed forces have fewer men and women under arms than Italy, and not many more than Greece. The Royal Navy has six attack submarines, fewer than 20 major surface combatants, and two aircraft carriers, for which it has struggled to get the airplanes. The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces, by contrast, has 24 attack submarines, four small aircraft carriers, and 48 surface combatants. The British army has slightly more than 200 tanks. Poland has nearly 500 tanks and is acquiring well more than 1,000 more.
Australia, which often gets a pass from Americans, has similarly fallen behind: It is shrinking its deployable ground forces down from three brigades to two, and although it will acquire nuclear submarines, that is a long way off. Its other services are struggling to replace planes and ships, and in some areas (long-range strike aircraft, in particular), they are behind where they were decades ago. As for Canada, best not to ask about one of NATO’s worst free riders.
The Anglosphere is real in some respects, particularly with regards to intelligence-sharing, and to some extent a common commitment to the rule of law, the importance of free governments, and resistance to aggression. But in other respects, Americans are kidding themselves if they think the English-speaking states can generate the astounding forces that all of them—including Canada, Australia, and Britain—brought to the crisis of the West in the early 1940s. The numbers tell a different story from the one we would like to believe, which is why more attention to countries like Poland and Japan is warranted. And speeches like the one Lammy delivered help explain why the numbers are as bad as they are, and unlikely to get much better.
