STEPHEN GLOVER: Has Britain – as soon as a serious participant within the Middle East – ever regarded SO irrelevant on the world stage?

Does anyone have the faintest idea what the Labour Government’s policy is towards Donald Trump’s bombing of Iran. Is it for or against?

Some may think that Sir Keir Starmer supports American and Israeli action. On Saturday he described the regime in Tehran as ‘utterly abhorrent’, and added that Iran ‘must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon’.

Yet at the same time Starmer is reported to have denied permission to the United States to use the British base on Diego Garcia, one of the Chagos Islands, to mount a strike against Iran. Not very helpful.

Last night he about-turned again, saying that he had agreed to a US request to use British military bases. But he is still unprepared to go further and face down his querulous party.

In a moment of international crisis, to whom did he turn for guidance? Why, his old friend and colleague, Attorney General Lord Hermer. The view of this tiresome human rights lawyer – that Trump is breaking international law – has made Starmer even more wobbly than usual.

Of course Trump is breaking international law! We don’t need Hermer to tell us this is the case, since the US isn’t directly threatened by Iran. The more important question is whether British national interests lie in supporting Trump in his latest escapade, and if so to what extent?

For even the most zealous of the President’s supporters should ask themselves whether blitzing Iran is likely to bring about regime change. My fear is that we may, at best, exchange one nasty regime for another that is almost as unpleasant.

Meanwhile, Starmer sits unnoticed on the sidelines, He plays the only role he has perfected – of a nervous undertaker on his first day at work, looking permanently stunned. He calls a Cobra meeting, boasts about RAF planes being ‘in the sky’, and does absolutely nothing.

A couple of Iranian missiles have reportedly veered accidentally in the direction of Cyprus, where Britain maintains a sovereign base. It sounds impressive but is home only to a handful of aircraft – so depleted is the RAF – which no one takes very seriously.

Has Britain, in living memory a major power in the Middle East, ever looked so irrelevant? Granted, it wouldn’t be easy for the strongest and most determined ally to rein in a man as headstrong, unpredictable and reckless as Donald Trump.

I also naturally accept that British power has long been on the wane – ‘far-called, our navies melt away’, to quote Rudyard Kipling in a poem written as long ago as 1897 – and that our ability to shape global events is much diminished.

But Starmer has made things far worse. The man who has been ludicrously praised for supposedly being sure-footed in international affairs has failed to develop a foreign policy that makes the best use of what remains of British power, influence and diplomatic skill.

The only foreign policy he has is to bend the knee. He pays obeisance to the European Union, seeking a closer relationship that is acceptable to Brussels only on the basis that we make all the concessions.

His abject courting of Trump has been even more depressing. The American President is a bully. Once he has suborned other leaders, he is happy to shower them with meaningless compliments.

When Theresa May visited the White House in 2017, Donald Trump famously grabbed her hand and led her around. This wasn’t in any sense a chivalrous act. He wanted to dominate the British Prime Minister.

Mrs May was taken by surprise, whereas Starmer has intentionally sucked up to Trump in the most embarrassing way. On his first visit to the White House a year ago, he flourished an invitation from the King to a smug-looking President, offering an ‘unprecedented’ second State visit.

When, a few months later, Trump dropped some papers (deliberately?) while talking to Starmer at a G7 meeting in Canada, the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland instantly bent down and picked them up like a dutiful boy scout.

Theresa May looks like Boadicea by the side of the meek and sycophantic Starmer. He has allowed, almost encouraged, Donald Trump to dominate him even though they disagree about almost everything.

Admittedly, the PM did unusually stand up to his American counterpart in January. Trump had claimed that Nato troops, including British ones, stayed ‘a little off the front lines’ in Afghanistan, though 457 of our servicemen died in that futile conflict. Starmer rightly said these remarks were ‘insulting and frankly appalling’.

For the most part, though, he has genuflected to Trump. That may have won him some empty plaudits from the narcissistic President but it hasn’t earned him any respect. Any advice he chooses to give in respect of Iran will be noted and almost certainly ignored.

And although Trump constantly boasts that he has persuaded European Nato members to spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence, even his fluid mind must be aware that British military spending has so far barely risen above 2.5 per cent of GDP in face of an increasingly sinister Russian threat.

Why should the President, or indeed any other world leader, take Sir Keir Starmer seriously? They can see that he is weak – deferential towards power, lacking any kind of coherent vision, and increasingly disowned by his own party.

Not that Prime Minister Angela Rayner or Prime Minister Andy Burnham would be any better. If anything, they’d be even more at sea in international affairs than Starmer. Moreover, behind the next Labour leader will be a party convinced that welfare is infinitely more important than defence.

Under Labour we have become an inward-looking, small-minded, increasingly divided country whose rulers seem comically miscast if they venture on to the world stage.

Setting aside Starmer for a moment, who is likely to be impressed by the bustling yet ineffective Yvette Cooper as Foreign Secretary? Her lumbering predecessor, David Lammy, cut an even more implausible figure.

I hope my fears over what will happen in Iran are exaggerated. After the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, how wonderful

it would be if the Iranian people replaced their repressive regime with a decent government that was well disposed towards the West, and accepted Israel’s right to exist.

But it seems very possible that what comes next will be almost as bad. I’m not even sure how long Iran will retain Trump’s interest. He may simply withdraw soon, declare another triumph, and leave the Iranian people to pick up the pieces.

Until 1956 and the Suez crisis, Britain was the pre-eminent Middle Eastern power. Even after having been displaced by the United States, we remained its most trusted and often indispensable ally, fighting together in both Gulf Wars, on the second occasion I believe tragically unwisely.

Now, under Starmer’s feeble leadership, we have become mere spectators. It is the first time this has happened in my lifetime. Donald Trump doesn’t care what we think or do as we sink into irrelevance.

Contrary to what most people on the Labour benches think, Britain’s voice was usually a force for good. Now that it has fallen virtually silent, the world seems an even more dangerous place.