A Sky News presenter was left visibly frustrated as a defence minister could not answer the most basic question about Iran.
A top Labour minister was left squirming this morning after he refused to answer a simple question about Donald Trump’s Iran bombing three times. Defence minister Luke Pollard appeared on Sky News this morning as the world holds its breath following President Trump’s threat of regime change in Tehran.
However, Mr Pollard appeared hopelessly unprepared, as he refused to say whether or not the UK government backed the military action against Iran’s nuclear regime. Wilfred Frost asked him three times if the UK Government is “disappointed” in Donald Trump’s course of action. Asked if Downing Street is “disappointed ultimately that the US felt it necessary to attack Iran over the weekend”, Mr Pollard deflected from the question.
Keir Starmer was humiliated by Donald Trump’s Iran bombing (Image: Getty)
He replied: “Well the US felt it necessary to take action to alleviate what they felt was a severe threat to their security and regional security. Our focus as a country has been to get Iran back to the negotiating table, for them to negotiate in good faith, and that is the priority.”
“To stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon – and they should never be able to possess a nuclear weapon – we need not only for the nuclear facilities to be disrupted but also for the knowledge and awareness within the Iranian regime to be locked out so they can’t ever develop nuclear weapons again in the future.”
“Once they’ve started on that path they possess the knowledge which means they could go back to it.”
Mr Frost asked the same question a second time, with Mr Pollard insisting it’s “not for me to comment on the particular US action.”
The Fordow nuclear facility after the bombing (Image: MAXAR)
He added that the Government is assessing the battle damage from the bombing raid at the moment to understand the outcome of the strikes.
However, the frustrated Sky presenter cut him off, pointing out: “Forgive me minister but it is specifically your role to comment on military action when it happens around the world so we know what our government thinks about it.”
“Is our government pleased or disappointed that the US took this action?”
Mr Pollard refused a third time to answer the question, merely insisting that the UK had not been involved in the military action nor the actions in recent days by the Israeli government.
He said the UK government has been focussed on finding a “diplomatic solution to this as well as protecting our people in the region.”
It comes after Sir Keir Starmer was humiliated by Donald Trump just five days after he told reporters at the G7 that there was “no doubt in my mind” that the US President would not join Israel in bombing Iran.
In Canada he said: “I was sitting right next to President Trump, so I’ve no doubt, in my mind, the level of agreement there was [on de-escalation].”
No. 10 claimed it was given advanced warning of the US action against Iran.
