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The minister for armed forces dose not have the authority to make the choice. His responsibility is to manage the forces while the cabinet as a whole advices the PM and or parliament on such choices. Depending on the timelines.
So basically. Asking stupid impossible to answer question Then critical about the lack of answer for clicks. Pretty shitty.
He's a member of the cabinet and so should know the government position. He can also state if UK forces acted in any part of the operation (e.g. refilling).
The decision may not be his but he should be enacting the effect of the decision. It's absolutely reasonable to ask him.
He may know it. But it is pretty unlikely the gov has one given its trump uncertainty at play. Not to mention the news released on legal opinion.
But no cabinet member is authorised to declare war or not or future attacks on another nation. Without approval of the whole cabinet. So even if he knows it and one exists.
He is in no way authorised to declare it independent of official channels.
And absolutely any journalist in a position to ask that. Knows full well he cannot answer it.
It is absolutely not reasonable. Unless you are intentionally looking for refusal to answer. Because cabinet policy on attacking a 3rd nation is not and has never been released in such an interview. Such things would be officially announced to parliament first. And be an illegal act of treason for any minister to announce in such a way.
He is not a member of the Cabinet.
This isn't something this minister can say. He can't just make up UK defence policy and foreign policy on his own, especially not in a random LBC interview with a right wing rage merchant.
This is just outrage bait.
All we know so far is that Iran has made verbal threats about UK bases (which prompted the armed forces to further beef up their defence), the US informed the UK that they were going to bomb a few sites in Iran (but did not ask the UK to join), and that the UK government paid cheap lip service to the US but seems reluctant on anything else so far.
I'd hope Iran aren't actually stupid enough to attack UK bases, but you never know. I think everyone is far more keen on continuing to focus on Russia-Ukraine, rather than this distraction.
And yeah I know Iran does manufacturing, particularly of drones, for Russia, so it's not like they're unlinked... but my hunch is that the monetary and political cost of going after Iran directly would be too much, and Labour would rather stay out of a war with Iran if they can.