Britain is ‘now involved’ in Middle East conflict, warns Ellwood

Britain must accept “we’re now involved” in the Middle East conflict after RAF warplanes joined the mission to shoot down Iranian drones targeted at Israel, a former defence minister has said.

Tobias Ellwood, a former defence minister and former chair of the Commons defence committee, warned “nobody was in full control” of the escalating conflict as increasing numbers of countries were sucked into it.

His comments came after Iran mounted an unprecedented attack on Israel by firing more than 300 drones and cruise and ballistic missiles into Israel on Saturday night.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed UK warplanes in Iraq and Syria had been deployed to intercept “any airborne attacks within range of our existing missions.” 

Mr Ellwood said: “It’s very clear that Britain will stand with Israel to help defend its guys and its soil along with the United States as well. But we need to recognise we’re now involved in this too.”

No single power in control 

He said the Iranian strikes on Israel took the regional conflict into “new dangerous territory”.

“There’s no doubt that this conflict in the Middle East is escalating with no single power in control of where this is heading,” he said.

“Iran has long engaged in a shadow war with Israel, but both sides usually carefully avoid direct engagement. So this attack by Iran, rather than using its proxies, takes us into a new, dangerous territory. A new worrying precedent has now been set.”

Speaking on Sky News, Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, called on Israel and Iran to “de-escalate” the conflict.