Kmflett's Blog

Keir Starmer on Blair & Iraq (2003) ‘Flawed advice does not make the unlawful use of force lawful’

In 20222 Keir Starmer defended the appointment of Tony Blair as a Knight of the Garter on the basis that he did a lot of positive things as Prime Minister. He acknowledged that for many the Iraq War was problematic in 2003 and remains so.

Clearly the 550,000 or so who have already signed a petition calling for Blair’s Knighthood to be rescinded agree.

Starmer’s legal opinion of March 2003 is carefully written as one would expect but perhaps it can be summed up by noting that it would be very difficult to support a legal war against Iraq given the situation at the time.

Even so Blair and Bush did…

More particularly since Starmer has been much less keen on international law in recent times- think Gaza- its interesting that he has cited it as a reason for not getting fully engaged with Trump’s adventure in Iran (he is clearly engaged but not in the Blair 2003 sense). The past weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living

Guardian 17^th March 2003

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/mar/17/foreignpolicy.iraq1

Flawed advice does not make the unlawful use of force lawful.

· Keir Starmer QC is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers specialising in internat- ional human rights law. He is a fellow of the Human Rights Centre at Essex University.