Boris Johnson must step in quickly and make a strong stand against the Iranian regime
Early test for the PM
A CRISIS bigger than Brexit. It seems hard to imagine.
But that is exactly how one Cabinet minister characterised the rapidly- escalating emergency in the Middle East.
Iran’s violent reaction to the assassination of its murderous military chief General Qasem Soleimani could easily present the West with its most dangerous threat since the last Gulf War.
So as the first rockets are fired in revenge after President Trump’s drone strike, it is vital that Britain gets its response right. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has already criticised European countries for not being helpful — that includes the UK.
We must not lose sight of the fact that, as well as having 900 troops in Iraq and Syria, we have regularly been the target of Iranian aggression.
In July, British oil tanker the Stena Impero was seized by the Revolutionary Guards. There was the 2017 cyber attack when Iran hacked MPs’ emails, and human rights abuses such as the jailing of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on trumped-up spy charges.
To cap it all Soleimani, who controlled death squads across the region, was himself an SAS assassination target in 2007.
It was bad enough that Trump told his oldest ally nothing of the US strike in advance. But since then the Government has shown signs of struggling to catch up.
This is a major early test for Boris Johnson. He must step in quickly and make a strong stand against an Iranian regime which has regularly threatened Britain.
End legal aid madness
IF you’re a terrorist, there appears to be no limit to our generosity with legal aid.
London Bridge attacker Usman Khan was handed £340,000 of taxpayers’ money when he was tried in 2012 for his part in a plot to bomb the Stock Exchange.
His barrister picked up £217,324 in state aid for representing the fanatic, who the judge said was a serious risk to the public.
A year later a further £12,000 was spent on Khan’s successful appeal against his sentence, allowing him back onto the streets ludicrously early to carry out his bloody killing spree.
He joins other jihadis in receiving state hand-outs when relatives of terror victims have shockingly been refused any legal help at inquests.
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In a sickening injustice, families of those killed in the 2017 London Bridge attack were told it was not in the public interest to grant them a penny.
While no one should be denied a fair trial, aid is too often lavished on criminals rather than those who suffer at their hands.
The Government must tackle this scandal as a matter of urgency.
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