Let me walk you through last week's calendar at Number 10, because it's a masterclass in what happens when a country confuses having opinions with having a foreign policy.

Monday: Keir Starmer tells the House of Commons that Britain has "serious concerns" about the legality of American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Strong words. Principled stuff. The Guardian runs it above the fold.

Wednesday: John Healey, the Defence Secretary, quietly confirms that RAF tanker aircraft have been refuelling American bombers over the Gulf. Britain is, as a matter of operational fact, providing logistical support for the strikes that the Prime Minister publicly questioned the legality of forty-eight hours earlier.

Friday: The Foreign Office briefs journalists — anonymously, of course, because courage is not a core competency — that Britain remains America's "most trusted and dependable ally" and that the Prime Minister's earlier comments should be understood as "part of the normal healthy dialogue between close partners."

This is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy requires the capacity for independent action and the choice not to exercise it. This is something structurally worse: this is the only available behaviour pattern for a country that does not have an independent foreign policy, has not had one since Anthony Eden's political career was euthanised at Suez in 1956, and — here's the really depressing part — shows absolutely no desire to acquire one, because doing so would require spending money, taking risks, and telling the British public uncomfortable truths, which are three things no modern British politician will do if there is literally any alternative, including national humiliation.

Here is the reality that everyone in Whitehall knows and nobody will say on the record: Britain's nuclear deterrent is American. The Trident missiles are leased. The warhead design is shared technology that couldn't be maintained without American cooperation. The submarines are built in Britain but would be floating bathtubs without American navigation systems and targeting data. GCHQ — Britain's crown jewel, the thing that actually gives the UK influence — produces intelligence that goes into NSA systems before most British ministers see it. The "seat at the top table" that British politicians love to reference? It's held open by Washington because GCHQ intercepts are useful to the NSA, not because America is impressed by British strategic thinking. The moment that intelligence product becomes available through other means — and AI-driven signals intelligence is making that moment arrive faster than anyone in Cheltenham wants to admit — Britain's seat at the table becomes a chair that nobody remembers to pull out.

This is not a Starmer problem. Tony Blair had the same structural dependency and resolved it by becoming George W. Bush's most enthusiastic co-belligerent in Iraq. His "I will be with you, whatever" letter to Bush is the single most humiliating document in modern British diplomatic history, and I say this as someone who has read every Foreign Office communication about Suez. Cameron had the same dependency and resolved it by enthusiastically joining the Libya intervention, then running out of precision munitions after six weeks because Britain literally didn't have enough bombs. Theresa May had the same dependency and resolved it by asking Parliament for permission to bomb Syria, being refused, and then quietly providing targeting intelligence to the Americans anyway. Boris Johnson had the same dependency and resolved it by — actually, I genuinely cannot remember what Boris Johnson's foreign policy was. I don't think he had one. I think he had a series of photo opportunities with varying degrees of diplomatic plausibility.