Declassified UK: Better late than never - but not enough

Posted: 1st October 2026

Better late than never – but not enough

Hamza Yusuf

Regular Contributor
Declassified UK

The UK media is finally telling the truth - though only half of it.

Police were called after three vans were spotted in Gloucestershire late last week, prompting a major operation and cordons around the area.

The incident unfolded near RAF Fairford, throwing the military airbase into the spotlight.

When Donald Trump was first asked about the incident, he said the suspects were looking to do big damage to “our fort.”For once, a president with a notoriously loose relationship with the truth was being honest.

His reference to the base as American was not hyperbole.

A recent US War Department document revealed that the US military owns, leases or otherwise controls at least 22 military sites in Britain. Among those identified as being under US control and hosting significant numbers of American personnel are the air bases at Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Croughton and Fairford.

That matters because one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding these sites is that they simply belong to, and are operated by, the UK.

As the story played out, the media was forced to grapple with the true nature of what takes place at Fairford and explain its operations to the public. Characteristically, that reality was distorted.

“The British government gave the US permission to use the base for ‘specific defensive operations into Iran’.”

That detail appeared repeatedly across broadcast and press coverage. Yet when the base was actually being used for those operations, journalists failed to convey to the public what they now appear to know.

Even the description of those missions as “defensive” is misleading.

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The reality went much further. According to a retired squadron leader speaking anonymously, the operations were plainly offensive. They said it was “glaringly obvious” that US bombers flying from Fairford were carrying out strikes on Iran.

We had seen evidence of this ourselves. In March, at the same air base, we witnessed 2,000lb bombs being loaded onto American B-1 warplanes before they were later used against Iran. RAF Fairford, with its 10,000-foot runway, is the US Air Force’s only European airfield for heavy bombers.

However, the coverage failed to sufficiently scrutinise the role these bases were playing, or the extent to which they were enabling and assisting atrocities in the region.

That failure helped sustain a much broader perception of British non-involvement.

In fact, the prevailing narrative was that then prime minister Keir Starmer, who oversaw and enabled the UK’s involvement in the US assault on Iran, had skilfully maintained a position of abstention.

“The special relationship between the UK and the US became increasingly strained after Sir Keir refused to be drawn into the war with Iran,” read an in-depth BBC assessment in June, as Starmer announced a leadership election after losing the confidence of his MPs.

“Boosting Britain’s standing on the world stage, the canny statecraft that kept Donald Trump’s US engaged in Ukraine and which kept the UK out of Trump’s doomed war with Iran,” was how the Guardian reflected on the former human rights lawyer’s tenure.

Now, even when forced to reckon with the reality, what the media omits about the real status of RAF Fairford and Britain’s military bases remains far more instructive than what it is prepared to tell the public.