The UK wants to see a peaceful transition of power in Iran, a cabinet minister has said, after Donald Trump said he could support protesters with military force.
As the US weighs the option of military strikes, Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, said she would not be drawn on America’s foreign policy towards Iran, where protests have been met with a violent police response.
She told Sky News Iran was a hostile state that posed a security threat in the Middle East and repressed its own people, adding: “The priority, as of today, is to try and stem the violence that is happening in Iran at the moment.”
Heidi Alexander, left, told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, right, that the priority was to stem the violence in Iran. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/PA
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, went further in saying she would “not have an issue” with seeing the Iranian regime removed and that it could be right for the US and its allies to be involved in that process.
She told the BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “Iran would very happily wipe out the UK if it felt it could get away with it. It has tried to kill people on our soil. It is an enemy, it calls us the little Satan.
“So, no, I don’t have an issue with removing a regime that is trying to harm us. It has its terrorist outposts with Hezbollah all across the world.
“But what I want us to do is try and find a way to make sure as a country we are strong, we protect ourselves from threats and reduce the escalation of what I see around the world, an increasing escalation of conflict everywhere.”
Asked if it would be right for the US and its allies to be involved in regime change, Badenoch added: “Given the threat that we’re seeing to the people, I think that would be right.”
In the US, Trump has threatened repeatedly to intervene if Iranian authorities killed protesters. He said on Friday the Iranian authorities were “in big trouble”, adding: “You better not start shooting, because we’ll start shooting too.”
On Saturday night, Trump said the US was ready to help as protesters faced an intensifying crackdown by Iranian authorities.
“Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” he said in a social post on Truth Social.
Iranian protesters block a street during a demonstration in Tehran, Iran, on Friday night. Photograph: MAHSA/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images
This week, Keir Starmer condemned the killing of protesters in Iran and urged Tehran to exercise restraint amid a crackdown on demonstrations against the regime.
A UK government spokesperson said: “We are deeply concerned by reports of violence against protesters in Iran who are exercising their legitimate right to peaceful protest and are monitoring the situation closely.”
The Guardian reported on Saturday that demonstrators had continued to take to the streets of Iran, defying an escalating crackdown by authorities.
At least 62 people are reported to have been killed and 2,300 detained during weeks of protests, which were sparked initially by anger over the Iranian economy.
An internet shutdown imposed by the authorities on Thursday has largely cut off the protesters from the rest of the world, but some videos showed thousands of people demonstrating in Tehran overnight into Saturday morning. They chanted: “Death to Khamenei,” in reference to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and: “Long live the shah.”
More than 570 protests have taken place across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported early on Sunday.
The speaker of the Iranian parliament on Sunday warned that the US military and Israel would be legitimate targets if America struck Iran.
The comments by Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf represented the first to add Israel into the mix of possible targets for an Iranian strike.
Qalibaf, a hardliner, made the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting: “Death to America!”
