The UK Joins the Pirates

Britain’s Seizure of a Vessel Signals a Dangerous Legal Shift

Commando forces boarded and took control of the Smyrtos, which was sailing under a Cameroonian flag. Photo credit: UK Ministry of Defence

I was genuinely surprised by the Starmer regime’s refusal to state that the Israeli boarding of the Global Sumud Flotilla on the High Seas was illegal. I did not realise it was because the UK was planning to undertake similar illegal seizure itself.

The Gaza Flotilla seizure was illegal: for obvious reasons freedom of navigation had been the undisputed basis of UK maritime policy for centuries. The UK is a set of islands whose population is dependent on food imports to stay alive. Freedom of navigation is a core strategic interest of the UK The relevant provisions of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea were very heavily UK-driven, including on passage through straits.

Abandoning the primacy of freedom of navigation is absolutely a radical policy departure for the UK—driven, like so many other changes to traditional British legal positions, by the Starmer regime’s extreme support for Israel.

It is not generally understood how profound a change this is. Even the Tory government of David Cameron, with William Hague as foreign secretary, had opposed the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza and particularly Israeli seizure of vessels on the High Seas. William Hague stated in 2010 to the House of Commons of the boarding of the Mavi Marmara: “We are seriously concerned about the seizure of British nationals in international waters.”

This is a long-term British legal position now directly repudiated by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.

I had not realised that not only was the UK now supporting the campaigns of illegal blockade and seizure of vessels being openly pursued by Israel and byUS President Donald Trump, but Starmer was actually intending to abandon freedom of navigation and join the Trump/Netanyahu doctrine.

That is what the UK has now done by its seizure of the Smyrtos as it had passed through the Straits of Dover en route to Sikka in India on Sunday.

The Dover Strait is a strait. The clue is in the name. The UK has absolutely no right to close it to Russian shipping. This is in Article 38 of the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea. Transit of international straits “shall not be impeded” is pretty plain. This is the applicable legal regime for both the Strait of Dover and the Strait of Hormuz.

Obviously in time of war different considerations apply, and commercial shipping of belligerent states—and to and from belligerent states—becomes a legitimate target. Iran is fully justified in also treating states permitting attacks launched from their territory as belligerent states.

If hostilities end, this U.N. Law of the Sea regime should apply again in the Strait of Hormuz.

It is worth a footnote to say that Iran had, until the recent illegal aggression by Israel and the United States, always strictly observed the international law on straits even though Iran did not sign the convention and actually had entered a formal reservation on passage through straits. Even during the war, Iran had attempted, in extremely difficult circumstances, to establish a system for passage of genuinely neutral vessels.

It is astonishing that at this moment, when navigation of the Strait of Hormuz is arguably the single most live question in all of international politics, the UK has decided to abandon the principle of free transit through straits.

It takes hypocrisy to an entire new level—it truly beggars belief—that the day after closing the Dover Strait to Russian shipping, Starmer issued a joint statement with Germany, France and Italy insisting on “Freedom of Navigation” in the strait of Hormuz.

Even if you don’t care about international law and believe that Trumpian realpolitik is better, to act against freedom of navigation now would seem an unwise decision. The UK is now copying actions like the United States naval blockades of Cuba and Venezuela, and the Israeli genocidal blockade of Gaza. These are gross violations of the Law of the Sea.

UK Government minister Lisa Nandy was on television news last night as the government pumped out militaristic propaganda. The Royal Navy’s action in boarding and capturing an entirely unarmed and peaceful merchant vessel was portrayed as an act of Nelsonian brilliance. Nandy justified the seizure on the grounds that Russia’s oil sales pay for its war with Ukraine, and that the UK was enforcing sanctions against Russia.

Neither provides an atom of legal justification for seizing the vessel. The UK is not at war with Russia. Ukraine is, and the Ukrainian navy would have been entitled to seize the vessel. For reasons of cheap popularity and to increase the massive amounts of public money swirling around the corruption honeypot of military spending, UK ministers seem determined to move us to the brink of war with Russia. But we are still not at war, and the UK accordingly has no right to seize peaceful and innocent Russian bound, owned or flagged commercial vessels.

The UK is legally entitled to put whatever sanctions it wishes on Russia. But it can only enforce those within its legitimate jurisdiction. A foreign vessel, even when engaged in innocent passage or transit passage through a UK strait or other territorial waters, is not under UK jurisdiction. The Smyrtos was in fact in international waters south of the UK when seized.

In fact this attempt to enforce Western sanctions in areas where Western powers have no jurisdiction is a classic example of the current aggressive resurgence of imperialism, where the “rules-based order”—meaning rules imposed by the imperialists—replaces international law.

Nandy also stated that the Smyrtos was a member of the “Russian shadow fleet.” This is a term that the Starmer regime and their client mainstream and corporate media have relied upon repeatedly to demonise the Russian owned or directed merchant fleet.

Russia sells oil to countries like India and China perfectly lawfully. That this oil is carried in ships bearing flags other than Russian is perfectly normal.

Nil or close to nil of those ships carrying hydrocarbons to and from the UK are UK-registered and flagged.

It has been a sad truth of international shipping for many decades that commercial vessels bear flags of convenience, and that jurisdictions compete to offer the very lowest standards of crew salary and welfare regulations, officer and crew training, vehicle condition, and maritime safety and inspection regimes.

Most of the registries of well-known international flag of convenience states such as Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands, do not really exist in the sense of being government departments of those countries, as they should be. They are private companies with almost no real-world footprint, which pay a fee to the government to operate the registry, and collect the fees from the shipowners registering. The register is just names in a laptop—and very often that laptop is in London.

UK colonies often have substantial numbers of such fake registries. The UK is a strong opponent of the International Transport Workers Federation, which has struggled against this system to improve mariners' rights.

The system evolved for wealthy shipowners to avoid all maritime safety, environmental and welfare regulation, and the UK and other Western countries which pander to the needs of the ultra-wealthy have always been complicit. The incredible hypocrisy of Western states pointing fingers at Russia for running “Flags of convenience” is breathtaking.

The West has spent decades building and profiting from the global flags-of-convenience system. Russia is simply using the same system that Western companies created and still dominate.

Incidentally the MOD’s own propaganda footage, shown by all UK mainstream media yesterday, proves that the Smyrtos is a modern, clean, well-equipped and comfortable vessel and all the propaganda about an ancient rustbukt is completely untrue.

I have finally managed to pin down the alleged legal basis of the seizure of the Smyrtos, and it is that the vessel was stateless and thus subject to boarding under Article 110 of the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea.

The UK is claiming that the Smyrtos fell foul of Article 110.1 (d) that it was “without nationality.”

We will inspect that claim more closely in a moment. But, assuming it for a moment to be true, note that you only have a right to visit and inspect on the High Seas a ship that is without nationality. Article 110 absolutely does not confer any right to seize a ship on the High Seas not found on inspection to be in unlawful activity. The UK has seized the Smyrtos, brought it into UK territorial waters and then claimed it is under UK jurisdiction.

Nowhere is that allowed in the Convention.

Now let us look at the claim that the Smyrtos is without nationality. This is an astonishing story which the media will not tell you.

When the Smyrtos set sail from Russia it was flying the Cameroonian flag, and on the Cameroonian register. That is not in doubt.

While the ship was on its voyage, on 10 June, Cameroon withdrew its registration. It did so because the EU and UK threatened to halt development aid to Cameroon unless they removed Russian vessels from their shipping register.

So the UK blackmailed Cameroon into deregistering the ship. Then, before the ship could reach a friendly port, the UK boarded it because it had been deregistered.

Now doubtless there are chortling people in the UK security and military industries self-congratulating themselves over how clever they are. But while this may be a clever ruse de guerre, it is hardly a ruse de paix. It is not going to survive scrutiny by an international court. An unexpected change of registration, forced upon the owners, is very difficult to complete instantly, but doubtless one was in train and perhaps finished. The UK actions are patently—and deliberately—unreasonable.

Politicians seek to drum up cheap popularity by stupid jingoism. Starmer has won a cheap headline. The world inches closer to the next world war. The UK loses yet more legitimacy in the eyes of the wider world.

Meantime Trump claims as a great victory a possible return of the Strait of Hormuz to the open status it enjoyed before he started an illegal war in the interests of Israel.

Freedom of navigation was a principle worth defending. It has been abandoned in favour of a return to the rule of the seas by those with the strongest navies. Fortunately Russian President Vladimir Putin is neither as war hungry nor as politically desperate as Starmer. However Russia will now be obliged to send at least a frigate to keep the Strait of Dover open. The drums of war beat ever closer.