PROTESTERS blocked road access to the Lakenheath air base in Suffolk with their own bodies over the Easter weekend.

Two were arrested for refusing to leave the road, another seven for wearing tabards supportive of Palestine Action by police upholding a ban already ruled unlawful by the High Court.

The Lakenheath Alliance for Peace, which concluded a six-day, 24-7 vigil outside the RAF base today, draws attention to the ongoing use of British air bases by US warplanes bombing Iran. Observers at the camp watched aircraft, including US A-10 ground attack planes, taking flight.

The US president threatens war crimes against Iranians on a tremendous scale — it will be “power plant day and bridge day” on Tuesday night, he rants, in an explicit admission he plans to destroy the country’s civil infrastructure. Iranians will be “living in hell,” he adds.

There is no point trying to distance ourselves from these threats — to fall back, as some on the “soft left” do, on the lie that Britain can’t do anything about the actions of Israel or the United States so we should stop protesting about them.

The US would not be using the bases if they were not useful. They may even be crucial: the war is not going well, one reason Trump is having tantrums on social media.

We know the US has evacuated troops from most of its bases in the region, relocating them to hotels and civilian accommodation across the Gulf because the bases are too vulnerable to Iranian strikes.

We know it has had to withdraw the Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier — the biggest warship ever built — to Crete for repairs after a fire (whose origins remain murky) gutted 100 cabins.

We know the rescue of airmen from a downed F-15 jet involved the destruction of two other US warplanes at a cost of over $100 million each.

The US is struggling. Trump himself hints regularly that he is looking for a way out, though the US’s word is worth so little after launching two sneak attacks that it is hard to see what offer Tehran could trust.

Absent anything he can call a victory, his instinct is simply to blow up as much as possible in a display of the US’s unrivalled capacity for death and destruction.

That is what we are party to. It is what we can help prevent, by limiting US military options through the closure of our air bases to US forces.

It is not even as if the government gets any credit for the assistance it renders the US. Trump insults the PM and the British military almost daily.

The Labour left, the Greens, even the Lib Dems are demanding we stop the US using our bases for this war.

The pro-Trump right are isolated, even if Nigel Farage has backtracked from initial enthusiasm for the war (because it is unpopular, not because of any humanity on his part — the incineration of 160 schoolgirls by US missiles on the war’s first day didn’t weigh with him).

Yet even with public opinion firmly against the war, our own government prioritises suppressing opposition.

The arrests at Lakenheath point to that. The police are again arresting people for clothing and placards deemed supportive of Palestine Action, against the logic of the High Court ruling.

Two peace movement leaders, Chris Nineham and Ben Jamal, were last week found guilty of public order offences for their role in co-ordinating an entirely peaceful anti-war march. Two others, Sophie Bolt and Alex Kenny, face trial soon for participating in the same demo.

Protest in Britain is getting more dangerous. But it is essential if we are to stop the nightmare being inflicted on the people of Iran (and Lebanon, and Palestine).

The Lakenheath Peace Alliance stood for solidarity and humanity this week. We should all stand with them.