Editing History of the United Kingdom (section)

===War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War===
[[File:Army Air Corps Lynx linking up with RAF regiment vehicle patrol. MOD 45142954.jpg|thumb|British forces south of [[Basra International Airport]], [[Iraq]], November 2003]]
In the [[2001 United Kingdom general election|2001 General Election]], the Labour Party won a second successive victory, though voter turnout dropped to the lowest level for more than 80 years.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2001-06-08 |title=Turnout 'at 80-year low' |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/news/vote2001/hi/english/newsid_1376000/1376575.stm |access-date=2024-08-21 |work=[[BBC News]] |language=en-GB}}</ref> Later that year, the [[September 11 attacks]] in the United States led to American President [[George W. Bush]] launching the [[War on terror]], beginning with the [[invasion of Afghanistan]] aided by British troops in October 2001. Thereafter, with the US focus shifting to Iraq, Tony Blair convinced the Labour and Conservative MPs to vote in favour of supporting the [[2003 invasion of Iraq]], despite huge anti-war marches held in London and Glasgow. Forty-six thousand British troops, one-third of the total strength of the Army's land forces, were deployed to assist with the invasion of Iraq and thereafter British armed forces were responsible for security in southern Iraq. All British forces were withdrawn in 2010.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Andrew Mumford |title=The Counter-Insurgency Myth: The British experience of irregular warfare |date=2012-08-06 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781136649387 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=rNE8AjCnd-wC&pg=PT171 171]}}</ref>

The Labour Party Prime Minister [[Tony Blair]] won the [[2005 United Kingdom general election|2005 British general election]] and a third consecutive term.<ref>Andrew Geddes and Jonathan Tonge, ''Britain decides: the UK general election 2005'' (2005)</ref> On 7 July 2005, [[7 July 2005 London bombings|a series of four suicide bombings]] struck London, killing 52 commuters along with the four bombers, and injuring hundreds of others.