Sir Keir Starmer did not explicitly condemn Donald Trump’s decision to launch missile strikes on Iran when he addressed MPs yesterday – but he might as well have done.
‘We all remember the mistakes of Iraq and we have learned those lessons,’ the Prime Minister told the House of Commons.
‘Any UK actions must always have a lawful basis and a viable, thought-through plan.’
The obvious implication of his statement is that the UK did not join those initial strikes by the US and Israel – the ones that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – because they had neither of those things.
Starmer might have thought that, by being relatively subtle with his criticism, he would manage to avoid attracting the ire of the US President.
If he did, he was wrong.
Want to understand more about how politics affects your life?
Metro’s senior politics reporter Craig Munro breaks down all the chaos into easy to follow insight, in Metro‘s politics newsletter Alright, Gov? Sent every Wednesday. Sign up here.
This morning the UK woke up to an interview with Trump in the Sun, where he said: ‘It’s very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was.’
Even before Starmer’s statement, the President had told the Telegraph he was ‘very disappointed in Keir’, as it had taken ‘far too long’ for the US to get permission to use RAF bases.
For the first year or so of Trump’s second stint in the White House, the friendly relationship between the President and the PM took many by surprise.
Downing Street’s policy of declining to comment on Trump’s various threats and outbursts was frustrating for journalists, but appeared to pay off behind the scenes in areas like trade and support for Ukraine.
Looking back, it feels inevitable that this would eventually be stretched too far.
Alarm bells started ringing last month, when Trump posted on Truth Social to excoriate Starmer over the Chagos Islands deal and urge him not to ‘give away’ the Indian Ocean territory.
This appears to have followed a call between the two leaders, in which the PM said the US would not be permitted to use the base on Diego Garcia to launch an attack on Iran unless it could set out the legal justification.
Clearly, push came to shove at the end of February when the White House decided the time was right to push the button. A request was made to use the base, and the UK refused.
The attacks went ahead, of course, stunning the world and plunging the Middle East deeper into deadly chaos.
But Trump’s latest comments suggest a less tangible casualty of the nascent war could be the close transatlantic link between the US and UK.
This morning, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones dismissed the notion, saying on LBC: ‘Intelligence sharing and trade and business and all that stuff continues.’
The UK is also now letting the US use its bases to launch attacks on Iran’s missile depots and launchers, having apparently been satisfied that this ‘defensive’ action has a more solid legal basis.
Where the situation leaves Keir Starmer is less clear.
A YouGov poll released this morning suggests Brits oppose the US strikes on Iran by 49% to 28%. The PM could get kudos for not blindly backing an unpopular president’s unpopular war on grounds that are questionable to say the least.
However, this has been muddied by the decision to allow US launches from British bases under certain circumstances, as well as the continuing refusal of ministers to say clearly whether they believe the war is legal or not.
Then there’s the risk of the PM spending another three years dealing with a President who resents him for refusing to offer his support, with all the ramifications that could have for broader foreign policy.
Not for the first time, Trump has put Starmer in an extremely sticky situation. And once again, there seems to be no way out without getting messier still.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
