Keir Starmer’s relationship with President Donald Trump is being tested over the scope of Britain’s involvement in the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, after days of sharp public disagreement over whether Britain should allow American aircraft to attack beyond specific targets.
The latest flare came as Trump, speaking at the White House, criticized Britain’s position and focused his remarks on the question of base access for U.S. warplanes. “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press report.
Trump also told the British tabloid The Sun that he viewed the U.K. differently from other European allies. “This was the most solid relationship of all. And now we have very strong relationships with other countries in Europe,” he said, adding that “the U.K. has been much different from others.” He later said it was “very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was.”
The disagreement centers on what Starmer’s government would and would not permit as the attacks began Saturday. Starmer initially blocked American planes from using British bases for the strikes on Iran, the AP reported. He later agreed to allow U.S. access to bases in England and on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, but only for operations targeting Iran’s ballistic missiles and their storage sites, not other targets.
After a British base in Cyprus, Akrotiri, was hit by an Iran-made drone over the weekend, Starmer reiterated that the U.K. would not expand its role. He said Tuesday that Britain “will not join offensive action,” and he described the deployment of British forces to the region as part of “defensive operations,” including a Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Dragon, and Wildcat helicopters with counter-drone capabilities. The British government also said drones were shot down in Jordanian and Iraqi airspace.
Starmer’s remarks to lawmakers on Monday offered what the AP described as a rare, implicit rebuke of Trump’s approach, with the prime minister saying the U.K. does not believe in “regime change from the skies.” He told the House of Commons that “Any U.K. actions must always have a lawful basis and a viable, thought-through plan,” before adding that Trump had expressed disagreement with the U.K. decision not to join the initial strikes and that it was Starmer’s duty to judge what he said was in Britain’s national interest.
European leaders have responded to the strikes from different ends of the political spectrum, further highlighting how the Iran conflict is dividing the continent. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he unreservedly approved of Trump’s decision to attack Iran and kill its supreme leader, and called the war crucial for Europe’s security, according to AP.
By contrast, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned the strikes as “unjustifiable” and “dangerous,” the report said. The U.K., France and Germany jointly said they were not involved in the strikes, but were prepared to enable “necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source,” AP reported.
Within Britain, some lawmakers pressed Starmer to join offensive action while others defended the government’s limits. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said her party “stands behind America taking this necessary action against state-sponsored terror,” AP reported. Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty rejected the idea that the so-called U.S.-U.K. “special relationship” was on the ropes, telling the House of Commons that it was “strong,” “endured,” “continues to endure” and “will endure into the future on both the economic and the security fronts.”
The immediate argument is also occurring amid broader strains between Washington and London, including friction Starmer’s allies say has been building for months. The AP report pointed to Trump’s earlier threat to take over Greenland, denounced by Starmer and other European leaders, and to Trump’s criticism of Britain’s agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands, where the Diego Garcia base is located, to Mauritius despite his administration earlier backing the deal.
AP also cited Peter Ricketts, a former head of the U.K. Foreign Office, who told The Observer that under Trump “the Americans have effectively given up on any effort to be consistent with international law.” The AP framing set that contrast against Starmer’s approach as a barrister and former chief prosecutor for England and Wales, placing the current Iran dispute within a wider debate about law, military action and alliance expectations.