UK prime minister Keir Starmer said he “does not believe in regime change from the skies” as he defended his decision not to join US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon, Starmer said the “lessons of [the 2003 war in] Iraq” must be learned, including that there must has to be a legal basis for offensive military action and also a coherent plan for what comes afterwards.
To shouts of “shame” from Tories on the opposition benches, and vocal support from his own backbenchers, the prime minister said he decided at the weekend to refuse a request from Washington to allow US warplanes to use British bases to attack Iran.
However, he later swerved questions in the Commons over whether this meant that he believed those initial US strikes were illegal.
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Starmer said he agreed to a second, separate request from the US on Sunday night to use British bases to strike Iranian launch sites and missile depots. He characterised this as “defensive” action, distinct from the initial attacks, that was designed to protect up to 300,000 British citizens in the wider Middle East region from retaliatory strikes by Iran.
British RAF warplanes will not take part in the so-called “defensive” strikes on missile stocks and launchers inside Iran, although they will continue to try to shoot Iranian drones and missiles out of the air in the wider region.
It is believed that under the agreement for “defensive” action, US warplanes will be allowed to take off for sorties in Iran from the Diego Garcia base on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, and RAF base in Fairford in Gloucestershire, southwest England. He said Britain’s airbase on Cyprus would not be used by US warplanes.
Sources in Britain’s ministry of defence said there was a long-standing process that the US and UK used for identifying targets for specific sorties, when they used each other’s airbases. US warplanes will only be allowed bomb missile depots and launchers, and will not be able to fly from England to, for example, kill Iranian leaders.
Starmer was pressed in the Commons by the Tories, including that party’s former leader Iain Duncan Smith, why the RAF would not directly strike Iran if the UK government now considered strikes on missile stocks, for example, to be “defensive” in nature. However, the UK prime minister again swerved this question.
US president Donald Trump said on Monday he was “disappointed” in Starmer’s initial refusal and that the UK had taken “too long” to give the green light to the US to use British bases.
“President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to join the initial strikes. But it is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest, and that is the judgment I made. I stand by it,” Starmer told the Commons.
The UK prime minister said up to 300 British troops had been put at risk by an Iranian attack on an airbase in Bahrain, where they are stationed. A drone also hit the runway of the UK’s base in Cyprus, although defence sources suggested it was still unclear where it had been fired from.
Starmer said Iran’s response to the wave of US and Israeli attacks was “outrageous”, and risked the safety of up to 300,000 British citizens in the region, including holidaymakers, expatriates and those in transit. Iran has fired missiles and drone at the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said her party fully supported the initial US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Starmer criticised her for doing so, regardless of whether they were legal or not.
