By Kate Holton
LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump criticised Prime Minister Keir Starmer for a second time this week, saying it was “sad to see” the so-called special relationship deteriorate after Britain initially held off providing support for U.S. strikes on Iran.
Starmer said Britain did not take part in the assault on Tehran by the United States and Israel because any British military action must have a “viable, thought-through plan” and he did not believe in “regime change from the skies”.
But he has since allowed the U.S. to use UK bases to launch what he called limited and defensive strikes to weaken Tehran’s capabilities, after Iran hit U.S. allies in the region with drones and missiles. On Monday, a British base in Cyprus was hit by a drone that Cypriot officials said was likely launched by Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.
Trump said he did not need Britain’s support to strike Iran but said the delay had been disappointing.
“It’s very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was,” Trump told the Sun newspaper in an interview published on Tuesday.
TRUMP SAYS HE HAS STRONGER PARTNERS IN EUROPE
He told the Telegraph on Monday that Starmer had appeared to be “worried about the legality” of the strikes on Iran, when he weighed whether to allow Britain’s strategically important air base, Diego Garcia, to be used.
Starmer has been criticised from all sides at home for the decision, with opponents on the left calling for him to condemn the military action while on the right, opposition leaders Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage attacked Starmer for failing to back Britain’s key security and intelligence ally.
Britain has long prided itself on its relationship with the U.S., aided by British leaders such as Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair cultivating strong relationships with their counterparts, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Starmer, a centre-left former lawyer, had surprised his critics when he too struck up a solid relationship with Trump, but that has been tested in the last year since the U.S. leader became more combative on a number of fronts.
Trump told the Sun that he never thought he would see Britain become a reluctant partner, and instead heaped praise on France and Germany.
“This was the most solid relationship of all,” he said. “And now we have very strong relationships with other countries in Europe.”
“France has been great. They’ve all been great. The UK has been much different from others.”
Britain, France and Germany all released a joint statement in response to Iranian attacks on Saturday, saying they were in close contact with the U.S., Israel and partners in the region, and were calling for a resumption of negotiations.
LESSONS OF IRAQ
Starmer has defended his response, telling parliament on Monday he had to judge what was in Britain’s national interest. “That is what I have done, and I stand by it,” he said.
Polling published by YouGov on Tuesday showed that people in Britain were opposed to the U.S. strikes on Iran by 49% to 28%.
Senior minister Darren Jones said Britain had learnt lessons from its involvement in the 2003 Iraq war, when it joined U.S. action to remove Saddam Hussein that was justified on false claims that the country had weapons of mass destruction.
“One of the lessons of Iraq was that it’s better to be involved in these situations when you are aligned with international partners, and as I say, with a clear legal basis in the plan,” he said.
(Reporting by Kate Holton; additional reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
