Starmer left blindsided as the US goes it alone on Iran attack

Times

3 hours ago

The decision by the Americans to strike Iran unilaterally, without any request of assistance from the UK or the use of their joint Diego Garcia airbase, will give Sir Keir Starmer only a small ­moment of relief.
While it leaves Britain out of the conflict for now and is likely to spare it from the immediate threat of retaliation from Tehran, it exposes the limit to which the prime minister and his top ministers can influence or even second-guess President Trump's actions. UK government officials admit that Trump's comments and actions in the past week have put a significant strain on the 'special relationship'.
Starmer, who spent the weekend at Chequers, refused to explicitly say whether he supported Trump's decision to bomb Iran as he warned of the 'risk of escalation'. Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary sent out to speak for the government, made clear that while Britain welcomed the setback to Iran's nuclear capabilities, it had wanted a diplomatic means to those ends.
• Can Iran still build nuclear weapons after the US bombing?
UK government officials said that the US did not make a request to use ­Diego Garcia as a staging post for its airstrikes on Iran. Trump would have required Starmer's approval to use the military base in the Indian Ocean because it is under the UK's sovereign control. If it had granted that permission, the UK would effectively become a participant in the war.
A UK government source said: 'Diego Garcia is a joint military base, so it's not surprising that they used their own personnel and air base given it was unilateral action.'
It may have been that the use of ­Diego Garcia was simply not necessary, given the bombers were able to refuel mid-air and fly to Iran without stopping. Pausing at Diego Garcia could have ruined the element of surprise.
However, there is also the possibility that the UK would not have approved and some believe the US made this calculation in deciding to go it alone.
Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, had explicitly advised that joining the US would be a potential breach of international law because it would stray ­beyond the definition of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The article allows for the use of force if it is deemed necessary and proportionate and an attack is 'imminent'.
Although Starmer has avoided the invidious decision of whether to join the conflict, there will be serious doubts about the degree of influence he holds over the US. On Friday afternoon his aides were confident they had bought more time to drag Iran back to the ­negotiating table.
They believed they had a crucial window after Trump announced that he would make a decision whether to bomb Iran 'within the next two weeks'.
But at the same time, American B-2 Spirit stealth bombers were being readied at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri for one of the boldest missions in recent US military history and barely 24 hours later Starmer was told shortly before the operation was carried out.
• Who are Iran's allies — and will any help after the US strikes?
The fact that Trump went ahead with the strikes will be seen as embarrassing for Starmer. Just days earlier, he had sat with Trump at the G7 summit in Canada. He said afterwards that 'there's nothing the president said that suggests that he's about to get involved in this conflict'. Government officials have admitted it was a miscalculation to ­expect Trump to hold off. 'We didn't even get the short window that we thought we might get. They were already moving their assets,' one said.
They said closer attention should have been paid to the wording of Trump's comments, pointing out that the president and his press secretary had said he would decide 'within' two weeks rather than 'in' two weeks.
The writing was already on the wall on Friday afternoon after David Lammy and his French and German counterparts met the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi as part of efforts to get Iran back to the negotiating table.
Lammy had flown from the White House where he had been briefed on the American position by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy.
In his meeting with Araghchi, Lammy hammered home the American position that Iran must stop its attacks on Israel and return to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme.
His Iranian counterpart was forthright in stating that Tehran was unwilling to return to talks until the US had called on Israel to stop its attacks.
John Healey, the defence secretary, has increased protection for the armed forces and UK personnel in the region to its highest level ever as British forces brace for retaliatory strikes from Iran.
Healey has not ruled out sending in more fighter jets and refuelling aircraft.
On Sunday Lammy was back on the phone to Araghchi, reiterating the UK's opposition to Iran ever acquiring a ­nuclear weapon. But Britain's role as the direct interlocutor between the US and Iran has been made immeasurably harder by the American airstrikes. Trust in diplomatic talks has broken down on both sides and there are concerns that the UK's voice in the conflict is decreasing in relevance. Starmer will be reeling from yet another week of ­uncertainty that has left him blindsided by Trump's unpredictability. The decisions he takes on how closely he aligns Britain with Trump's actions could prove critical for his premiership and national security.