Starmer breaks with Trump on Iran, says UK doesn’t support ‘regime change from the skies’

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday said the United Kingdom does not support joining air operations against Iran, despite joining defensive operations in the region. 

“This government does not believe in regime change from the skies,” Starmer said, responding to a question over whether the U.K. is joining U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran. 

Starmer said the U.K. would not join offensive operations alongside the U.S. and Israel unless there’s a “viable thought-through plan” with an achievable objective. 

Starmer said his decision to sit out offensive strikes alongside the U.S. and Israel did not prevent the U.K. from launching defensive strikes to counter Iranian missiles and drones threatening British installations and allies. 

“They’re also the principles I applied separately, to the separate decision and a separate request from the U.S.,” Starmer said, to allow the U.S. to use British military bases to hit Iranian missile launchers. 

Those Iranian missiles “are currently going into allies, countries in the region, and currently threatening our citizens and our service personnel,” Starmer said. 

Starmer announced Sunday that the U.K. had given the U.S. permission to use its bases to strike at Iranian missile launchers. Before the U.S. launched strikes against Iran on Saturday, the U.K. reportedly rejected an American request to use British bases as part of operations against Iran.

The rebuff to the U.S. request prompted President Trump to publicly oppose a deal between the U.K. and Mauritius to hand over sovereignty of British overseas territories that included the island of Diego Garcia, which hosts a joint UK and US air base. 

Trump has floated a weeks-long timeline for the military action against Iran, called Operation Epic Fury. 

Trump has said the objectives are to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, annihilate the Iranian Navy, “ensure” Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon, and end its support for terrorist proxies. 

Trump has called for Iranians to rise up and take over their government from the regime of the Islamic Republic, in particular after the U.S. and Israel assassinated the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But Trump told Fox News host Bret Baier that he is also looking to replicate his strategy for Venezuela, to find a leader in the existing regime that will carry out U.S. demands. 

The debate in the U.K. over joining America’s war on Iran is heavily influenced by its decision to join the Iraq war during the Bush administration, which badly stained the legacy of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“Since when has regime change from the skies ever achieved regime change. We must stick to our national self interest,” Edward Leigh, a Conservative member of Parliament, said in an X post on Monday. “We must remember the lessons learnt from our involvement in the Iraq War, which I voted against.”

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