{"id":311558,"date":"2026-03-03T21:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/311558\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T21:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T21:55:10","slug":"not-winston-churchill-that-were-dealing-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/311558\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Not Winston Churchill that we\u2019re dealing with’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keir Starmer has never had a bad word to say in public about Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

That is not being reciprocated now as the American president lambasts the British prime minister over his reluctance to join the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not Winston Churchill that we\u2019re dealing with,\u201d Trump said at the White House, blasting Britain’s reluctance to let US warplanes use its bases.<\/p>\n

The dispute is roiling a relationship that Starmer worked hard to forge, and further straining trans-Atlantic ties frayed by Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica first\u201d foreign policy and transactional approach to international relations.<\/p>\n

Britain is in Trump’s bad books<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the most solid relationship of all. And now we have very strong relationships with other countries in Europe,\u201d Trump told British tabloid The Sun in an interview published today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, France has been great. They\u2019ve all been great,” Trump said. \u201cThe UK has been much different from others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Follow our live updates from the Middle East here<\/a><\/p>\n

Starmer initially blocked American planes from using British bases for the attacks on Iran that started late Saturday. He later agreed to let the United States use bases in England and on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to strike Iran\u2019s ballistic missiles and their storage sites, but not to hit other targets.<\/p>\n

Even after the British base at Akrotiri in Cyprus was hit by an Iran-made drone over the weekend, Starmer said that the United Kingdom \u201cwill not join offensive action.\u201d He said today that a Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Dragon, and Wildcat helicopters with counter-drone capabilities were being sent to the region as part of \u201cdefensive operations.\u201d British forces have also shot down drones in Jordanian and Iraqi airspace, the government said.<\/p>\n

\"Keir<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer and Donald Trump in 2025 (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

Starmer has offered a rare, though implicit, rebuke of the US president, saying that the UK government doesn’t believe in \u201cregime change from the skies”.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny UK actions must always have a lawful basis and a viable, thought-through plan,\u201d Starmer told lawmakers in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes, but it is my duty to judge what is in Britain\u2019s national interest,\u201d Starmer added.<\/p>\n

The Financial Times called it Starmer\u2019s \u201cLove Actually moment\u201d \u2014 a reference to the 2003 movie scene in which a British prime minister played by Hugh Grant stands up to a bullying US president played by Billy Bob Thornton.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A group of men inspects the ruins of a police station struck Monday amid the US\u2013Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Friction has grown over Greenland and Diego Garcia<\/p>\n

Friction between the two leaders has been building for months. Trump\u2019s threat to take over Greenland was denounced by Starmer and other European leaders earlier this year. Recently, Trump has condemned Britain\u2019s agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands, home to the Diego Garcia base, to Mauritius, despite his administration earlier backing the deal.<\/p>\n

Peter Ricketts, a former head of the UK Foreign Office, told The Observer newspaper that under Trump, \u201cthe Americans have effectively given up on any effort to be consistent with international law”.<\/p>\n

That is a red line for the law-abiding Starmer, a barrister and former chief prosecutor for England and Wales.<\/p>\n

The spat is a setback for Starmer\u2019s efforts to woo Trump since the president’s return to office in 2025. The British government rolled out the red carpet to the president for a state visit as the guest of King Charles III, and Starmer consistently has praised Trump’s efforts \u2014 so far unsuccessful \u2014 to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.<\/p>\n

The Iran war has also divided European leaders, who fall along a spectrum from condemnation to support.<\/p>\n

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that he unreservedly approves of Trump\u2019s decision to attack Iran and kill its supreme leader, and called the war crucial for Europe\u2019s security.<\/p>\n

The UK, France and Germany jointly said that they weren’t involved in the strikes, but were prepared to enable \u201cnecessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran\u2019s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source”.<\/p>\n

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez condemned the strikes as \u201cunjustifiable\u201d and \u201cdangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polling suggests many Britons are skeptical of the US justification for war. But politicians to the right of Starmer\u2019s Labour Party slammed the prime minister for not joining the offensive. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said that her party \u201cstands behind America taking this necessary action against state-sponsored terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty denied the US-UK \u201cspecial relationship\u201d was on the ropes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur relationship with the United States is strong,\u201d he said in the House of Commons. \u201cIt has endured, it continues to endure, and it will endure into the future on both the economic and the security fronts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Trump\u2019s rationale for attacking Iran, and the return of a Kiwi film classic. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer has never had a bad word to say in public about Donald Trump. That is not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[65,42,5107,43,64,40,38,41,39,1745],"class_list":{"0":"post-311558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-middle-east","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-north-america","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories","17":"tag-uk-europe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}