Yvette Cooper has rejected Tony Blair\u2019s assertion that the UK should have supported Donald Trump\u2019s initial airstrikes on Iran, saying Britain had to \u201clearn the lessons\u201d of mistakes made in Iraq.<\/p>\n
At a private lunch event on Friday, the former Labour prime minister said Keir Starmer \u201cshould have backed America from the very beginning\u201d and let the Trump administration use British airbases, adding: \u201cIf they are your ally and they are an indispensable cornerstone for your security \u2026 you had better show up when they want you to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blair\u2019s intervention comes as Trump intensifies his criticism<\/a> of Starmer over the lack of immediate UK support for the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, saying on social media: \u201cWe don\u2019t need people that join Wars after we\u2019ve already won!\u201d Asked about Blair\u2019s comments, Cooper told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News: \u201cI just disagree.\u201d<\/p>\n The foreign secretary added: \u201cThere are some people in politics who think that we should always agree with the US whatever. There are other people in politics who think we should never take action with the US again whatever the circumstances. I don\u2019t think either of those positions is in the UK national interest, and it is the responsibility for Keir Starmer to act in the UK\u2019s national interest for British citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n map of iran war<\/a><\/p>\n Asked if she was calling Blair \u201ca poodle\u201d, she said: \u201cI think the point is to make sure that, actually, we learn the lessons from some of the things that went wrong in Iraq, and I think that is exactly what Keir Starmer has done.\u201d<\/p>\n Blair, who has been fiercely criticised over the past two decades for his decision to join the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, made the comments at a private Jewish News event on Friday, adding that he had already made his criticism clear to the government. He told those at the event that alliances were tested \u201cwhen it\u2019s hard\u201d, saying the bases were needed for refuelling and adding that the conflict was \u201cnot like Vietnam\u201d, the Mail on Sunday reported.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like the Iraq campaign [where] we sent thousands of British troops. So I just think you\u2019ve got to make the argument to the public about this,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to say to them the American relationship matters. It matters particularly today. It\u2019s not a question of whether it\u2019s this president or that president.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Blair said the comments came at a private event and were not intended to be made public.<\/p>\n Responding to repeated stinging criticism of Starmer by Trump in the past week \u2013 which has included the US president saying on Saturday that Starmer\u2019s help was not needed<\/a> in Iran, and earlier in the week<\/a> that the prime minister was \u201cnot Winston Churchill\u201d \u2013 Cooper said the UK had to \u201ctake decisions ourselves\u201d and act in its national interest.<\/p>\n She told the BBC One\u2019s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: \u201cIt\u2019s for the US president to decide what he thinks is in the US national interest, and that\u2019s for him to do. But it is our job as the UK government to decide what\u2019s in the UK national interest, and that doesn\u2019t mean simply agreeing with other countries or outsourcing our foreign policy to other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n Her comments came as the Iranian ambassador in London warned the UK to be \u201cvery careful\u201d about becoming further involved in the war. Britain has given permission for the US to use British bases for \u201cdefensive strikes\u201d on Iranian facilities, but has not taken part in any direct attacks.<\/p>\n Seyed Ali Mousavi told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg his country would have a \u201cright to self-defence\u201d if the UK directly joined US-Israeli attacks on Iran. He said the British government and other nations should be \u201cvery delicate, very careful\u201d in their actions, adding he believed the UK had learned lessons from the Iraq war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yvette Cooper has rejected Tony Blair\u2019s assertion that the UK should have supported Donald Trump\u2019s initial airstrikes on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-464445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}