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Keir Starmer has demanded that the Iranian regime ends retaliatory strikes on neighbours in the Middle East in response to a pre-emptive attack by the US and Israel
David Maddox Political editor Saturday 28 February 2026 18:22 GMT- Bookmark
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Close popoverStarmer: British planes "are in the sky" in coordinated defence against Iran following missile strikes
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Sir Keir Starmer said British planes were “in the sky” to protect allies in the Middle East as he condemned Iran’s retaliatory strikes on its neighbours in response to attacks by the US and Israel.
Speaking for the first time since Donald Trump authorised a joint US-Israeli preemptive strike on Iran over its nuclear weapons programme, the prime minister made it clear that the UK had not taken part.
However, he condemned the authoritarian regime in Iran and demanded that it end its attempts to develop nuclear weapons and stamp down on protesters in its country.
Explosions were heard over Tehran on Saturday morning after the coordinated “preventative attack”, which has prompted retaliatory attacks from Iran towards Israel.
President Trump confirmed a “major combat operation” in an eight-minute speech posted to Truth Social, stating Iran could never have a nuclear weapon and adding: “It’s been mass terror, and we’re not going to take it any longer.”
open image in gallerySmoke rises over Tehran after military strikes (AP)Sir Keir chaired an emergency Cobra security meeting on Saturday morning and has increased military and security at the UK’s military bases in Cyprus.
He also discussed the crisis in a three-way telephone call with French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Speaking to the nation from Downing Street, Sir Keir warned that the situation was “evolving very quickly”.
The prime minister said: “I condemn Iran’s attacks today on partners across the region, many of which are not parties to this conflict, we extend our support and solidarity to them as part of our commitments to the security of our allies in the Middle East.
“We have a range of defensive capabilities in the region, which we’ve recently strengthened. Our forces are active and British planes are in the sky today as part of coordinated regional defensive operations to protect our people, our interests and our allies, as Britain has done before, in line with international law.
He added: “We’ve stepped up protections for British bases and personnel to their highest level. We are also reaching out to UK nationals in the region and doing everything we can to support them.”
He also said that the Ayatollah regime in Tehran must “never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon” and accused it of trying to instigate at least 20 terrorist attacks on the UK in the last year alone.
He said: “We have long been clear the regime in Iran is utterly abhorrent. They have murdered thousands of their own people, brutally crushed dissent and sought to destabilise the region. Even in the United Kingdom, the Iranian regime poses a direct threat to dissidents and to the Jewish community.”
However, the UK government is at odds with the Trump administration, having denied permission for the US to use RAF bases for the strikes because of concerns over international law.
open image in galleryKeir Starmer made a statement on the crisis (Getty)In an earlier joint statement, Sir Keir, Chancellor Merz and President Macron also avoided any condemnation of US actions with Israel.
They said: “We condemn Iranian attacks on countries in the region in the strongest terms. Iran must refrain from indiscriminate military strikes. We urge the Iranian leadership to seek a negotiated solution. Ultimately, the Iranian people must be allowed to determine their future.”
It comes after former UK national security adviser Peter Ricketts warned that the UK would not consider the attacks by the US to be legal.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “None of this, I think, is in any sense legal in a way that the UK would recognise.
“There was really no imminent threat to the US. This is action that they chose to undertake, or were dragged into it by the Israelis.”
The UK and US have been at odds over Middle East policy, with Sir Keir refusing to take a role in Mr Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza, although former prime minister Sir Tony Blair has accepted a seat on it.
President Trump was also angered over the UK’s decision, along with France and other allies, to recognise the state of Palestine.
But the row over the use of RAF bases in Cyprus to bomb Iran is also understood to have had wider implications, with President Trump withdrawing his support for Sir Keir’s Chagos Islands deal to cede the British territory to Mauritius.
open image in galleryLord Ricketts warns the strikes are not legal in a way the UK would recognise (Getty)However, Mr Trump’s biggest ally in the UK, Nigel Farage, said the government should allow the US to use British bases to carry out strikes against Iran.
In a post on X, he said: “The prime minister needs to change his mind on the use of our military bases and back the Americans in this vital fight against Iran!”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch also gave her backing to the strikes on Iran.
She said: “I stand with our allies in the US and Israel as they take on the threat of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its vile regime. The same regime that carries out attacks on the UK and on our citizens, that seeks to build nuclear weapons that would threaten our country and that brutally repressed pro-democracy protests only months ago and murdered thousands of its own people.”
Meanwhile, a senior Labour MP warned that the UK should resist being drawn into a conflict in the Middle East.
Dame Emily Thornberry, chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she did not think the US-Israeli strikes were legal.
Asked whether the UK should resist being drawn into the conflict, Dame Emily said: “Absolutely, unless we’re attacked ourselves, which, as I say, unfortunately this morning, we don’t know whether we will be because there may be attacks by the Iranians on Western bases in the Arab Gulf, and so then the situation may change.
“We just don’t know.”
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