Sir Keir Starmer (left) has criticised US President Donald Trump over the Iran war and Britain's rising energy bills. Photo / Getty Images
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he is “fed up” with US President Donald Trump and appeared to compare him to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
During a trip to the Gulf, the Prime Minister said he is unhappy with the impact of the Iran war on the cost of living in Britain.
Starmer told ITV’s Robert Peston: “I’m fed up with the fact that families across the country see their bills go up and down on energy, businesses’ bills go up and down on energy because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world.”
He also split with the US President over Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, saying the strikes “shouldn’t be happening”.
“That should stop – that’s my strong view – and therefore, the question isn’t a technical one of whether it’s a breach of the agreement or not,” Starmer said during a visit to the Gulf.
“We haven’t all got access to all the details of the ceasefire,” Starmer said, but added: “Let me be really clear about it – they’re wrong.”
Trump and Israel insist Lebanon is not covered by the ceasefire agreement, but Iran says it is.
Starmer’s comments came after Britain’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper warned that Israel’s strikes were “deeply damaging” and risked destabilising the region.
Their comments are likely to further damage the strained relationship between Trump and Nato.
Cooper told Times Radio on Thursday that Britain had taken a “different” view from Washington on the war.
She also called for Lebanon to be included in the agreement, saying: “We want it extended to cover Lebanon, because otherwise that will destabilise the whole region, and also it’s just the right thing to do.
“That escalation that we saw from Israel yesterday, I think, was deeply damaging and we want to see an end to hostilities in Lebanon.
“That does mean dealing with the threat from Hezbollah – that is an Iranian proxy, has been a terrorist organisation – and it is really important that the Israeli Government and the Lebanese Government can work together to deal with that threat from Hezbollah.
“But we don’t want to see escalation. We want to see the ceasefire and the end to hostilities cover Lebanon as well.”
On Wednesday, Israel hit 100 targets in 10 minutes during a surprise attack on central Beirut, in what it said was a campaign to root out Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces. Some 112 people died, according to local authorities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday: “The temporary ceasefire with Iran will not include Hezbollah – and we will continue to strike them with all of our might.”
Iran has threatened to restart the war if Israel continues to bomb Lebanon. It has also stopped oil tankers heading through the Strait of Hormuz in protest against the strikes.
Cooper also condemned Trump’s rhetoric on the war. He had threatened to wipe out Iranian civilisation and bomb it back to the “Stone Age” by targeting civilian infrastructure.
She said: “We took a different decision on the beginning of this conflict. I ... think that the rhetoric that we’ve seen used has been completely wrong, and that sort of escalatory rhetoric can have escalatory consequences.”
However, the Foreign Secretary stressed the US-UK relationship remained a “deep, long-standing one”.
“We have, I think, a really important security partnership, a really important economic partnership, and that continues.”
On Friday, Cooper said there has been “too much complacency about the resilience of our alliances” in recent years.
Delivering the annual Mansion House address, she said: “Stability and security were taken for granted. There was too much complacency about the resilience of our alliances and international institutions and the UK role within them, leading to short-term decisions over the last 15 years that have corroded our long-term strength and resilience. An era of complacency in which defence spending was cut to the bone.”
In a rebuke to Trump, she said: “No matter what the pressure from other parties or other countries, we do not believe it is right to outsource our foreign policy to anyone.
“That is what the British public should rightly expect of their leaders. Taking independent decisions according to the UK national interest and UK values.”
Trump has been outraged at a perceived lack of support from allies after the US and Israel began bombing Iran six weeks ago.
He discussed the US leaving Nato with Mark Rutte, the alliance’s Secretary General, in the White House on Wednesday.
Nato members, including Britain, Italy and Spain, have refused to let US bombers use their bases for offensive strikes on Iran, and have rebuffed pressure from Trump to help unblock the Strait of Hormuz.
After his meeting with Rutte, he wrote on his Truth Social platform: “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!! President DJT.”
Starmer has faced repeated attacks from Trump after refusing to join his war on Iran and initially denying the US permission to conduct strikes from British military bases, including Diego Garcia, in the Chagos Islands. He later allowed them for “specific and limited defensive purposes”.
Trump has said Starmer is “not Winston Churchill” and has reportedly started calling the Prime Minister a “loser”.
Starmer arrived in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday for high-level talks aimed at preventing further escalation.
On Wednesday he spoke to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, in Jeddah and is expected to meet Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates President.
In Saudi Arabia, the Prime Minister said Britain had played a key role in “convening a number of countries” to co-ordinate further action to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
He said there was still “work to do” to ensure the temporary ceasefire would become permanent.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski urged Starmer to pull out of the UK-Israel trade agreement and impose further sanctions on the country.
He told The Telegraph the Government should consider “pulling every sanction, every arms embargo that we can make, to make sure that Israel can’t continue to murder innocent people”.
He condemned the Prime Minister for a lack of action, telling a press conference in London: “They have mechanisms that they could be putting into play that could prevent or at least reduce some of the destruction, the humanitarian crisis and the death we are seeing every single day.
“The right time to do these sanctions would have been years ago. It’s not that this just happened in Lebanon, and now we need sanctions.”
Asked whether he would be prepared for Britain to take a financial hit from pulling out of trade with Israel, Polanski said: “I don’t think we should be putting a cost on people’s rights.”
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