Donald Trump criticised Sir Keir Starmer for initially blocking US strikes on Iran from Diego Garcia. Photo / Getty Images
Donald Trump says he is “very disappointed” in Sir Keir Starmer for blocking him from using Diego Garcia to carry out strikes on Iran.
In an exclusive interview with the Telegraph, the US President said that the Prime Minister’s initial refusal to let US forces use the Chagos Islands base was unlike anything that had “happened between our countries before”.
Britain had denied the US permission to conduct strikes from bases such as Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford, citing international law.
However, the Prime Minister relented on Sunday night and said he would allow the US access to Diego Garcia for “specific and limited defensive purposes”.
Trump said Starmer “took far too long” to change his mind.
“That’s probably never happened between our countries before,” he told the Telegraph, adding: “It sounds like he was worried about the legality”.
The row over Diego Garcia led the President to withdraw his support for the Prime Minister’s controversial Chagos deal to hand over ownership of the Indian Ocean territory to Mauritius and lease back the military base.
Trump told the Telegraph: “All of a sudden [Mauritius] was claiming ownership. He should have fought it out and owned it or make him take it, if you want to know the truth. But no, we were very disappointed in Keir.”
On Monday evening, Starmer said his Government did “not believe in regime change from the skies” in an apparent rebuke to Trump.
The Prime Minister appeared to criticise the US President by telling MPs that any military action in the Middle East must be lawful and “thought-through”.
Three days into the US strikes on Iran, the President said the operation was “well ahead of schedule”.
Trump suggested Starmer should have always approved American use of Diego Garcia, because Iran was responsible for killing “a lot of people from your country”.
“[There are] people without arms and legs and faces that have been blown up. Iran is 95% of those. Those horrible events were caused by Iran,” Trump said, without referring to specific cases.
Trump told the Telegraph the Chagos deal was “a very woke thing”.
“It would have been much better on the legal front if he just kept the ownership of the land and not given it to people that weren’t the rightful owners,” he said.
Referring to Starmer’s about-turn on Diego Garcia, he added: “It is useful. It took far too much time. Far too much time.”
Starmer is also facing a backlash from Republicans in Washington on the delay.
An hour after his announcement on Sunday night that he had given the US permission to use the bases, an Iranian Shahed one-way attack drone hit Britain’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus.
British servicemen received a warning of a “security threat”, urging them to take cover as explosions rang out in the Limassol area where the base is.
There were no casualties, but the Ministry of Defence has since moved service members’ families away from the base.
Despite saying he supported destroying Iranian attack capabilities “at source”, Starmer has not authorised British troops to join the US-Israeli offensive.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, was killed in one of the first waves of strikes unleashed on Tehran.
The Islamic Republic responded by striking US bases, Israeli military centres and civilian targets across the Middle East with missiles and drones.
Diego Garcia, owned by Britain, is nearly 3900km from Iran’s southern coast. That puts it out of range of Iranian ballistic missiles, but within operational range of US B2 bombers.
Britain argues that the deal to hand over ownership of the Chagos Islands is the only way to protect the continued operation of the base. The UK would lease back Diego Garcia from Mauritius at a cost of £35b ($80b) over the next 99 years.
Shortly after taking office, Trump said he supported the deal and believed it would help the base, a stance lauded by British officials as a diplomatic victory.
However, he changed his mind on January 20, attacking the deal on his Truth Social platform.
Trump said it was an act of “great stupidity” by the UK, before reversing his position for a second time 10 days later, when he said it was the “best” deal Starmer could have struck in the circumstances.
On February 10, Trump announced once more that he opposed the deal, after Britain was thought to have refused his request to use the base before the strikes on Iran.
The Telegraph understands the Pentagon asked to use British bases on Saturday to take out Iranian missile capabilities.
Iran used missiles to attack citizens indiscriminately across the Middle East, a move that would have made it easier under international law for Britain to acquiesce.
Iran’s missiles and drones have struck targets across Israel and the Gulf, including Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.
Hundreds of thousands of British citizens are stranded in the region. On Sunday, ministers were planning one of the largest evacuations since World War II.
In an unprecedented operation, at least 94,000 Britons in the UAE and other Gulf nations have already registered their locations and contact details with the Foreign Office, ready for evacuation.
Several areas of Iran’s capital Tehran were struck on Sunday as the US Navy and Air Force continued efforts to gain air supremacy.
After less than 48 hours of warfare, US and Israeli forces have taken out much of Iran’s top leadership, destroyed dozens of missile launchers and sunk nine of the regime’s warships. In addition, a key explosives factory has been dismantled.
Trump said on Sunday that Iran’s interim leaders were willing to enter ceasefire talks, and revealed operations there had been designed to last four weeks, or a shorter time if Tehran came to the table to agree on a nuclear deal.
“We always anticipated four weeks,” he told the Telegraph. “We also anticipated two to three weeks to take out some of the leadership, but we’ve taken out all of it in one day.
“So that was well before schedule. We always viewed it as a four-week operation. They want to make a deal badly. I said you should have made it a week ago.”
On Monday, the US defence secretary accused America’s traditional allies of “hand-wringing” and “pearl-clutching” over the use of force against Iran.
“Capable partners are good partners, unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force,” Pete Hegseth told a press conference at the Pentagon.
“America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history.”
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.