Will Starmer support US strikes on Iran?

Posted: 30th January 2026

After bombing Venezuela and threatening Greenland, US president Donald Trump announced on social media this week that “a massive armada is heading to Iran”.

The armada is “moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose”, and is “larger” than the one sent to Venezuela in advance of the kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro.

“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS… Time is running out, it is truly of the essence”, Trump declared.

The intensifying threats against Iran will inevitably please Israel, which has long viewed Tehran as its most important regional adversary.

This is because Iran supports local resistance movements against Israel in the Middle East, and is seen as the regional power most likely to join Israel in acquiring nuclear weapons.

Trump’s military threats also come on the back of mass protests in Iran, with the US president reportedly considering airstrikes on Tehran in order to encourage further anti-government demonstrations.

Two sources told Reuters that the US government wanted to create the conditions for “regime change”, though in reality those conditions have been years in the making.

Over the past decade, the US government has imposed crippling sanctions on Tehran in the hope that the immiseration of Iranians will lead them to overthrow their government.

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent, for instance, boasted last week that Washington’s sanctions have managed to “accelerate an economic collapse” in Iran.

In 2019, then US secretary of state Mike Pompeo similarly boasted that “things are much worse for the Iranian people” as a result of the sanctions. And things will surely get much worse for Iranians should Trump decide to attack.

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What is Britain’s role in this escalation?

Last summer, UK attorney general Richard Hermer repeatedly warned the government that direct involvement in a war on Iran “may be illegal” unless UK personnel were targeted.

When US forces attacked Iran in 2025, they used long-range B-2 bombers out of Missouri rather than fighter jets stationed on Diego Garcia, the UK-US military airbase on the Chagos Islands.

But according to a report in Middle East Eye, Britain has now deployed a squadron of Typhoon jets to Al Udeid airbase in Qatar last week, at the invitation of its government.

The UK government initially said this was to “bolster defensive capability in the region”, with defence secretary John Healey saying the deployment “supports stability in the Gulf region”.

Starmer has now gone one step further, indicating to reporters in China that Britain might support a US attack on the Middle Eastern country.

“The goal is that Iran shouldn’t be able to develop nuclear weapons”, Starmer said, echoing Trump’s rationale for the military build-up. “We support the goaland we are talking to allies about how we get to that goal”, he added.

The world now awaits Trump’s next move, but to paraphrase Brendan Behan, there has never been a situation so dismal that the US military couldn’t make it worse.

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