Keir Starmer Resists Trumps Call For Navy Deployment

Keir Starmer has resisted Donald Trump’s calls for the UK to send warships to the Middle East to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

The prime minister said the UK “will not be drawn into the wider war” as he repeatedly refused to say whether the Royal Navy will be deployed.

Trump last week called on Britain to join an international effort to keep the vital waterway – which carries around one-fifth of the world’s oil supply – open.

The US president said: “Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated.”

But speaking at a Downing Street press conference on Monday, Starmer demonstrated his reluctance to accede to Trump’s latest request for help.

He said: “We’re working with all of our allies, including our European partners, to bring together a viable collective plan that can restore freedom of navigation in the region as quickly as possible and ease the economic impacts.”

The PM added: “It’ll have to be something which is agreed by as many partners as possible, is my strong view. We’re not at that stage yet, but we are working hard.”

Trump has even suggested that the future of Nato could be at risk if other countries do not help America keep the Strait open.

He told the Financial Times: “We have a thing called Nato. We’ve been very sweet. We didn’t have to help them with Ukraine … but we helped them.

“Now we’ll see if they help us because I’ve long said that we’ll be there for them but they won’t be there for us. I’m not sure that they’d be there.

“If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of Nato.”

But that was dismissed by General Sir Nick Carter, the former head of the British Army, who said the president had misunderstood Nato’s role.

He said: “It was not an alliance that was designed for one of the allies to go on a war of choice and then oblige everyone else to follow.”

Starmer’s reluctance to send the Navy to defend the Strait of Hormuz risks putting further pressure on his already-strained relationship with Trump.

The PM turned down the president’s initial request to use RAF bases to launch strikes on Iran at the start of the war.

Starmer has subsequently said US jets can fly from British bases, but only to carry out “defensive” operations.

Speaking on board Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said: “I don’t want them after we win the war, I want them before we start the war.

“I can say this, and I said it to them: we will remember.”

However, Starmer insisted he and Trump – who spoke on the phone on Sunday – still have a good relationship.