Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon “shouldn’t be happening”, Keir Starmer has said on his visit to the Middle East, as he called for the Iran conflict to become a watershed moment for the future security of the UK.
In an article for the Guardian, the prime minister said the UK’s response to the crisis must involve a fundamental reset in terms of making the country more resilient, including by boosting defence and having closer links to Europe.
His comments on Israel echoed similar criticisms by Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, and John Healey, the defence secretary, earlier on Thursday, emphasising a potentially widening gap between the UK and Donald Trump’s US over the Iran conflict and its aftermath.
As well as the condemnation over Lebanon, Starmer and his ministers have been adamant that the strait of Hormuz must be free of any sort of tolls or levies, after Trump mooted the idea of a “joint venture” between the US and Iran to do this.
Speaking in Bahrain on a trip in which he has also held talks in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on shoring up the tentative ceasefire between Iran, the US and Israel, and fully reopening the strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, Starmer criticised Israel’s intensified bombing in Lebanon, which has killed more than 250 people.
“That shouldn’t be happening. That should stop. That’s my strong view,” Starmer told ITV.
While Israel has announced it will begin talks with Lebanon, both Israel and the US had questioned whether ending attacks on Lebanon was part of the ceasefire. JD Vance, Trump’s vice-president, had argued it was not, and that there had been “a legitimate misunderstanding”.
Starmer dismissed this argument, saying the issue “isn’t a technical one of whether it’s a breach of the agreement or not”, calling it “a matter of principles as far as I’m concerned”.
UK ministers have refused to directly condemn Trump, even after the president shocked the world by saying Iran’s “whole civilisation will die” if Tehran did not meet US demands before the ceasefire.
In the ITV interview, Starmer was obliquely critical of the language, saying: “They are not words I would use, ever use, because I come at this with our British values and principles.”
In his Guardian article, Starmer set out the separate path the UK has taken over the war, writing: “From the outset, I was clear Britain would not be drawn into offensive military action. And we were not.”
The PM presented his choices as being best for the UK’s interests and for creating longer-term resilience.
“It is why, alongside staying out of the conflict, we’ve rebuilt our European alliances and boosted our defence capacity with the biggest sustained investment since the cold war,” he wrote.
“Those measures aren’t simply about responding to one crisis in isolation. They are about doing things differently. Thinking about the long term.”
Successive shocks like Brexit, Covid and Ukraine had prompted “sticking plaster” responses, he argued: “This time, it will be different. The war in Iran must now become a line in the sand. Because how we emerge from this crisis will define all of us for a generation.”
In the ITV interview, Starmer was even more explicit about how this would include repairing ties with European neighbours, saying: “I’m clear in my mind that that means we must be closer to the EU and that’s why not just on defence and security but also on trade and energy, I want us to be closer to the EU, to strengthen our economy, to make it more resilient.”
Asked about the strait of Hormuz, Starmer said that in the UK’s view, that meant “toll-free navigation” as well as a safe passage.
Speaking earlier on Thursday at a press conference in Westminster, Healey also warned against the idea of tolls, saying: “The introduction of any sort of pay-for-passage tolls would create a potential principle that could be used and abused by others elsewhere.”
Healey also called for the ceasefire to extend to Lebanon: “We condemn the escalation in Lebanon. We want the Israel-Lebanon conflict to be brought within the terms of the ceasefire, because we want to see greater stability.”
Speaking later on Thursday at an event in Mansion House in London, Cooper was to say there “must be no return to conflict” after the ceasefire announced by the Trump late on Tuesday.
Her speech said: “There is considerable work to do, and we support the negotiations: they must make progress; there must be no return to conflict; Lebanon must be included in the ceasefire; there must be no further threat from Iran to its neighbours; and crucially, the strait of Hormuz must be fully reopened.”
