Sir Keir Starmer has been criticised by Sir Mel Stride for his “flat-footed” approach to Iran, following Donald Trump’s latest attack.
Speaking to GB News, the Shadow Chancellor hit out at the Prime Minister for not acting quickly enough, making clear that “allies matter”, particularly the US.
In his latest swipe at the Sir Keir, Donald Trump declared he is “not happy” with the UK and their handling of the Iran conflict, in particular his U-turn on allowing the US to use UK military bases.
The President said: “That island that you read about the lease, for whatever reason, he made a lease of the island.
“Somebody came and took it away from him, and it’s taken three or four days for us to work out where we can land.
“There would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours, so we are very surprised. This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
Offering his reaction to the attack, Sir Mel made clear that “no ally matters more” to the UK than the US, and Mr Trump will now be “seriously questioning” their special relationship.
He told GB News: “I think the takeaway from this is that in a very uncertain and dangerous world, allies matter, and no ally matters more to our country than the United States.
Mel Stride hit out at Keir Starmer’s ‘flat-footed’ approach to Iran, declaring that ‘no ally matters more’ than the US
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GB NEWS
“To have ended up in a situation because of the way the Prime Minister has played support to the US around Iran, where Donald Trump is basically really, seriously questioning the relationship he has with us is quite a serious situation.”
Criticising Sir Keir for being “weak” in his approach, the Tory frontbencher argued that amid “all the chaos surrounding No10” at the moment, it will make things “more difficult to protect our country’s national interest”.
Delivering his verdict on the deployment of HMS Dragon to Cyprus, Sir Mel said that Sir Keir is being “very flat-footed” in his decisions to take any action.
He explained: “We know that a French aircraft carrier will shortly be in the area around Cyprus to carry out some of the functions that HMS Dragon will also be carrying out when it arrives, but of course it’s going to take quite some time to get there.
President Donald Trump said he was ‘not happy’ with the UK and hit out at Keir Starmer | POOL
“And I do wonder, actually, one of the things that a lot of people haven’t focused on is what are the Cypriots thinking about this?
“Because one of the reasons why they welcome us having Akrotiri as a base there is it’s part of not just defending our interests, but also defending their interest too. And yet, where are we when things have kicked off?”
The Shadow Chancellor argued: “I think they could be forgiven for thinking that they’ve actually been left in a situation where there’s incoming fire, because we’ve got a base there, but there isn’t the requisite ship there that we should have had there earlier to make sure that everything is properly defended.”
Declaring there is a lack of “standing up for the national interest” from the Labour Government, Sir Mel took aim at the “flat-footed” stance taking by Sir Keir amid the escalating Middle Eastern conflict.
He told GB News: “We’ve touched on Donald Trump and we’ve touched on our commitments supporting our allies.
“We could have touched on the Chagos Islands, that terrible deal that is still rather up in the air, but does not stand foursquare behind our national interests.
Sir Mel told GB News that HMS Dragon should have been ‘deployed earlier’
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GB NEWS
“And we’re now talking about a ship that should have been prepared earlier and got into place early. And all of this just speaks of flat footedness and not really gripping the need to stand up for our national interest.”
In a statement posted to social media on Tuesday, Sir Keir confirmed the UK will send air defence destroyer HMS Dragon to protect British military personnel in Cyprus.
He said: “The UK is fully committed to the security of Cyprus and British military personnel based there.
“We’re continuing our defensive operations, and I’ve just spoken with the President of Cyprus to let him know that we are sending helicopters with counter-drone capabilities and HMS Dragon is to be deployed to the region.”