Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/world/europe/iran-war-united-states-britain-starmer.html

http://archive.today/2026.03.31-111857/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/world/europe/iran-war-united-states-britain-starmer.html

As the United States expands the number of strikes by bombers taking off from British territory, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has emphasized the same point. Britain, he says, is not helping America wage its war of choice against Iran.

But Mr. Starmer’s words are clashing with the images of powerful American planes waging war from a base in southern England. There are nearly two dozen U.S. bombers stationed at the base taking part in the campaign against Iran.

Since the war began more than a month ago, Britain has come under increasing pressure to help the United States, its closest ally. Mr. Trump has lashed out at Mr. Starmer, accusing the prime minister of cowardice for initially refusing to allow the United States to use British bases for the war’s early strikes.

After the war began and Iran started retaliating at Gulf countries and beyond, Mr. Starmer shifted his position, saying that American bombers could take off from British bases, but only to defend interests around the region, not to conduct offensive strikes.

Then, two weeks later, when Iran effectively shut down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Mr. Starmer shifted again. The British government now allows American bombers to hit Iranian targets in an effort to keep the strait open to oil and gas shipments.

He is parsing a distinction between offensive and defensive. The bombers, Mr. Starmer has told President Trump repeatedly, are allowed to conduct only operations that protect British and allied interests across the Middle East.

Attacks on missile launchers like the ones that struck a British installation on Cyprus are allowed. But dropping bombs on Iran’s political leadership or its energy facilities is not.

Mr. Starmer and his top military officials say the difference is crucial. “We will take action to defend ourselves and our allies, and we will not be drawn into the wider war,” he told lawmakers in mid-March.

Iran does not seem to recognize the distinction being made by Mr. Starmer.

At the same time, Mr. Starmer is under pressure to show that he is doing something to address the war’s effect on the price of gas and heating oil.

“It’s not our war, but it is our duty to protect British citizens,” Mr. Starmer said on Monday ahead of a closed-door meeting with business executives. He said the British public had “this sense that it is going to hit them and their families and their households” in the form of higher oil, gas and food prices.

“The U.K. was not critical for the U.S. to commence the war; however, the U.S. absolutely could not sustain this conflict without the U.K.’s support now,” said Calvin Bailey, a Labour lawmaker who currently sits on Parliament’s defense committee. “Because those bases allow the U.S. to use the strategic bomber force and their low-cost munitions, which mean that the war is more sustainable.”

Mr. Bailey, a former Royal Air Force and Air Force Special Operations Command officer, said that all of the American strikes had to follow U.K. rules on military targets.

“Based on my experience, aircrafts coming out of U.K. military bases have to follow international law,” he said.