Keir Starmer has attacked Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage over their stance on the war in Iran, accusing each of U-turning on their support for Donald Trump.
At a raucous prime minister’s questions, Starmer accused the chief of the opposition of constructing the “mother of all U-turns” and furiously attempting to backpedal after she denied calling for the UK to join the US president’s war on Iran on Tuesday, after beforehand saying Starmer ought to do extra to “stop the people who are attacking us”.
Last week Badenoch repeatedly pressed Starmer on his resolution not to launch offensive strikes to destroy missile bases, asking: “Why is he asking our allies to do what we should be doing ourselves?”
On Wednesday, Starmer stated: “If I’d asked her last week, her position would be, we support the initial strikes and we want to join the war. This week, she says, we don’t want to join the war.
“That is the mother of all U-turns on the single most important decision a prime minister ever has to take, whether to commit the United Kingdom to war or not.”
To cheers from his personal backbenchers, he added: “She has utterly disqualified herself from ever becoming prime minister, thankfully she never will.”
Starmer advised MPs that the UK’s armed forces had been “working day and night to protect British lives and British interests in the Middle East”, including that the RAF had flown greater than 230 hours of defensive operations over a number of nations and shot down a number of drones. “We thank them for their courage and for their professionalism,” he stated.
He accused Badenoch of insulting the UK’s RAF personnel by saying they had been “just hanging about” throughout an interview with BBC Breakfast on Friday. Speaking within the Commons, Starmer stated: “Let me tell you what they’ve been doing: flying sorties in seven of the 10 countries in the region, day and night, taking out incoming strikes, protecting the lives of others whilst risking their own.
“If she had any decency, she’d get up and she would apologise.”
Badenoch stated she had by no means criticised the armed forces, however had criticised Starmer.
Speaking after PMQs, Badenoch’s spokesperson accused Starmer of looking for to “completely misrepresent our position”, arguing that Badenoch had by no means argued that the UK ought to be part of within the war.
The Tory chief had, he stated, known as for the UK to permit the US to make use of British bases for the preliminary attacks on Iran, and she now supported UK motion towards Iranian navy motion concentrating on British bases in Cyprus.
Asked if this was not the identical as becoming a member of the war, he stated: “We are at war. The difference is, we’re not joining the war. We’re in the war.”
Asked if Badenoch understood the targets of the war, the spokesperson stated she didn’t obtain the identical intelligence briefings as ministers. Questioned as to how she might again a battle with out realizing its goals, he added: “We support our allies.”
Badenoch used her questions within the Commons to repeatedly ask Starmer about petrol costs and why he thought “now is the right time to increase the cost of petrol?”
Starmer denied that the federal government was growing the price of petrol, saying gas responsibility would stay frozen till September.
The Liberal Democrat chief, Ed Davey, stated households had been seeing petrol costs enhance, mortgage charges go up and mounted power offers get dearer “all because of a war they did not start and do not support”.
Turning his criticism to the Tories and Reform, he added: “The leader of the Conservatives has been competing with [Nigel Farage] to be Donald Trump’s biggest cheerleader, and the prime minister was right to reject their costly warmongering.”
Starmer stated Davey was proper, including of Badenoch and Farage: “Last week, they were urging us to join. If they had been leading the country, we’d be at war.”
Davey known as on Starmer “to guarantee the energy bills won’t rise by hundreds of pounds in July” when the next quarterly price cap takes effect in July. Ministers are understood to be occupied with how they may shield customers, however analysts have stated that family power payments could climb by £160 a year from this summer time after the war in Iran pushed the UK’s fuel market to a three-year excessive.
Starmer stated he wished to “reassure households” that the cap was in place till July. “We are working with the sector and with others and with allies to do everything we can to make sure those energy bills don’t rise,” he stated. “We’re working around the clock on that. The most important thing, the most effective thing we can do, is to work with our allies to find a way to de-escalate the situation.”
