A Daily Mirror poll found that more voters think Keir Starmer made the right calls in responding to Donald Trump's war in Iran. Of seven issues polled, Starmer's decision to stay out of the Iran conflict, his cooler relations with President Trump, and his move towards closer ties with the EU were the most popular. Additionally, 38% of those polled said Starmer had prioritized British values over the US relationship or struck the right balance between the two.
In comparisons with opposition leaders on handling the Iran war, 42% of those polled said Nigel Farage would have been worse than Starmer, with 31% saying 'much worse' and 23% saying better. A third of voters said Lib Dem Ed Davey would have done about the same as Starmer on the Iran war, with 23% saying worse. For Green leader Zack Polanski, 32% of voters said he would have done worse than Starmer, with 30% saying they didn't know and 12% saying better.
It's really important to emphasise that the US and the UK are working together every single day, as they always have.
Keir Starmer defended his response to the Middle East crisis after repeated attacks from US President Donald Trump. According to the Daily Express, Starmer suggested allowing the US to use British bases to carry out defensive strikes against Iranian targets but was met with opposition from Ed Miliband, Rachel Reeves, Yvette Cooper, and Shabana Mahmood. The refusal to let initial US strikes from British bases prompted anger from US President Donald Trump, who said Keir Starmer was no 'Winston Churchill' in a series of broadsides this week.
Current UK-US military cooperation remains robust despite diplomatic friction. The US is using UK air bases under an agreement reached with the UK, Starmer said. Intelligence is being shared every day between the US and UK in the region, and US and UK military personnel are co-located in the same bases.
And obviously, in relation to Iran, the US are now using UK air bases under the agreement that we've reached. But more generally than that, intelligence is being shared every day in the region. We have our military personnel and US military personnel co-located in the same places, in the same bases, and both the US and the UK are working together and protecting those bases.
Starmer had a telephone call with President Trump yesterday discussing the conflict in Iran and the region, and the two leaders spoke on Sunday for the first time in eight days in a bid to mend fraught relations. No10 said they discussed their military cooperation through the US use of RAF bases in support of the collective self-defence of partners. Domestically, Starmer expressed concerns about the conflict's impact.
He said the Iran conflict is being used as a means of dividing different communities within the UK and acknowledged the concerns of householders and businesses about the potential economic impact of the war. Politically, Starmer's handling of the crisis has boosted his profile. According to Business Secretary Peter Kyle, people are taking a 'fresh look' at Keir Starmer after his handling of the Iran crisis.
So in terms of the relationship, the work that we necessarily have to do together is going on as you would expect. I had a telephone call with President Trump yesterday talking about the conflict in Iran and the region and what we were doing together, and that was important in terms of the ongoing discussion.
He also noted that the conflict in the Middle East was a defining moment for Keir Starmer, who has seen his popularity boosted after standing up to Donald Trump. Reform UK's polling lead slipped in April as Keir Starmer's criticism of the war in Iran helped mount a slight comeback, with Reform UK losing four points in April, leaving around 26% of voters saying they would vote for Reform. April polling showed shifts for major parties.
Labour jumped by four points to 22% in April, ahead of the Green Party on 15% and the Liberal Democrats on 13%. The Conservatives inched up by one point in April to 19%. Leadership approval ratings reveal mixed results.
But the discussion with our US counterpart is happening at all levels, all of the time, every single day. That's the nature of the relationship.
In head-to-head polling between political leaders, Kemi Badenoch beat both Starmer and Farage as preferred Prime Minister. Starmer beat Farage by five points in a separate head-to-head question, the second consecutive month where the Prime Minister has defeated his biggest apparent threat. On approval ratings, Starmer was second bottom at -34, behind only Chancellor Rachel Reeves at -35.
However, Starmer's popularity jumped by eight points on the month, closing the distance on Farage (-16) and other Labour officials. The most popular Westminster personalities in the poll were Ed Davey on minus three and Kemi Badenoch on minus four.
Decisions about what's in Britain's best interests are decisions for the Prime Minister of Britain, and that's how I've approached all of the questions and all the decisions that I've had to make.
I think that this is a moment where a lot of people are taking a fresh look at Keir. Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, you know, great leaders of their time did take a while before the public really got to see them.
With Tony [Blair], it was when he really got his teeth into reforming the British state. With Thatcher, it was the Falklands conflict. These were definitional moments. And I think this is a definitional moment for Keir in highly complicated circumstances.
The conventional relationships are no longer the foundations. They're sometimes the ones rocking.
All of this happened at the same time, and all of these [things] are coming together at this moment in time, and Keir is shouldering the load of all of this, and yet still moving forwards in all of these areas. And that's something that I've had the privilege of seeing up close, and I wish more people had had that opportunity.
I think we all acknowledge that there are waves being generated in the Middle East and we don't know yet whether they will lap our shores, or whether one or two of them will crash on our shores.
But we are a Government that is striving to build resilience, to understand areas of uncertainty and make sure that we are as prepared for every eventuality as possible.
We don't yet know what the exact fallout will be as the war is ongoing...