LONDON – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has blocked U.S. President Donald Trump’s request to allow U.S. forces to use British air bases in a pre-emptive strike against Iran, saying it could violate international law, British media reports citing government officials said.
According to the Times of London, which first reported on the dispute over air base access, Starmer denied using Britain’s Fairford Air Base and Diego Garcia, a British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean, to attack Iran.
The two bases have long served as important overseas U.S. military staging bases for operations far from home, and Diego Garcia is an important airfield for the U.S. heavy bomber fleet.
The Times reported that Britain was concerned that allowing the US to use the base would be “a violation of international law, and that there is no distinction between the country carrying out the attack and the state supporting it ‘with knowledge of the circumstances of an internationally unlawful act'”.
The newspaper reported this, citing a British government official. The BBC, Guardian and Telegraph later published their own reports citing sources saying Britain was cutting off access to the base.
U.S. requests to use British bases for operational purposes have historically been considered on a case-by-case basis, with precise criteria held back for security reasons under long-standing agreements.
According to a January report in the British Defense Journal, Veterans Affairs Minister Al Kearns wrote in response to a question from British independent MP Jeremy Corbyn that “all decisions about whether to authorize the use of British military bases for operational purposes by foreign countries take into account the legal and policy basis of the proposed activity.”
Mr. Starmer and Mr. Trump had a telephone conversation on Tuesday night, and there were reports that the two discussed peace in the Middle East and Europe.
The next day, President Trump used the Truth social platform to withdraw his support for a deal that would have handed over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, home to the U.S.-British Joint Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, to Mauritius in exchange for a 99-year lease on the military base.
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Britain carved out the Chagos Islands from Mauritius before the island gained independence, causing diplomatic tensions and repeated legal battles with evicted locals. In 2019, the International Court of Justice ruled that the island should be returned to Britain “as soon as possible” so that it can be decolonized.
In his social media posts, President Trump directly referenced two British air bases that British media cited as key to a possible attack on Iran.
“The United States may need to use the airfields at Diego Garcia and Fairford to root out a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous regime,” President Trump wrote.
Neither Diego Garcia nor Fairford, a forward operating base for U.S. strategic bombers in Europe, was used in a single attack by B-2 bombers on Iranian nuclear facilities last June. In this case, the stealth bomber made a round-trip flight of approximately 37 hours from its home base in Missouri.
But analysts expect a new U.S. attack on Iran to be much more protracted, possibly lasting more than a few weeks.
For such operations, the B-2, like the B-1 and B-52 bombers, would be able to use bases thousands of miles closer to Iran, allowing it to rearm more quickly and refuel for further attacks.
The United States may have access to other bases in friendly countries close to Iran, but using them could put its valuable heavy bomber fleet within reach of Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes.
Reacting to the latest developments, British Liberal Democratic Party leader Sir Ed Davey, a long-time Trump critic, said: “It is clear that President Donald Trump is trying to bully the government into allowing the US to use British bases such as Diego Garcia to pursue unilateral military action.”
“Keir Starmer needs to stand firm and give Parliament a vote on US military use of UK bases.” — Agency
