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, multiple British media reports citing government sources 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.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense declined to comment on so-called operational issues. A government spokesperson said: “There is an ongoing political process between the US and Iran, which the UK supports. Iran must never be able to develop nuclear weapons and our priority is regional security.”
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.
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
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.
An agreement to return them has since been advanced through British government channels, with London arguing that compromising on a lease deal would avoid further costly and potentially fruitless legal battles while maintaining military access in the Indian Ocean.
President Trump, who initially opposed the UK-Mauritius deal, said in early February that it was the “best” deal Britain could get under the circumstances.
But as the US ramps up troops in the region in preparation for a possible attack on Iran, Trump reversed course, saying in a post on Truth Social that Starmer would have made a “huge mistake” in agreeing to the lease with Mauritius.
“Prime Minister Starmer is losing control of this important island due to claims by previously unknown parties that, in our view, are fictitious in nature,” Trump’s post said.
But the day before, the US State Department issued a statement that said in part that Washington “supports the UK’s decision to proceed with the agreement with Mauritius.”
Asked about the discrepancy between Truth Social’s post and the State Department’s statement, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said the president’s post should be taken as “policy” of the Trump administration.
In a social media post, President Trump directly mentioned 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.
Both Diego Garcia and Fairford are important forward operating bases for U.S. strategic bombers in Europe and were not used in the 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.
