UK to send four extra Typhoons jets to Qatar, says Starmer
The UK is sending four additional Typhoon jets to Qatar, as well as Wildcat helicopters with anti-drone capabilities being sent to Cyprus, Starmer says.
He says the US has been allowed to use British airfields to carry out defensive missions and that HMS Dragon is heading for the Mediterranean.
More than 4,000 people have arrived back in the UK on commercial flights, he says, with a further seven flights due to arrive in Britain today.
The first charter flight from Oman took off “a few minutes ago”, the prime minister adds.
I want to be very clear; this is a huge undertaking.
It is one of the biggest operations of its kind, many times bigger than the evacuation from Afghanistan.
It’s not going to happen overnight but we will not stop until our people are safe.
Key events
Kiran Stacey
Shabana Mahmood has put herself on a collision course with Labour MPs after announcing a set of changes to the immigration system that one backbencher said mimicked Donald Trump and another claimed would lead to a Windrush-style scandal.
The home secretary announced her plans on Thursday, including an end to permanent refugee status and the removal of government support from asylum seekers who are deemed not to need it or who break the law.
She also launched a pilot project to pay 150 families whose asylum claims have been rejected up to £40,000 each to voluntarily leave the country, or face forcible removal at the hands of law enforcement officials. Those families have been contacted and have seven days to decide whether to accept or refuse the offer.
The plans triggered an immediate backlash from Labour MPs, who said they were unfair and risked further alienating core Labour support after last week’s damaging byelection loss to the Greens.
Tony Vaughan, the Labour MP for Folkestone and Hythe, organised a letter that he said had been signed by 100 of his party colleagues, saying that the proposals undermined the government’s commitment to integration and social cohesion.
He said:
We can change our immigration system for the better without forgetting who we are as a Labour party.
You don’t win back public confidence in the asylum system by threatening to forcibly remove refugees who have lived here lawfully for 15 or 20 years. That just breeds insecurity and fractured communities.
His sentiments were echoed by Stella Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow, who said:
There’s no ‘fairness’ in repeatedly spending money on asking victims of trafficking and civil war if they are still in that category – especially when we have already given them refugee status so confirmed they are at risk of harm.
Ukrainians, Iranians [and] Afghans alike will all now live in a perpetual state of limbo, not able to plan any kind of life either here or in their home nation because they can’t guarantee their status, making them easier to exploit too. I look forward to reading the NAO [National Audit Office] report and the inevitable Windrush-style scandal coming that none of us stood on a manifesto to implement.
The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar asks if Starmer has been afforded any insight by president Trump in relation to how long the war could last
He says:
Clearly, that is a concern for everybody. Thats why we’ve been absolutely clear that we need to de-escalate.
He adds that he has had discussions with Trump about the operation, while conversations are ongoing across all levels.
The prime minister is asked if he had spoken to Trump since his criticism of him, to which he says he last spoke to him on Saturday evening.
That is the end of the press conference.
Asked to comment on Donald Trump’s words that he has “ruined the special relationship”, Starmer says that relationship is in operation right now.
He says he has to take decisions as the British prime minister that are in the best interests for the UK.
He adds:
Look, the special relationship is in operation right now.
We’re working with the Americans in the deployment from our bases. We are working together in the region, the US and the British, working together to protect both the US and the British in joint bases where we’re jointly located, and we’re sharing intelligence on 24/7 basis in the usual way.
That is the special relationship. That is a special relationship in operation, and clearly, it’s for the president to take decisions that he considers in the national interest the right decisions for the US.
I understand that, I respect that, but equally, it’s for me as the British prime minister to take decisions that I consider to be in the best interest of the United Kingdom.
There’s nothing controversial about that. The special relationship is operating right here at an important point.
Starmer: There was no specific request from US to use UK bases until Saturday afternoon
Starmer is asked outright whether the reports were true that he wanted to give the US permission to use UK airfields last week but was blocked by cabinet minister, led by Ed Miliband (see post 9.38am).
He says:
Let me be really clear about this; no request came in the specific terms that we acceded until Saturday afternoon.
He adds that there was no request from the US on Friday and therefore there was no decision to be made. He says the final decision was unanimous among his cabinet.
ITV’s Robert Peston is asking whether Starmer’s “initial decision” not to join the US and Israel in launching offensive strikes on Iran could be reviewed further down the line.
Starmer says “we are working with our allies and the US on this” and that the pre-deployment was carried out in conjunction with the US.
He does not address the point about reviewing the decision in the future.
Beth Rigby, from Sky News, asks if he will apologise to British military personnel in Cyprus who were left unprotected.
The prime minister says:
Our absolute priority is the safety of our citizens and that is the focus for all the decisions I have taken.
Keir Starmer is defending himself accusations of dithering in response to the crisis by saying the UK began pre-deploying assets to the region from January.
He tells Chris Mason, from BBC News:
There’s been a lot of pre-planning that’s gone into this, there’s been a lot of pre-deployment that’s gone into this.
I’m satisfied that we can keep our people safe.
The prime minister says that while others seek to use the conflict “to divide us”, Britain should be coming together in this moment.
Starmer says:
As a nation, we should come together in this moment. Those citizens that are stuck in the region, scared and in need of help, come from all backgrounds.
The armed forces who protect them come from all backgrounds too. We are united by our common humanity and our love of this country.
He warns that the conflict could carry on for some time and says the UK government is “resolute in its response at home and abroad”.
UK to send four extra Typhoons jets to Qatar, says Starmer
The UK is sending four additional Typhoon jets to Qatar, as well as Wildcat helicopters with anti-drone capabilities being sent to Cyprus, Starmer says.
He says the US has been allowed to use British airfields to carry out defensive missions and that HMS Dragon is heading for the Mediterranean.
More than 4,000 people have arrived back in the UK on commercial flights, he says, with a further seven flights due to arrive in Britain today.
The first charter flight from Oman took off “a few minutes ago”, the prime minister adds.
I want to be very clear; this is a huge undertaking.
It is one of the biggest operations of its kind, many times bigger than the evacuation from Afghanistan.
It’s not going to happen overnight but we will not stop until our people are safe.
Keir Starmer has said that the “long-standing British position is that the best way forward for the regime and the world is a negotiated settlement with Iran where they give up their nuclear ambitions”.
He says his decision not to join the US and Israeli strikes was deliberate and that he stands by it.
He says:
While the region has been plunged into chaos, my focus has been on providing calm, level-headed leadership in the national interest.
It means having the strength to stand firm by our values and by our principles, no matter the pressure to do otherwise.
However, he says, once Iran started retaliating the situation changed. “Our number one priority is protecting our people,” he says, in reference to the thousands of Britons living in the Middle East.
He says throughout January and February, the UK moved military assets to Cyprus and Qatar “to ensure we were in heightened state of readiness” in case of conflict.
Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch’s description of Keir Starmer’s MPs as clueless “orcs and goons” and other language used by her frontbench team amid the ongoing Middle East crisis have sparked an angry response from a former diplomat turned Foreign Office minister as he updated MPs on evacuation flights from the region.
There were angry clashes between Hamish Falconer and the shadow foreign secretary, Priti Patel, as she demanded to know why the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, had not come to parliament and accused her of not providing leadership.
“I will not reflect on my own time as an official during previous crises where the same was not said about foreign ministers during such times,” said Falconer, who was a civil servant during Conservative-led governments and has experience of running evacuations during similar crises.
The foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, had been in her department’s crisis centre since Saturday, said Falconer, who singled out comments by Badenoch this week when accused the prime minister of being advised “sea of orcs and goons who have no idea how anything is working at all.” The Conservative leader has said it was a reference to the characters of JR Tolkein and told the BBC’s Today programme that had to respond when Labour MPs tried to use her “as a punchbag.”
However, the exchanges in parliament on Thursday again struck a bitter tone as as the chair of the Foreign Affairs committee, Emily Thornberry, accused the opposition of failing in their “responsibility to always put the country first and not play narrow party politics.” “As for throwing personal abuse across the dispatch box at time like this I am profoundly shocked,” she added.
Another Labour MP, John Slinger, accused Badenoch’s team of undermining national security by using language in an attempt to “wrap themselves in the cloak of national security and patriotism.”
Ben Quinn
More than 2,000 people had arrived in the UK on Wednesday on eight flights from the United Arab Emirates, MPs have been told by a Foreign Office Minister, Hamish Falconer. A further eight flights are expected from the UAE today.
British Airways has also now agreed to lay on new flights from Muscat, the capital of Oman, which were expected to fly every day after talks with the government, he added.
However, there was criticism from MPs including shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel, who pressed the government on the failure of the first repatriation flight chartered by the UK government to take off via Oman on Wednesday evening.
Keir Starmer to give an update on Iran at 2pm
The British prime minister will give a press conference at 2pm on the US-Israeli war on Iran and the escalating conflict that’s engulfing more countries in the region.
In a post on X, he said:
I know that the situation in the Middle East is worrying for people across the UK and in the region.
This afternoon, I’ll be giving an update on the action we continue to take to protect lives and bring British nationals back home.
Starmer has come under criticism from Donald Trump this week after the government initially refused to allow the US to use British airbases for “defensive” attacks (which he refers to as striking down Iran’s military capability in the country).
The country has resolved to send a destroyer, HMS Dragon, to Cyprus to help protect the country after a drone evaded detection and hit an RAF base there although it isn’t expected to arrive until next week, Britain will also send two Wildcat helicopters with counter-drone capabilities.
Governments around the world have worked on evacuating their citizens out from the region but Britain has faced some issues with this. A flight was expected to depart Oman last night but failed to leave because of a problem “getting passengers on board”, a minister has said. Others have since arrived.
A total of 138,000 people from the UK have registered for assistance, the government said. 112,000 of those are in the UAE.