British PM says UK to send more fighter jets to Gulf, relationship with US ‘still special’

As well as the tongue-lashing from Trump, Starmer has also faced criticism from Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, a right-wing Trump supporter, who has accused the prime minister of dithering.

“What Keir Starmer has done in alienating the American administration is not to just put that relationship personally at stake, but frankly to risk a relationship with a country without whom we are defenceless,” he told Reuters on Thursday.

Britain, like other European countries, is searching for ways to repatriate citizens stranded in the Middle East by a conflict that has shut some of the world’s busiest airports.

Starmer said more than 4,000 people had arrived back in the United Kingdom on commercial flights from the UAE, while 140,000 British nationals had registered their presence in the region.