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Critics will accuse him of yet another U-turn, but Sir Keir Starmer insists circumstances have changed and British lives are now at risk from attacks by Iran.
The prime minister’s announcement that two British airbases – Fairford in Gloucestershire and the hotly disputed Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands – can be used by the US came at 9pm on Sunday.
If not a U-turn, it was certainly a change from his original decision to reject Donald Trump’s earlier request to use the bases, a snub that will have massively irked the US president.
Who knows? The PM’s change of heart, which came after a phone call with The Donald on Saturday, may even persuade him to drop his opposition to the controversial Chagos deal. Well, he can but hope.
After the Number 10 announcement, government sources were quick to point out that the bases will not be used for bombing Iran, but to stop the Iranians attacking Brits and others throughout the Middle East.
“It’s very clearly not a U-turn,” a close ally of the PM told Sky News.
“This is a different question that has been asked. It’s about stopping missiles being fired at British citizens.”
But the government is already facing calls for a Commons vote on the use of the UK bases, led – not surprisingly – by the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, who said the move was “a slippery slope”.
In his latest solemn TV address, the PM said the aim was to enable the US and its allies – including the UK – to destroy Iran’s missile depots and rocket launchers used to fire the missiles.
“The United States has requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose,” Sir Keir said in a…
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