Yvette Cooper says UK will not ‘outsource’ foreign policy amid row with Trump

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has said the UK Government’s job is not to be “outsourcing our foreign policy” after renewed criticism from Donald Trump over the conflict in Iran.

She also hit back at a rebuke from Sir Tony Blair, saying it was important to “learn the lessons” from the Iraq war after the former Labour prime minister said the UK should have backed the US over Iran from day one.

Sir Keir Starmer’s decision not to grant permission for the first wave of military action prompted a raft of criticism from Mr Trump in recent days, including a personal attack on the Prime Minister as being “not Winston Churchill”.

Sir Keir later granted permission for “defensive” US action against Iranian missile sites from UK bases.

After reports that the UK was preparing an aircraft carrier to go to the Middle East, the US president posted on Saturday that the UK was “finally giving thought” to sending two but said “we don’t need them any longer”.

He added: “But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”

Ms Cooper told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “It’s for the US president to decide what he thinks is in the US national interest, and that’s for him to do.

“But it is our job as the UK Government to decide what’s in the UK national interest, and that doesn’t mean simply agreeing with other countries or outsourcing our foreign policy to other countries.”

She said the UK needs to “take decisions ourselves” and that the Prime Minister is “right to stand up for Britain and Britain’s interests”.

Sir Tony told a private event that the UK “should have backed America from the beginning”, but the Foreign Secretary rejected the idea the UK should “unquestioningly agree with the US”.

“There are people who think we should just unquestioningly do so, and that I just think is not in the UK’s national interest.

“Having been a minister in the last Labour government, I also think it is important to learn lessons from what went wrong in Iraq,” she said.

The Prime Minister has sought to play down the rift with the US and, after Mr Trump’s latest broadside, Downing Street pointed to Sir Keir’s earlier comments that the special relationship is “in operation right now” as the two countries share intelligence and work together.

Sir Keir has defended his decision not to permit the US to use British bases in the opening assault against the Tehran regime, suggesting it could have been unlawful.

Ms Cooper said he would not turn to “rhetoric or hyperbole” and would focus on “calm, steady decision-making”, in comments to Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips.

The Prime Minister agreed a week ago to allow the US to strike Iran defensively from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean.

This weekend four American bombers landed at Fairford and the US started using British bases for “specific defensive operations” to prevent Iran firing missiles in the region.

The Ministry of Defence said it was increasing the preparedness of aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales and reducing the time it would take to set sail, but that no decisions had been taken to deploy the warship.

A Merlin helicopter is also being sent to the region to help with surveillance from the air and RAF Typhoon and F-35 jets are continuing air operations over Jordan, Qatar and Cyprus.

While questions linger over the UK potentially taking a more proactive role in the conflict, Britain has faced criticism from allies over the defence of Cyprus, where a UK base was struck by a drone earlier this week.

Air defence destroyer HMS Dragon is expected to sail to the eastern Mediterranean in the next few days while France and Greece have already deployed military assets to defend the island.

The warship has started resupplying with air defence missiles at a facility in Portsmouth and will return to the berth for a logistics resupply before sailing.

Reform UK MP Robert Jenrick said his party did not support UK offensive action but added that Sir Keir should “absolutely” have given the US access to UK bases immediately.

“We don’t see a cause for the UK to be deploying our personnel, such as airmen, offensively in bombing raids over Iran,” he told the BBC.

“I think it’s one of the worst failures of military planning in recent years that the United States could build up the biggest armada in that region in a generation and Keir Starmer didn’t put a single ship into the region. We had to rely on the French to defend our base in Cyprus.”

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp called it a “dereliction of duty” not to move warships to Cyprus or the Middle East sooner.

The Conservative frontbencher told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “The problem is, those ships (HMS Dragon and HMS Prince of Wales), as we speak, are nowhere near Cyprus. They’re nowhere near the Gulf.

“They’re tied up at the docks in Portsmouth because Keir Starmer and Labour Government showed no foresight whatsoever. Even though they knew three or four weeks ago that America planned this action against Iran, they did not move those ships into the region.

“That is a dereliction of duty, frankly.”

One reason it is taking time to prepare Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon is because it is being equipped to remain at sea for several months if required, rather than rushed into the eastern Mediterranean for a short period.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has accused the Prime Minister of being “too scared to make foreign interventions”.

Meanwhile, a third Government charter flight to bring Britons home from the region is due to leave Muscat, Oman, on Sunday just before 7pm UK time and there are plans to charter a commercial flight from Dubai early next week.

More than 32,000 British nationals have now departed the region, which includes the Gulf countries as well as Israel and Lebanon, by air since March 1.