Starmer is treading a fine line between principle and support

The PM is adamant that bombing Iran is unlawful without evidence of threat

- Rachel Sylvester Political Editor

At last Monday's meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, the room fell silent as Calvin Bailey, the MP for Leyton and Wanstead, described flying combat missions into Iraq.

He said his involvement in the 2003 war was “something that I have questioned every day since” and he thanked the prime minister for “doing right by our service personnel” in refusing to join the US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran.

Keir Starmer said it was important that, when people put their lives on the line, there is a prime minister who considers whether military action is “lawful” and “viable”.

Starmer is under attack from the right for turning down Donald Trump’s request to use British airbases to launch preemptive bombing raids, and from the left for granting the US permission to launch “defensive” airstrikes on Iranian missile sites from UK facilities.

Tony Blair told an event hosted by Jewish News on Friday that Britain should have backed the US from the beginning.

The US president is furious with Starmer for not immediately agreeing to his demands, declaring that he is “not Winston Churchill”.

But what MPs are describing as the Labour leader’s “Love Actually moment” - a reference to the 2003 romcom in which Hugh Grant plays a British prime minister who stands up to a bullying US president has strengthened his position in his party and is broadly in line with public opinion.