Trump’s Iran bombing tests the limits of British influence

LONDON — Keir Starmer has tried desperately to stay on the right side of Donald Trump. It seemed to count for little when the U.S. bombed Iran.

Since entering office last year, the British prime minister has fought to forge a good relationship with the U.S. president — efforts that his team can reasonably claim have paid off on a host of fronts.

After an early visit to the White House in February passed off successfully, Starmer gained some credit for acting as a “bridge” between the U.S. and Europe on the future of the Ukraine war.

The U.K.’s frantic lobbying for relief from Trump’s tariffs also appeared to bear fruit, as the U.S. president signed off on a deal at the June 15-17 G7 summit to remove some trade barriers between the two countries. 

Trump has spoken unexpectedly warmly about the center-left Starmer at times, remarking at their G7 meeting in Canada: “We’ve become friends in a short period of time.”

Yet London doesn't seem to have figured in Trump’s thinking at all this weekend, as he ignored European calls for renewed diplomacy and proceeded with strikes against three nuclear sites in Iran.

One U.K. official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said it was unsurprising given the “war” for Trump’s attention, and that it was “never clear who he would listen to on any given day” within his own team, let alone among foreign states.

De-escalation rebuffed

The British government has been publicly consistent in calling for de-escalation on Iran. Yet those pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

At the G7 gathering, Starmer insisted there was nothing to indicate Trump was preparing direct missile attacks on Iran, and as late as Friday Foreign Secretary David Lammy emerged from a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff believing Trump preferred a deal to strikes.

Just hours later, the strikes began.

Britain has visibly resuscitated its role as part of the “E3” group of countries that was key to reaching Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal. Yet those talks, which include Germany and France, have so far failed to make headway.

Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at foreign policy think tank Chatham House, said the U.S. strikes on Iran “underscore the declining if not peripheral influence of the E3 in nuclear diplomacy and regional crisis management.”

She added that European leaders including the U.K. were “largely sidelined” in nuclear talks, and that their subsequent calls for restraint were “overshadowed by decisive U.S. military action taken without their consultation.”

A former British government adviser who has dealt with the U.S. president said this weekend's action was "solely down to the whim of Trump, and everyone’s influence is limited."

"He won’t be listening to any allies so even if we do have a better relationship than others, in reality that means nothing," they added.

Grant Shapps, the Conservative former defense secretary, put it even more bluntly.

On Monday he described Starmer as “impotent” on the international stage, telling Times Radio: “There's nothing which weakens your position more than saying something can or cannot happen and then the opposite happens.”

'Close ally'

U.K. officials strongly reject suggestions that the sequence of events points to Britain’s waning influence. 

The prime minister’s spokesperson noted that Starmer had spoken to Trump on Sunday, and that the “U.K. was given notice about the U.S. action, as you'd expect from a close ally.” 

One British diplomat said of Trump: “The commentary that he was always going to do the military thing and the EU and everyone else just has no influence is just not accurate. [A negotiated solution] was his preferred outcome and the Iranians had multiple chances and squandered them.”

They added that Trump, through Witkoff, had given the Iranians plenty of bandwidth and had been more open to making a deal than Joe Biden’s administration was. 

The E3 had been trying to persuade the Iranians that the Americans were serious and that they were approaching the “last chance saloon,” the same person said.

A second British diplomat said the U.K. had been “fully engaged” with all parties over the weekend,” pointing out that Lammy — who declined to tell the House of Commons on Monday whether the U.K. supported or opposed the U.S. action over the weekend — spoke to Rubio on Saturday and Sunday. 

“It's about continued engagement with everyone,” they said, including “messages to regional partners to urge restraint and get back to talks.”

As with Ukraine, the U.K. appears to be more of a go-between than a decisive influencer right now — but it’s working that angle with all its might.

Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.