‘Iran has bought him time’: War eases leadership pressure on Starmer

LONDON — Donald Trump has berated Keir Starmer over the Iran war. But the U.S. president might just have bought the British leader a little more time in the job.

Trump blasted Starmer as “no Winston Churchill” for his limits on the U.S. launching offensive attacks from British bases — and has helped stoke criticism from opposition parties at home about an indecisive U.K. administration.

But the global tumult from the U.S.-led war in the Middle East has had one counter-effect: strengthening, for now, Starmer’s precarious domestic position.

Numerous errors and climbdowns — plus voter frustration at not seeing the “change” promised in the 2024 election — has left Starmer one of the most unpopular British prime ministers on record.

Missteps and a failure to bring political troops with him on a host of controversial issues have also left Starmer sorely lacking support among his own MPs. Whether he will survive past a difficult round of local elections on May 7 is an open talking point at Westminster.

Would-be replacements, including Health Secretary Wes Streeting and former Deputy Labour Leader Angela Rayner, have made little secret of their hope to stand if a contest arises.

But external events have a habit of changing the course of politics. And a sense is growing that the crisis in the Middle East is dampening the chatter about removing the prime minister.

“Iran has bought him time,” said one Labour official, who like others in this piece spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal party tensions.

A Labour frontbencher, who in the past predicted Starmer would be out after the spring elections, said the war is “making colleagues think again about changing leader,” adding: “It focuses minds on who we want leading the country at a time of crisis. Would we really want Angela or Wes sitting around the NATO table?”

Britain’s involvement entered a new stage on Friday, when the U.K. said the U.S. could use British bases to bomb Iranian missile sites attacking commercial shipping the Strait of Hormuz. Downing Street insisted this fell within the existing scope of “defensive” action that Starmer approved on Mar. 1.

There is broad agreement among Labour MPs that Starmer has taken the correct approach to the conflict — refusing to let jibes from Trump rile him while sticking to his position that the initial U.S.-Israel offensive action was wrong but that allies need defending from Iranian blowback.

“Most other potential prime ministers, Labour or otherwise, wouldn’t have had the backbone to stand firm, and would now be explaining to a furious British public how we were disentangling ourselves from Trump’s war and all the ensuing economic challenges we will face,” said one senior government official.

The same person sensed that even among rival leadership camps “there is an acknowledgement that this war changes things. It would be a terrible time to be seen to be playing politics by any contender.”

Health Secretary Wes Streeting speaks to the press at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England on March 19, 2026. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Indeed, one of Streeting’s allies accepted that there won’t be a leadership challenge while the war continues, adding that being a statesman on the world stage is “what Keir is good at.”

Even disgruntled MPs have been telling each other “there’s no way there could be a challenge at a time like this,” one noted, while Conservative MPs have also discussed how the war has shored up the Starmer position. 

But the calculation among plotters is still likely to come down to weighing the state of the war against how bad the verdict is from voters at the May local elections. “He’s played a blinder and is exactly where most of the country is,” one Starmer critic said. “But if it’s a bloodbath in May it would still be tricky. And it feels like everyone is on maneuvers in Westminster.”

That is acknowledged even in government. One minister said the outcome will be difficult to predict if election results are “catastrophic,” while another said: “There is still a feeling that things are untenable and could come to a head quite quickly.”

Cabinet ministers including Chancellor Rachel Reeves have been contacting junior ministers in recent weeks encouraging them to rally round the prime minister, said one of those on the receiving end. They described the outreach as one of the “save Keir calls.”

Some note, too, that those arguing that a leader cannot be changed during a war have forgotten lessons from the past. “The center [of government] will argue people shouldn’t move at a time of war, but we changed leaders during two world wars,” said another government frontbencher. “If things are really bad in May, I don’t think it will be the argument that stops people.”

Even the ongoing Ukraine war serves as a lesson. There was murmuring among Conservative MPs that it would be wrong to oust their then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson amid war in Europe. But he was gone six months after the BBC reported it in 2022. 

The opposition is also not giving Starmer the grace he afforded to Johnson as the Ukraine crisis mounted. “Starmer is in office but not in power and that is making Britain’s response to this conflict confused and incoherent,” a Conservative spokesperson said.

In the end, it could be Starmer’s response to bad election results, not his reaction to a war beyond his control, that really seals his fate. “Clearly we are working hard to secure success in the May elections. However, following any election, it is right that there is a full assessment of the outcome,” said Labour MP Rachael Maskell, who has called for Starmer to quit in the past. 

“There are always circumstances where a case can be made that ‘now is not the right time’ but what is important is that there is recognition of the outcome, the reasons why and the remedy that is required.

“Let’s see where we get to in seven weeks’ time,” she added.