Labour’s John Healey refuses SIX TIMES to say if Britain backs Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran and if they’re authorized – regardless of Canada and Australia endorsing US and Israeli motion

Labour’s John Healey today repeatedly dodged questions on whether Britain supports Donald Trump‘s strikes on Iran.

The Defence Secretary refused six times in a TV interview to say if the UK backed the US and Israeli action – or if the Government considered the action to be legal.

Mr Healey declined to give a direct answer despite Mr Trump’s assault on Tehran being endorsed by other Western allies, such as Australia and Canada.

He instead only pointed to how Britain ‘played no part’ in the strikes on Iran and said it was up to America to ‘set out the legal basis of the action that it took’.

The Defence Secretary also dodged on whether the UK had refused the US permission to use British military bases, such as Diego Garcia, to strike Iran.

But Mr Healey said ‘few people would mourn’ Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following his death in the US-Israeli strikes.

He also said Britain shared the ‘primary aim’ that Iran ‘should never have a nuclear weapon’.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who backs the US and Israeli action, lashed out at Mr Healey’s failure to answer questions on Britain’s position.

She posted on X: ‘Britain’s Defence Secretary can’t tell us if our Government supports the strikes on Iran.

‘The Labour Government has already lost all support and all credibility. It now can’t answer simple questions. We are not being governed.’

Dame Priti Patel, the Tory shadow foreign secretary, also criticised the Government’s ‘really feeble’ position on the US and Israeli strikes.

Mr Trump last month revealed he was considering using the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia, in the Chagos Islands, or RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire to launch strikes on Iran.

But Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is said to have warned Mr Trump that the UK would not allow the use of British facilities for any pre-emptive military action.

It has been reported that Britain’s refusal to allow the US to use its military bases came after a legal opinion, drafted for Sir Keir by Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer, emphasised the primacy of international law.

Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, claimed the UK’s response to the US and Israeli attacks on Iran showed Britain has ‘a real problem of government by international laywers’.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show, Mr Healey repeatedly declined to say whether the Government backed the US strikes on Iran or thought they were legal.

‘Britain played no part in the strikes on Iran,’ he said.

‘We share, however, the primary aim of all allies in the region and the US that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon.’

The Defence Secretary later added: ‘It is for the US to set out the legal basis of the action that it took.’

Canadian PM Mark Carney has said his country supports the US in action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to stop Tehran’s regime from ‘further threatening international peace and security’.

The same view has been echoed by Australia’s PM Anthony Albanese.

In a later interview with Times Radio, Mr Healey denied the Government’s positionhad been shaped by Labour’s defeat to the Green Party at last week’s Gorton and Denton by-election.

‘The decisions the Prime Minister and I are taking – the British Government are taking – has absolutely no connection with the by-election result,’ he said.

Dame Priti drew a dividing line with the Government when she said the US and Israel were ‘absolutely’ right to strike Iran. 

‘We have to remember that the Iranian regime has been a murderous, barbaric regime sponsoring terror around the world and also threatening our own country,’ she told Sky News.

‘That’s been long-established in terms of threats to the UK. With many of their proxies, they’ve also been funding and fuelling many of the hate marches that we’ve seen across our own country.

‘We should not mourn the loss of the Ayatollah one bit at all, he has been heading up and leading a murderous regime that has murdered tens of thousands of their own civilians and citizens, just for speaking up for their freedom.’

Dame Priti also questioned why the Prime Minister was not more ‘proactive’ in the run-up to the US and Israeli strikes on Iran.

She said: ‘A lot of this has been about why has Keir Starmer not actually worked with our American allies to be much more proactive?

‘On the basis that a lot of intelligence is shared between our two countries, the Americans would easily have shared – and rightly so – details of their plans.

‘Why were some of our bases not used? And was the British Government asked about use of our military bases in the defensive strikes that took place?’

In a later interview with GB News, Dame Priti said the Government was adopting a ‘really feeble position’ on the US and Israeli strikes on Iran.

‘Yet again, we’ve seen the British government sit on the fence at such a significant time, not just for our country, but for the world and for the Middle East.

‘Let’s not forget, we have British nationals in the Middle East, the Gulf states, in particular… we have British bases.

‘And of course, we have service personnel, our men and women there, and it is right that we do everything possible to protect them and defend them.’

Also speaking to GB News on Sunday, Sir Richard said: ‘I think we have a real problem of government by international lawyers who are not prepared to take a clear stand on a moral issue, and I’m very disappointed in the stance that the Government has taken.

‘The trouble is that there’s been a tradition in British foreign policy over a long period of time of appeasing Iran, and I think you see that reflected in this hesitancy to come out and make a clear statement of support for the American and Israeli positions.’