Donald Trump has repeated his criticism of the UK government’s initial response to the war in the Middle East before levelling a new insult at Sir Keir Starmer.
Speaking from the Oval Office, the US president said he was “not happy” with the UK after it did not initially allow the US to use its bases for strikes on Iran, and added the UK Prime Minister is “not Winston Churchill”.
It is the latest in a series of broadsides from the US president over the UK’s position on the Middle East war.
While commenting about support from European nations for US action in Iran, the US president praised Nato chief Mark Rutte but said Spain had been “terrible” and added: “I’m not happy with the UK either”.
“That island… It’s taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land there, it would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours, so we are very surprised,” he said.
“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
Sir Winston Churchill, the destroyer of Nazi Germany, is remembered as Britain’s greatest 20th-century leader.
His stirring speeches lifted sinking morale in the nation’s darkest hours.
It was Sir Winston who coined the phrase “special relationship” for the alliance between the UK and US during a speech in Missouri in 1946.
The fact that Sir Winston was invited to stay at the White House during a trip to Washington following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, which forced the Americans directly into the war, was seen as a reflection of how close the transatlantic relationship had become.
He and Franklin D Roosevelt later that year signed the Atlantic Charter, a key joint declaration outlining a broad statement of British and US war aims.
Sir Winston was regarded as being a great leader in conflict but, in the eyes of the voting population, he was not built for peacetime rule as he suffered a crushing defeat to the Labour Party in the 1945 general election.
His legacy as a wartime leader and statesman has been marked in a towering statue in Parliament Square and at the Churchill War Rooms, among many other namesakes.
Despite his popularity, the Westminster statue of Sir Winston was defaced last week with graffiti, branding the former prime minister a “Zionist war criminal”.
In 2020, a teenager was fined for painting “racist” on its plinth.
Iran-US war latest: Israel launches fresh strikes as US names soldiers killed
Oil surges after Iran strikes – what does it mean for petrol prices and your money?
Politics latest: Trump rebukes Starmer again over Iran
Mapped: Where strikes and explosions have been heard in Middle East
End of a special relationship: Why it is over between Starmer and Trump
Trump hits out at Starmer over Iran: ‘This is no Churchill we’re dealing with’
