The Labour Party came into power in the UK in July 2024 in a landslide win that saw them win 411 seats out of 650, propelled by a public that was fed up with 14 years of Conservative rule. The problem was that Keir Starmer, now the prime minister of the UK, campaigned on bland statements instead of specifics and once in power, abandoned many of the issues that were sought by the party base, hewing to a more rightward direction instead. That, coupled with incompetence and poor choice of people appointed to key positions, resulted in his popularity quickly dissipating.

Just recently, he was in deeper trouble. The fiasco over his appointment of Jeffrey Epstein’s close buddy Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US and the forced resignation of his chief of staff had raised serious questions about his judgment. Then in late February, the party suffered a disastrous defeat at a by-election where the Green Party won a seat that had been comfortably Labour.

Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green party councillor, was elected as the party’s first MP in northern England after overturning Labour’s 13,000-vote majority.

Labour came third in the tightly contested race, 5,616 votes behind the Greens on 14,980 votes, while Reform UK finished second with 10,578 votes. The result represents a 25.4 percentage point drop in Labour’s share of the vote compared with 2024.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats lost their deposits as they won fewer than 5% of the votes, with both under 2%. The Greens’ victory in a Labour stronghold, its first ever in a Westminster byelection, establishes the party as a serious political force and a credible anti-Reform alternative.

It will deepen concerns among Labour MPs that Starmer’s party is haemorrhaging voters on the left in an effort to thwart the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform.

It was clear that Starner’s attempt to woo Reform voters with his rightward shift was backfiring and his lack of any principled stand on Israel’s genocide in Gaza was costing him and the party big time. There were grumblings that if Labour fared badly in local elections on May 7th, Starmer’s job could be in real danger.

But then the Israel-US attack on Iran took place and Trump put a lot of pressure on Starmer to fully back him in the war. But Starmer was wary and held back on any major commitments. The Iraq debacle, where Tony Blair was so subservient to George W. Bush in backing that unpopular war, cast a long shadow. Public opinion was against this war, as were other European nations. When Blair came out and said that the UK should fully back the US again, that pretty much settled the issue. If Blair, derided as Bush’s poodle, was all for the UK to join in the attack, then that was a sign that it was a really bad idea and Starmer held off, no doubt not wanting to be seen as Trump’s poodle, even though he had been trying to ingratiate himself with Trump. The war was a step too far.

That resistance has raised Starmer’s standing at home and things got even better for him when Trump started insulting him and also ridiculing the British army as cowardly and navy as weak and out-of-date. He repeatedly mocked Starmer personally in the most childish ways.

Footage has emerged of Donald Trump mocking Keir Starmer by claiming the prime minister said he would have to consult his team before deciding whether to send UK aircraft carriers to the Middle East.

In a new low for UK-US relations, Trump appeared to impersonate Starmer during an Easter lunch speech at the White House.

The US president said the UK “should be our best” ally but had not been during the Iran war, accusing Starmer of prevaricating over sending aircraft carriers.

However, Whitehall sources said Trump had never asked the UK for the vessels and Britain had not offered them.

During his speech, the president said: “I asked [the] UK, who should be our best. In fact the king is coming over here in two weeks, he’s a nice guy, King Charles.

“But should be our best but they weren’t our best. I said: ‘You have two, old broken-down aircraft carriers, do you think you could send them over?’

As if that were not bad enough, Trump also went after French president Emmanuel Macron, claiming that Macron’s wife, Brigitte, “treats him extremely badly”.

Not unnaturally, the Labour Party, the British public, and even some of Starmer’s opponents have not taken kindly to this. It is one thing to have one’s leader mocked in the media. That is accepted. But having having their country’s leader and military ridiculed by the leader of another country, especially one that is supposed to be their closest ally and with whom they are supposed to have a ‘special relationship’, and in the boorish manner that comes naturally to Trump, was too much and they are rallying around Starmer.

Labour ministers and MPs have reassured Starmer that they strongly back his approach of staying calm in the face of Trump’s anger and insults – with some believing his handling of the war and the US president strengthens the case for him to remain leader, regardless of the outcome at the local elections next month.

Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP and chair of the foreign affairs committee, said she was “glad we have a leader in the UK who works with a team and listens to experts”.

“Making decisions about foreign policy, let alone about war, without listening to others leads to problems, like being taken by surprise when the Iranians close the straits of Hormuz,” she said.
Kim Darroch, the former national security adviser, and a former British ambassador to the US, said Starmer was “right to resist getting directly involved in this ‘war of choice’”.

Trump’s attack on the UK and Starmer has caused problems for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and the Conservatives, who were initially supportive of the US bombardment of Iran but have now tempered their backing.

Robert Jenrick, the Reform UK MP and economic lead, told LBC that the relationship between the prime minister and US president had “clearly taken a massive blow – probably irreparably so”. But he said he was by no means defending Trump “or the way he conducts himself – far from it”.

Jenrick said: “I don’t like to see foreign leaders berating the leader of the UK, regardless of which party he or she is. You want our prime minister to be somebody who is respected on the world stage and is treated with respect by our main allies.”

The conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is also criticizing Trump and backtracking from her earlier support for the war.

Kemi Badenoch has called Donald Trump’s repeated criticisms of Keir Starmer “childish”, as the Conservative leader continued her recent moves to distance herself from the US president and his military action against Iran.
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“We need to be strengthening between the UK and the US, irrespective of who is president and who is prime minister. But I think those words coming from the White House were childish.”

Such an open rebuke for Trump is a notable change of stance for Badenoch, who has previously sought to link her style of leadership to his, praising the president for, she said, having the bravery to take on the liberal elite.

When the US and Israel first attacked Iran, Badenoch criticised Starmer for not allowing the US to use UK bases, saying she stood “with our allies in the US and Israel as they take on the threat of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its vile regime”.

However, a week ago Badenoch appeared to change her stance, denying that she had called for the UK to join in the war.

The British public is also not enthusiastic about the war.

YouGov polling on Monday showed fairly strong opposition to the overall US operation in Iran, with opinion also slightly against even allowing US aircraft to use British bases to attack the country.

So Starmer owes Trump some gratitude because the latter’s intemperate remarks seem to have resulted in a boost to his standing and made his position as party leader and prime minister more secure.