KUALA LUMPUR — The UK has approved an expansion of US access to British bases for operations targeting Iranian missile capabilities threatening shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Downing Street has said.
A government statement said the Cabinet meeting on Friday “confirmed that the agreement for the US to use UK bases in the collective self-defence of the region includes US defensive operations to degrade the missile sites and capabilities being used to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz,” Bernama reports, citing Anadolu Ajansi.
The Cabinet ministers “condemned Iran’s expansion of its targets to include international shipping.
BBC meanwhile said the UK will still not be directly involved in the strikes, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government still holds that “the principles behind the UK’s approach to the conflict remain the same”.
Starmer’s previous stand was to allow US forces to use UK bases only for defensive operations against Iranian missiles if British interests were at risk.
In reaction, opposition Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called the decision the “mother of all U-turns”, in a post on X.
Other criticism from within the UK came from Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Calum Miller who said the decision showed that UK was “being drawn further and further down Trump’s slippery slope”,” BBC also reports.
Miller said the British Parliament should vote on the terms of agree with the US regarding the use of UK bases.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski called it a “worrying escalation” and echoed Miller on giving Members of Parliament the vote on UK involvement in the US and Israel offensive on Iran that began on February 28.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, reacted to the UK’s latest decision by telling reporters: “It’s been a very late response from the UK”.
Iran’s foreign minister Seyyed Abbas Aragchi responded with a post on X that Starmer “is putting British lives in danger by allowing UK bases to be used for aggression against Iran”.
US-Israel strikes on Iran, and retaliation on Israel and US bases in the Gulf States have so far killed some 1,300 people, including then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Iran has retaliated with drone and missile attacks across the region and has effectively closed to most ships the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil transit route that normally handles about 20 million barrels per day and roughly 20 per cent of global liquefied natural gas trade. – March 21, 2026