Starmer calls for negotiations after US attacks Iran's nuclear sites

The Prime Minister said Iran's nuclear programme is a 'grave threat' which the US military action would 'alleviate'.
There is understood to have been no UK involvement in the action, which comes after Sir Keir and Foreign Secretary David Lammy had pushed for a diplomatic solution rather than US action which could further destabilise the region.
The Prime Minister said: 'Iran's nuclear programme is a grave threat to international security.
'Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat.
'The situation in the Middle East remains volatile and stability in the region is a priority.
'We call on Iran to return to the negotiating table and reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis.'
The US attacked three sites in Iran including the Fordo facility, which is buried deep underground.
US President Mr Trump said the key nuclear sites had been 'completely and fully obliterated'.
In an address to the nation from the White House, he warned there could be further strikes if Iran retaliates: 'There will either be peace or there will be tragedy for Iran.'
Iran's nuclear programme is a grave threat to international security. Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat.
The situation in the Middle East remains volatile and stability in the region is a priority. We call…
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 22, 2025
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi warned the attacks 'will have everlasting consequences' and that Tehran 'reserves all options' to retaliate.
The strikes followed a build-up of US military equipment, with B-2 stealth bombers – which are the only aircraft to carry a 30,000-pound bunker-buster bomb – reportedly used to target the underground facilities.
The aircraft have previously used the UK-US airbase on Diego Garcia, one of the Chagos Islands, but it is understood that was not involved in the strikes which hit Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz.
The attack on Iran also involved US submarines, which launched around 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Mr Trump's move towards military action came despite Sir Keir's pleas for diplomacy and his repeated calls for de-escalation.
On Thursday the Prime Minister warned of a 'real risk of escalation' in the conflict, adding there had previously been 'several rounds of discussions' with Washington and 'that, to me, is the way to resolve this issue'.
Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of #Iran concerning the #UnitedStates military aggression against Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities
بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the… pic.twitter.com/GhSjSTtzx2
— Foreign Ministry, Islamic Republic of Iran 🇮🇷 (@IRIMFA_EN) June 22, 2025
The Foreign Secretary urged the US to pull back from the brink on a visit to Washington for talks with counterpart Marco Rubio before heading to talks with Iran on Friday alongside European allies.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has backed Mr Trump's decision to strike Iran.
He said: 'Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons, the future of Israel depends on it.'
Iran launched a ballistic missile barrage against Israel in retaliation to the US action.
The foreign ministry in Tehran issued a statement condemning 'the United States' brutal military aggression against Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities'.
It added: 'The Islamic Republic of Iran is resolved to defend Iran's territory, sovereignty, security and people by all force and means against the United States' criminal aggression.'

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Daily Mail​

30 minutes ago

• Daily Mail​

MP Natalie Fleet who fell pregnant at 15 after being groomed by an older man reveals the moment she realised she had been abused 25 years later

Labour MP Natalie Fleet has opened up about how she was groomed by an older man as a teenager, before giving birth aged just 15. The politician, who represents Bolsove in Derbyshire , revealed last year that she was a victim of 'statutory rape' after being 'groomed' by a much older man who lived in her area. Speaking to the Guardian, Fleet, who is now 41, revealed she only started to see her 'teenage relationship' as grooming and the 'sex' as statutory rape after she entered parliament last year. The politician first opened up about the experience in an interview with GB News, just weeks after winning her seat in last year's general election. She has spoken about her experience on a number of occasions since, and has used her platform to campaign for the strengthening of legal protections of children who are born by rape. In a new interview with The Guardian, Fleet has shared further detail about the harrowing event, and now realises how it 'was just lies to have sex with a teenage girl'. She described how she, a young girl weathering a multitude of storms, found herself looking for love in an older man who lived a few streets away. 'He told me he loved me and that I was amazing and I believed him,' said the MP, who has chosen not to name the father of her daughter, who is now 24. 'I thought we were in a loving relationship that would go long-term. I didn't know it was just lies to have sex with a teenage girl.' After a three-month relationship with the man, Fleet became pregnant with her daughter, whom she now calls the 'love of my life'. What had felt like a long time when she was a 'young and vulnerable' teenager, she now realises was 'not long at all'. When she told her much older boyfriend about the pregnancy, he immediately told her to terminate it and threatened to deny paternity if she went through with it - a reaction that left her crushed. She asked him how she'd managed to conceive if he'd been using protection, to which he 'mumbled' that he believed she'd been on contraception, despite never having asked. While she knew about the risks of pregnancy and contracting STIs, she'd been 'too embarrassed' to ask about protection, believing her partner to 'know what he was doing'. Admitting the pregnancy to her family was far worse, and described telling her mother as 'absolutely horrendous'. Her grandfather, a miner from Nottinghamshire who played a big part in her upbringing, screamed so loudly it 'didn't sound like a human'. He later came round and is now an incredibly doting grandfather and has regularly helped with childcare over the years. During the early days of her pregnancy, Fleet was left racked with shame - partly due to the unreservedly negative reactions from her teachers, relatives and peers - with little to no blame attributed to her boyfriend. Despite being under the care of a consultant, GP and midwife, no one enquired about the circumstances of her pregnancy, which she now believes was the result of 'statutory rape'. She credits the help of a government initiative, Sure Start, designed to support families in disadvantaged areas, with helping her to get her GCSEs while also being a full-time mother. Three months after the birth of her daughter, Fleet met her husband, who was three years above her at the same school. Now a heating engineer, it was only when Fleet first began opening up in interviews about having been groomed as child that people realised her husband wasn't the biological father of her daughter. She now views him as having 'chosen' to be the father of her first daughter. With the help of Sure Start, Fleet was able to go to college and get her A-levels before getting a history and politics degree from the University of Nottingham. By this point, she had given birth to her second child, a son, but found relating to her fellow students nearly impossible since their experiences of being able to 'roll out of bed' for a lecture was so far away from her own. She struggled so much that she ended up dropping out of university, a decision she described as 'horrendous'. 'That's when I thought everything people had said was true. I'd ruined my life. It took me a long time to rebuild,' she said. From there on, she had two more children, volunteered at a Citizens Advice bureau and joined the Labour party, later getting a job at the National Education Union, where she worked for three years right up until entering parliament. Only when she started work as an MP did she begin to think about the past, and came to realise that what she'd experienced as a teenager was in fact 'statutory rape'. When she spoke to her daughter, she was 'gobsmacked' that it her taken so long to cotton on to the cruel reality of her circumstances. Since opening up about her past, Fleet has been in contact with many other women who have found themselves in similar situations - saying they've approached her in the street and have sent her letters. She told the publication that her 'dream' was that women across the country will be able to come forward knowing they'll have 'an MP who believes them'. Fleet also campaigns for the implementation of legal protections for children who are born as a result of rape. 'People don't believe me when I share that there is nothing stopping perpetrators having access to children conceived via rape,' she wrote in Glamour. 'They are horrified that a rapist can have legal rights over another human because of the crime they committed. A child conceived via rape cannot be the only proceed of crime that a convicted criminal has lifelong access to.' She is currently fighting in government to protect women, who's babies are born by rape, their perpetrators still holding legal access to visit them through what she called a 'legal loophole'. Fleet said more must be done to protect from the 'injustice' that keeps 'women silent for fear of further harm'. Speaking to GB News last year, she said she wanted to use her platform to talk more about women in her situation 'and do something about it'. She said: 'I really want to be a voice for all of those people, all of those women that have children in far from ideal circumstances.' Adding that her childhood experiences still had a 'massive impact' on her, including 'weekly nightmares', she said she was still 'so excited about what the next Labour Government is going to do'. She said: 'We're going to make sure that we're smashing down barriers to opportunity so that there can be more stories like mine. 'I am a product of the last Labour government. It wasn't a perfect government, but it changed my life and it was transformational. 'And that's the reason that it's worth doing a job where you can't go to the shop in your pyjamas anymore, but where you still have a panic alarm in your bag, your own children are potentially at risk, that's really awful. 'But when it means that you can make other children's lives, who aren't as fortunate, better, that's incredible.' The politician recently became a grandparent, her first daughter having had a daughter of her own. Fleet's husband has already committed to taking an active role in being a grandparent, having gone part-time so he is able to provide childcare .

Daily Record

30 minutes ago

• Daily Record

What is the Strait of Hormuz and why does it matter to global trade?

The UK could be hit hard if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz in response to American strikes on its nuclear sites Fears of a widening conflict in the Middle East have deepened in recent days after the US bombed Iran. President Donald Trump made the unprecedented decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend. The UK was not involved in the air strikes but was informed beforehand. John Swinney has called for the conflict to end, while Keir Starmer said Iran's nuclear programme is a "grave threat" which US military action would "alleviate". ‌ The world is now bracing for Iran's response to the US joining Israel in the biggest western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution. ‌ One way Iran could hit back, according to analysts, is to close off the strait of Hormuz, a vital trade route, through which over a fifth of the world's oil supply, 20m barrels, and much of its liquified gas, passes each day. Iran's parliament approved a measure to close the strait. Iran has threatened to close the strait in the past, which would restrict trade and impact global oil prices, but has never followed through. This time may be different, though. What is the strait of Hormuz? The strait of Hormuz lies between Oman and Iran and links the Gulf to the north with the Gulf of Oman to the south and the Arabian Sea beyond. It is 33km wide at its narrowest point, with the shipping lane just 3km wide. The strait is one of the world's most important oil chokepoints and is crucial to the US and beyond, as the strength of the global economy is heavily dependent on the flow of oil. Why is it so important? ‌ About one-fifth of the world's total oil consumption passes through the strait. Between the start of 2022 and last month, approximately 17.8 million to 20.8m barrels of crude, condensate, and fuels flowed through the strait daily, according to data from analytics firm Vortexa. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) – Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq – export most of their crude via the strait, mainly to Asia. The US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, is tasked with protecting commercial shipping in the area. ‌ What happens if it closes? Closing the strait would trigger a global oil crisis, skyrocket inflation rates and potentially plunge the economy into a downturn. On Sunday, specialists cautioned that such a move to shut the strait might also elicit "a significant military response" from both the US and its allies. Ami Daniel, CEO of maritime data company Windward, noted that even the mere "perception" of an Iranian assault on shipping could reduce maritime traffic to a mere trickle. ‌ Countless drivers could be hit with soaring fuel costs at the filling stations. The UK, which relies on imports for roughly half its oil supply, stands to be particularly exposed. Iran has been warned that shutting down the strait would be tantamount to "economic suicide", as reported by The Telegraph. ‌ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called on Iran's allies, including China, to exert pressure on Tehran to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, stating that any closure would be a "terrible mistake". Iranian oil also uses the same gateway, and shutting Hormuz risks bringing Gulf Arab states, who have been highly critical of the Israeli attack, into the war to safeguard their own interests, according to The Guardian. China would be particularly affected. The world's second-largest economy buys almost 90 per cent of Iran's oil exports, which are subject to international sanctions. ‌ What is Iran saying about the strait? Iranian lawmakers have voted to obstruct vital shipping routes through this key waterway after Trump decided to engage in the conflict between Israel and Iran. Iran's Press TV reported at the weekend that the Iranian parliament approved a measure to close the strait of Hormuz However, the vote by the Iranian parliament is not definitive, and state television has emphasised that the ultimate decision lies with Iran's top security officials. ‌ On Sunday Iran's foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, said that Trump's decision to bomb Iran " will have everlasting consequences". Israel has made a "grave mistake" and "must be punished." He did not, however, make any specific reference to the strait of Hormuz. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'.

Sky News

32 minutes ago

• Sky News

Plans to cut energy costs for thousands of businesses announced

Plans to cut energy costs for thousands of businesses have been announced as part of the government's long-awaited industrial strategy. The announcement confirms Sky News reporting that the plan proposes making energy prices more competitive. Firms have said high prices have hindered growth and made them less competitive. Commercial energy prices are the highest in the G7 group of industrialised nations. Under the industrial strategy for 2025 to 2035, the government has said it plans to cut the bills of electricity-intensive manufacturers by up to £40 per megawatt hour - up to 25% - from 2027, which could benefit more than 7,000 businesses. These savings will come by exempting them from certain levies on bills. Roughly 500 of the most energy-intensive companies, such as the steel industry, chemicals and glassmaking industries, will also see their network charges cut. The current 60% discount they get, via the British Industry Supercharger scheme, will increase to 90% from next year. The government also said the energy measures would be funded through reforms to the energy system, without raising household bills or taxes. The scope and eligibility for the scheme will be finalised after a consultation. The policy is the first industrial strategy of its kind in eight years and comes as part of the government's key priority of growing the economy. Pressure was on to develop such a policy after the US's Inflation Reduction Act boosted investment in renewable energy, and the European Union's Net-Zero Industry Act was designed to boost domestic production. A "bespoke" 10-year plan has been created for eight sectors where the UK is said to be strong already and there is potential for growth. The sectors named by the government are advanced manufacturing, clean energy, creative industries, defence, digital and technologies, life sciences, professional and business services, and financial services. The state-owned British Business Bank will expand to spur investment into smaller companies, and provide an extra £1.2bn a year by 2028-29.