Keir Starmer has taken an indirect jab at Donald Trump while launching Labour’s local elections campaign.

Despite spending the first year of the president’s second term bending over backwards for Trump, the prime minister is now celebrating the distance between himself and the White House after it chose to bomb Iran.

Starmer has permitted US troops to use military bases for defensive and limited strikes on Iran, but refused to let American soldiers use the same sites for pre-emptive attacks.

Some fear that Iran may not differentiate between granting permission for defensive and offensive strikes.

But, Trump has continually slammed the UK government repeatedly for not immediately assisting him with his operation in the Middle East.

Despite this strain in the “special relationship”, the PM even made his distance from the White House a selling point

Without directly mentioning Trump, Starmer claimed he would stand by his values “whatever the pressure and whoever it’s coming from”.

Speaking from Wolverhampton, he said: “People look at their screens and they’re worried when they see explosions, infrastructure blown up, the rhetoric that goes with it, worried about whether this is going to escalate even further.

“And therefore it’s really important that I reiterate where I stand and where this government stands, because this is not our war and we are not going to be dragged into it.

“Yes, of course we will defend British lives and British interests in the region. We’ll stand by our allies in the Gulf region, but we’re not going to get dragged in.

“That’s my values, that’s my principles, and that’s what we’ve applied to our decisions, whatever the pressure and whoever it’s coming from.”