Ed Miliband emerged as the driving force behind Cabinet resistance to American military action in Iran, marshalling senior colleagues to block British involvement before Sir Keir Starmer dramatically reversed course within two days according to insiders.

It is being reported that the Energy Secretary brought together Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper at a National Security Council meeting on Friday, where the three ministers mounted a concerted push against any UK support for pre-emptive strikes — a position they regarded as legally indefensible.

As we now know, Starmer shamefully stood with them, turning away Washington’s demand for access to RAF bases in Gloucestershire and the Chagos Islands.

However, that stance lasted less than 48 hours. B-2 stealth bombers are now expected at Diego Garcia in the coming days, cleared to conduct what Downing Street is calling “limited, defensive” missions against Iranian targets.

Miliband’s opposition

The Friday NSC gathering had been called to examine the conflict’s potential consequences for British energy supplies, but it appears to have became the flashpoint for a deeper Cabinet argument about the legality and wisdom of siding with Washington.

Armed with a legal opinion from Attorney General Lord Hermer, Miliband made what one insider described as a “petulant, pacifist, legalistic and very political” case against the strikes. A source told The Spectator: “He fundamentally doesn’t like Trump, and he doesn’t like this Iran thing.”

According to a Telegraph report, the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary threw their weight behind him, pressing Starmer to maintain his ground. Defence Secretary John Healey carved out a different position, understood to favour opening British facilities to support allies coming under Iranian fire.

The Express understands, the NSC meeting itself was the culmination of a fortnight of increasingly heated exchanges between London and Washington, including a direct confrontation between Matt Collins, the UK’s deputy national security adviser, and Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defence for policy.

Starmer’s reversal

By Sunday, a renewed American approach — framed around purely defensive operations targeting Iranian missile infrastructure — had shifted the calculus, states the report. Starmer allegedly gave ground, granting access for the narrowly defined mission. Downing Street flatly rejected suggestions that he had been ready to go further and pulled back only under pressure from Miliband and his allies.

The political fallout from his initial refusal was swift. Trump told reporters on Monday he was “very disappointed” in the Prime Minister, following up on Tuesday with the verdict that Starmer was “not Winston Churchill” and that he “ruins relationships.”

Frustration was not confined to Washington. Cyprus’s high commissioner to the UK, Kyriacos Kouros, made clear to The Times that Britain’s hesitation had been noticed. “The French are coming, the least we expect is the Britons to also be present since, as I said, we are not only defending Cypriots on the islands,” he said.

Historical parallel

Observers were quick to reach for the 2013 comparison — the moment when Miliband, then leading the Labour opposition, torpedoed proposed military action in Syria after the Assad government’s alleged use of chemical weapons. He has expressed no regrets about that intervention, arguing at the time that committing British forces required “a clear plan.”

Starmer deployed similar language before MPs this week, insisting Britain’s involvement in the Iran conflict would require a “thought-through” approach from Washington and Tel Aviv before any commitment could be made.

David Miliband, the Energy Secretary’s brother and former Labour foreign secretary, offered a more nuanced position on Wednesday. Warning that Britain “should not divorce the US,” he urged the government to “strengthen our position in discussions” with the Trump administration — while declining to throw his weight behind the strikes themselves.