Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said his efforts had been focused on trying to get the Strait of Hormuz open.
Sir Keir Starmer said the UK would not get dragged into the Iran war as he refused to support Donald Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
The US president threatened to stop tankers from entering or leaving the key oil and gas shipping lane in response to the failure of talks with Iran, a move which has again caused global prices to spike.
The Prime Minister said “we are not supporting the blockade” as he repeated calls to fully reopen the strait, which has been effectively shut by Iran in response to the US-Israeli bombing campaign.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Sir Keir said: “What we’ve been doing over the last few weeks – and this was part of what I was discussing with the Gulf states last week – is bringing countries together to keep the strait open, not shut.”
He said: “We’re not supporting the blockade and all of the marshalling diplomatically, politically and capability – we do have mine-sweeping capability, I won’t go into operational matters, but we do have that capability – that’s all focused, from our point of view, on getting the strait fully open.”
