Western countries must keep military aid flowing to Ukraine, Keir Starmer has warned, amid reports that the US president, Donald Trump, is considering stopping US support to Kyiv altogether.
The prime minister told MPs on Monday that Ukraine would need money and weapons from allied countries even after a peace deal, as he also urged the US to provide security guarantees that go beyond its proposed minerals deal.
Starmer was speaking to the Commons for the first time after a tumultuous 72 hours for the Ukraine conflict which culminated in Sunday’s defence conference in London, at which the prime minister announced a new Franco-British peace initiative.
“We must keep the military aid to Ukraine flowing – keep increasing the economic pressure on Russia,” the prime minister said.
He added that he was continuing to put pressure on Trump to provide military backing to any western troops that ended up being deployed to help secure an eventual peace deal. The US president has suggested that a minerals deal with Kyiv would provide enough security because it would mean American civilians working in Ukraine, but Starmer insisted this would not be sufficient.
“We have to avoid the mistakes of the past, which is why a security guarantee is so important – a guarantee that we should lead, but [which] needs US backing if it’s to act as a proper guarantee,” he said.
To a later question from Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, Starmer added: “The mineral deal is not enough on its own.”
Starmer is trying to maintain US backing for Ukraine after Friday’s dramatic White House press conference which ended in a public row between Trump and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The prime minister spent much of the subsequent two days engaged in intensive diplomacy as he attempted to get the US-Ukraine relationship back on track while also launching his own peace talks alongside the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
He and other European leaders also made clear their support for Zelenskyy, who was invited to Downing Street and to meet King Charles within 48 hours of his Oval Office showdown.
Starmer spoke to Trump twice over the weekend as he urged him not to abandon Ukraine. The US president is due to meet his advisers later on Monday, however, to discuss his administration’s Ukraine policies, including whether to cancel the final shipments of ammunition and equipment authorised and paid for by the Biden administration.
Trump signalled his unhappiness at the message from Europe on Monday, posting on his social media platform: “Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the US – Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”
MPs from all parties lined up to praise the prime minister for his efforts over the weekend. They included Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, as well as her Tory colleague James Cleverly, who said the prime minister had “not really put a foot wrong”.
Some Labour MPs are concerned the prime minister could be seeking to get too close to the US president, and have criticised his decision to cut foreign aid to pay for an increase in defence spending.
Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, warned: “These cuts could, in fact, in the long term, hobble the very leadership that the prime minister has shown this weekend.”
Starmer rejected this, as well as any suggestion that this weekend’s event should prompt the UK to distance itself from the US.
“We must strengthen our relationship with America, for our security, for our technology, for our trade and investment,” he said. “They are and always will be indispensable.”
But he aimed a particular barb at Farage, who accused Zelenskyy over the weekend of having been “rude” to Trump at the White House.
“Can I just remind him, Russia is the aggressor,” the prime minister said. “Zelenskyy is a war leader whose country has been invaded, and we should all be supporting him, not fawning over Putin.”
