Donald Trump has poured fresh scorn on Sir Keir Starmer by sharing a comedy sketch on Truth Social that portrays the Prime Minister as too frightened to speak to the US President — deepening the already strained relationship between the two leaders over Britain’s role in the Iran conflict.
The clip, taken from the British version of Saturday Night Live which aired on Sky for the first time on Saturday night, depicts a fictional Starmer paralysed with anxiety in Downing Street as he attempts to phone Trump. “What if Donald shouts at me?” the comedian playing the Prime Minister asks his deputy, David Lammy. When a fictional Trump picks up, he immediately hangs up in a panic. “I just hate conflict so much,” the sketch’s Starmer admits, saying he is “out of my depth.”
The skit also shows the fictional Prime Minister declaring he will “say anything, do anything, except take a stand” — a line that drew considerable attention once Trump chose to amplify it to his followers.
Trump’s decision to share the footage represents his latest dig at Starmer, whom he has previously described as “disappointing” and “no Churchill” over the UK’s reluctance to take a more assertive military role in the US-Israeli campaign against Iran. He has also labelled NATO countries “cowards” for declining to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz.
The posting came on the same evening Trump issued a stark 48-hour ultimatum on Truth Social, threatening to strike and “obliterate” Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz was not fully reopened. That threat is creating a fresh potential flashpoint with London — government sources have made clear Britain has not agreed to facilitate attacks on civilian infrastructure, drawing a line beneath the authorisation Starmer granted on Friday for US forces to conduct operations aimed at reopening the waterway.
The UK has permitted American forces to run defensive operations from British military sites including Diego Garcia, but the boundaries of that consent are now being tested by Trump’s escalating rhetoric.
Polls suggest the British public remains deeply cautious about involvement in the conflict. An Opinium survey released over the weekend found Starmer’s personal ratings had risen by 11 points since the strikes began, though they remain at historically low levels.
The version of the sketch Trump shared omits a later section in which the fictional Starmer tells Trump he cannot join him in starting “World War 3” — comparing the UK-US relationship to the on-again, off-again dynamic of characters from the sitcom Friends.
