SIR KEIR STARMER attempted to make friends with Donald Trump today after the warmongering US president criticised Britain’s slowness in joining the US-Israeli attack on Iran.

The Prime Minister spoke to Mr Trump about the countries’ military co-operation, Downing Street said, after the decision not to grant permission for use of British bases in the first wave of military action prompted a raft of criticism from the Republican leader.

Sir Keir has now granted permission for “defensive” US action against Iranian missile sites from British bases, despite opposition to war from the British public.

Over the weekend, four US bombers landed in RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, and the US started using British bases for “specific defensive operations.”

The Ministry of Defence has also confirmed that British forces engaged a one-way attack drone fired from Iran towards Iraq on Saturday night.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said that the British government’s job is not to be “outsourcing our foreign policy” in response to Mr Trump’s comments, saying that Britain needs to “take decisions ourselves” and that the Prime Minister is “right to stand up for Britain and Britain’s interests.”

Ms Cooper also hit back at rebukes from war criminal former PM Tony Blair, saying it was important to “learn the lessons” from the Iraq war after the former Labour prime minister said Britain should have backed the US over Iran from day one.

It came as tens of thousands gathered in protest against the bombing of Iran over the weekend.

Protesters carried signs reading “Stop Trump’s Wars” and “Stop Arming Israel,” as they marched to the US embassy in central London from Millbank.

Addressing the crowd outside the embassy, Your Party MP Zarah Sultana recalled the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, telling the crowd: “Back then, we were told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

“We were told that war would bring peace and democracy.

“We were told that the war would protect Iraqis and protect the world, but the truth was very different.”

But “23 years ago, when we marched against the Iraq war, we were ignored,” she said.

“We will not be ignored again, because history proved them right.

“And today, we raise our voices for peace, for justice and for a world where governments learn the lessons of the past.”

A statement from former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who could not attend the protest, was read to the crowd outside the embassy.

In the statement, Mr Corbyn, now also a Your Party MP, said: “For too long, the UK has blindly followed the US as it indulges in catastrophic interventions around the world.

“We are here to defend something different, a foreign policy based on co-operation, equality and sovereignty.

“Forever war is not a game. It has real-life human consequences, and US and Israel must be held accountable.”

TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust called on the government to “focus on welfare, not warfare” and keep Britain “out of this conflict.”

The Iranian-British trade union leader told protesters: “War always has economic consequences, yet at the same time, we’re told there’s no money for the NHS, no money for policing, no money for our transport infrastructure, no money for potholes, no money for teachers.”

Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German said every war “they have engaged in in the last 25 years, they’ve claimed they’ve done it to liberate women.”

“That’s what they’re saying about the war on Iran as well,” she said. “But the first thing that they did was to kill 165 young girls in a school.

“We should never, ever believe their lies.”

She told Sir Keir: “Stop appeasing Donald Trump all the way to world war three.

“We’re absolutely fed up with this gangster imperialism.”

Martin Perry, 58, from Northampton, said he attended the protest “to signal to Keir Starmer that the public aren’t for the war against Iran, and don’t want our forces going into, being involved in an illegal war.”

Other actions took place across Britain, including in Lancashire and Edinburgh.