PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s anti-war message to voters ahead of the upcoming local elections was branded “ridiculous and insulting” given his government’s complicity in the US war of aggression on Iran.

In an appeal to voters considering a move to the right in the local elections in May, the prime minister said today that Reform UK and the Tories would have involved Britain in the war.

Accusing the leaders of both parties of having changed their position on British involvement in the conflict, he said: “You don’t get a second chance at decisions like this.”

Sir Keir claimed in his party’s first TV broadcast to voters before the elections on May 7: “I’m not going to be pressurised to change my view.

“Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch would have jumped into this war with both feet without thinking through the consequences.

“Now, in opposition, that may not matter very much, but if they’d been in government, we would be in a war without a plan.”

MP Diane Abbott hit back at his statements, saying the prime minister supports the war as much as his rivals to the right do.

She told the Morning Star: “It is ridiculous and insulting for the Prime Minister to talk about Badenoch and Farage supporting the war.

“It is plain Starmer does too, with intelligence, air strikes, a destroyer and now troops. All of it in support of Trump’s illegal war.”

Communist Party general secretary Alex Gordon agreed, saying the prime minister’s “disingenuous claim to be resisting the US-led rush to war does not stand up to scrutiny.”

Mr Gordon told the Star: “While Starmer may flatter himself by comparison with craven Tory and Reform politicians playing the role of US attack dogs, the UK is in fact hosting huge numbers of USAF B-52 bombers hitting Iran from Fairford airbase in Gloucestershire and F-15s at Lakenheath in Suffolk.

“A real contrast with Starmer’s continued complicity in US war crimes is the government of Pedro Sanchez in Spain, which first banned USAF military planes from Spanish airbases and then from flying over Spanish air space.

“Even Italy’s Georgia Meloni, under pressure from Italian anti-war campaigners, has banned US military flights over her country.

“With energy and commodity prices spiking as a result of the latest US folly in Iran, Starmer’s price caps will be completely inadequate to protect consumers.”