Starmer warns of bigger impact on economy the longer Iran war continues - UK politics live

2026-03-09 - 11:03

The prime minister is facing pressure from unions and some backbenchers to prepare a support package as oil and gas prices threaten to push up inflation Starmer said the energy cap would protect households from the impact of economic turbulence stemming from the US-Israeli war in Iran, but acknowledged that businesses – and others – would be “concerned” to carefully monitor developments. Asked if Donald Trump was risking a world war with his military actions, the prime minister said: “We do need to find a way to de-escalate the situation and that’s what a lot of our discussions are about – how do we find a way to de-escalate this situation and make sure it doesn’t escalate even further than it already has.” I think it is important just to remind ourselves that last time a conflict began to develop, which was 2022 in relation to Ukraine, the economy wasn’t in a stable place, and inflation was 5% and rising. We’ve done a lot of work in the last 18 months to put some resilience in and make sure that we’ve got some headroom, which is basically some insurance within the economy, but also inflation is 3% and going down, so in that sense, there’s more resilience. Continue reading...