What was claimed
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer posted a statement on X saying that American forces must withdraw from UK airbases within 48 hours and pay historic rent if the United States ends its commitment to NATO.
Our verdict
False. The image of the post is fabricated and originally came from a satirical social media account. No such statement has been published on Keir Starmer's genuine X account or made publicly by him.
A fake statement supposedly posted by the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s X account about the consequences of the US leaving NATO has been shared online as if it is real.
The post said that the government would expect a “full and final settlement of historic rent by the end of the week, on commercial terms” for the US use of RAF British bases if the US ends its commitment to NATO.
But we could find no such statement posted on the Prime Minister’s official X account, and traced the post to a satirical page.
The fake statement, seemingly posted by Keir Starmer’s account on 18 March, said: “If the United States chooses to walk away from NATO, that is a decision for the United States. Britain will remain. Europe will remain. Our collective defence will remain.”
It added: “But there is a simple point of principle. If you are no longer prepared to stand with your allies, you do not get to park your forces on their soil for free.”
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The fabricated statement, shared on Facebook, X, Instagram, and Threads, says that in the event of the US leaving NATO, the Prime Minister would “expect the rapid withdrawal of US forces from British bases within 48 hours, in an orderly fashion, agreed with the Ministry of Defence & our local communities”.
It was shared after President Donald Trump said that the US did not “need help” from NATO in securing the strait of Hormuz, and posted on his Truth Social account on 17 March that the US no longer had a “‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance”.
But this apparent social media response from Mr Starmer to President Trump has been fabricated.
We could find no such statement posted by Keir Starmer’s account on 18 March, or at any other point.
The same screenshot was posted by a Threads account which describes itself as “Political Commentary & Social Sarcasm”, that day. It posted again the next day, describing the picture as a spoof and satire that “provoked a conversation”.
Many users sharing the screenshot seemingly believed it was genuine, with one post captioned “UK PM Keir Starmer is openly slamming #Trump” featuring comments such as “well said” and “real man talk like Churchill”.
As well as there being no evidence of such an X post, we could find no record of Mr Starmer saying these comments either.
We often see fake statements or quotes or social media posts attributed to politicians spread widely online, which can undermine trust. It’s important to consider whether what you are seeing comes from a trustworthy and verifiable source before sharing content online.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as satire because this isn’t a real statement from the Prime Minister.
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