Politics
Badenoch addresses Conservative Spring Conference in Harrogate
FULL SPEECH TEXT: Kemi Badenoch’s Keynote Address to Conservative Spring Conference 2026
Saturday, 7 March, 2026
“We meet today with the world perhaps in greater peril than at any time since the Cold War. Relentless drone strikes are hitting our allies in the Middle East, countries in which hundreds of thousands of British citizens are in harm’s way. British sovereign territory is under attack for the first time in a generation.
And yet in the last few days, Britain has been described as weak. Our allies have accused us of deserting them, of going missing in action.
Imagine if you were Cyprus. What have you seen?
You’ve seen Britain dithering over sending the Royal Navy to defend our military base in the Mediterranean. The US, Greece, and France have all sent ships. Ours is stuck in Portsmouth Harbour and apparently may set sail sometime this week.
We have made America wait to use our airbases while Iran was hurling drones at our allies. We are giving away the Chagos Islands, British sovereign territory home to a crucial UK/US defence base, Diego Garcia.
No wonder our allies feel they can’t rely on us. And it’s not just our allies who are watching this. It’s our enemies too. As Labour dither and delay, countries hostile to Britain are working to promote their interests over ours.
It’s not just the regime in Tehran. It’s Putin, a man prepared to send more than a million Russian soldiers to their death as he tries to march his army across Europe.
It’s China, leading an axis of authoritarian states. Just this week, the husband of a Labour MP was arrested on suspicion of spying for China.
As instability spreads, these states are pushing further and further to see what they can get away with.
At a time when Britain needs strong and decisive leadership, we have a Prime Minister who is too afraid of making the wrong decision, too afraid to make any decision at all.
Last week’s by-election has spooked the Labour party. They watched the Greens campaigning on sectarian voting lines, a tactic that Labour have used for many years is now being turned against them.
And now, Keir Starmer is too scared to make foreign interventions for fear of upsetting a tiny section of the electorate.
Everyone remembers the mistakes of the Iraq war. Nobody sensible is suggesting that we should drop bombs without a second thought.
But Keir Starmer spent days consulting lawyers, plucking up the courage to say whose side he was on. Canada and Australia had the moral clarity to do so immediately and unequivocally.
And even now, our Prime Minister is sitting on the fence. We are in this war whether Keir Starmer likes it or not.
For too long, Britain has been governed as if it’s still the 1990s. Back then people thought the era of permanent peace, cheap energy, and expanding global trade would go on for ever.
From 1989 to 2022, defence spending reduced under successive UK governments of all colours. But it’s now clear that this era of peace is coming to an end.
Labour have no answers to Britain’s problems because they think the world is how it used to be, not how it actually is.
And where has that money we stopped spending on defence gone?
Before the Second World War, 1 in every £7 the government spent went on health and welfare. By last year, it had soared to 1 in every £3.
The Peace Dividend we inherited has been spent. Yet Labour are still determined to spend more.
What they don’t understand is that a welfare state and an NHS are not facts of life, they are products of a strong economy and a strong country.
That is the Conservative mantra today.
Public services need growth and economic security. We cannot have economic security without national security.
Public services need growth and economic security. We cannot have economic security without national security.
If people in Britain cannot go to bed knowing the country is being defended, then little else matters.
Donald Trump has made it very clear that America is not going to continue to fund NATO’s defence of Europe. The world has changed and it is not going back.
Britain must start spending 3% of GDP on defence. Every serious person in our military says this. Every serious country in the world is moving that way.
But instead of prioritising defence spending, Labour have chosen to spend yet more money this country does not have on lifting the two-child benefit cap.
We introduced the cap because we believe that people claiming benefits should face the same choices when it comes to having children as everyone else. That is just basic fairness.
Labour say it’s going to lift children out of poverty. Do you know what lifts children out of poverty? Their parents being in work, in a growing economy.
Right now, those parents are living in a country where unemployment is surging, where the cost of living is increasing because of soaring energy prices.
You bring these people out of poverty by fixing these things, not by giving them handouts.
Last June, we offered Keir Starmer our support in the national interest to pass welfare cuts so that he could spend more on defence. But he declined.
He spends all his time strutting the world stage at summits and international conferences. But the fact is he’s not even strong enough to win a war with his own backbenchers.
He is a political hostage, held at the behest of a load of half-rate left-wing MPs, none of whom grasp the seriousness of the world that Britain is now in.
While the rest of the world rearms, they are playing student politics.
Today’s Labour Party is nothing like the patriotic Labour Party of yesteryear.
In the 1950s, Nye Bevan warned about Britain not having a nuclear deterrent. He described it as the UK being sent naked into the conference chamber.
Well today it’s happening again. We are not deterring missile strikes against our bases.
The man who wrote Labour’s Defence Review, Sir Richard Barrons, has said the “UK is trapped in a conspiracy of stupidity because politicians aren’t willing to make the case for cutting public spending to fund defence.”
Well, we are willing to make that case. It is Labour trapped in a conspiracy of stupidity.
That’s why yesterday I announced that the next Conservative government would reinstate the two-child benefit cap and spend that money on defence.
That money will pay for the largest net increase in British troops under any Prime Minister since the Second World War.
I have chosen my priority and that is to keep British families safe.
These reinforcements will join thousands of brave service men and women and I want to pay tribute to them for everything they do for our country day in, day out.
This is another downpayment on our way to 3%. Along with our Sovereign Defence Fund which says no to Ed Miliband’s vanity Net Zero projects and reallocates £17 billion into defence instead.
As Rachel Reeves stood up to speak at the Spring Statement this week, oil and gas prices around the world were spiking.
Price rises that have already made it more expensive to fill up your car and will very soon hit your energy bills too.
The UK only has enough gas storage to last for eight days. Mark my words, a price shock is coming.
And when it does, it won’t just hit our pockets. It will have a huge impact on Britain’s borrowing costs too! Mortgage rates are already going up, and it will make everything government does more expensive.
Yet in that Statement, Rachel Reeves had nothing to say about this financial risk we now face.
Do you know what her excuse was? The OBR documents had already gone to the printers. Does she really think investors are going to say “Ok fair enough”?
Rachel Reeves is astonishingly naïve. While she claims to be providing stability, Britain is paying more to borrow than Greece. More than Morocco!
Investors have no faith in her to balance the books. They can see that she is not willing and not able to cut Britain’s debt.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are a frightening number of people in our politics on the Labour benches in the Greens, and in the Lib Dems, who genuinely think that His Majesty’s government doesn’t need to pay its debts.
These silly people are either too young to remember the 1970s or too foolish to have learnt the lessons.
Well, let me tell them; if we do not cut borrowing, Britain will go bankrupt. There is only one party interested in preventing that and that’s the Conservatives.
Last year I introduced my Golden Economic Rule.
For every pound we save, 47 billion and counting, we will put at least half to paying down the deficit – cutting the civil service, slashing the welfare bill, reducing overseas aid.
The rest of the money we save, we will spend on making this country stronger.
These are difficult choices for difficult times. But we must make them because every moment we continue to spend our children’s inheritance is a moment of failure.
No one else in British politics is going to take these hard choices.
Nigel Farage has said Vladimir Putin is the world leader he most admires. He blames NATO for the invasion of Ukraine. Reform’s last leader in Wales is in prison for taking bribes from Russia.
These people are not going to keep Britain safe.
The ridiculous hokey-cokey they’ve done on the two-child benefit cap tells you all you need to know about them.
First they were for the cap, then they were against it, now they are for it again. On the 4th February Reform MPs managed to vote for it and against it at the same time.
These people are messing around. Treating politics like it’s a game.
In this era of increasing danger, Reform’s priority is to take the savings from keeping the two-child benefit cap money and spend it on pubs, on beer.
Ale over armaments. Tankards over tanks.
I love pubs as much as anyone, and we have a real plan to save them. But we should not put our soldiers at risk for a few pennies off a pint.
Reform are not serious people and they are not going to solve any of your problems.
And it’s the same with the others: The Green Party leader only wants to make two things bigger and neither of them is our army.
In fact, the Greens want to scrap our nuclear deterrent. They want to leave NATO.
To be honest I have no idea what The Lib Dems think, and I don’t think they do either.
This isn’t just about defence abroad. We are also very clear what it is we are defending here at home.
The Britain we are fighting to conserve.
We are defending our values, our democracy, our education system which Labour is currently trashing.
We are defending our countryside so that our children get to enjoy it the way we did.
Our high streets, the places that hold our towns and villages together, not letting them turn into grotty, crime ridden streets full of nothing but vape shops.
We are defending people’s ability to go to their local pub, to have a laugh, to have a good time.
We are defending our culture of humour, tolerance, and free speech and yes, even queuing.
We are defending that.
We are defending standards and behaviours. A country where a young girl can walk down the street without someone harassing her.
We are defending a culture where children are treated like children and women have the same rights as men.
That is what we are defending.
You have to know what kind of country you want to create. This is why Labour have failed so terribly: they have no idea what they want.
They just wanted power; they didn’t know what they wanted it for.
Having a coherent British identity matters. The left think that culture doesn’t matter. It does.
This isn’t about the food you eat or the clothes you wear. Culture is not about going for a curry.
Culture is about standards, values, behaviour. What is acceptable.
Culture is about what is acceptable and what is not.
We have allowed too many people to come to this country who do not share our values.
We have become too tolerant of people who treat our country as somewhere to live rather than a place to belong.
Britain must be built around a common culture and a common identity. Newcomers should join our country, not try to change it.
That’s why last Monday I launched our new Culture and Integration Commission.
It will set out the culture that we want people to assimilate into. What we expect, and what we will enforce.
Conference, we are bringing enforcement back to this country. We tried to be nice to everybody, avoided tough decisions and it didn’t work. No more.
Every day we are witnessing a failure of enforcement play out in our streets, in our towns, in our cities.
Wherever you have travelled from to get to Harrogate today, you know what I am talking about.
Graffiti on public buildings and public transport, phone theft essentially decriminalised. The stench of cannabis wafting down a high street of boarded up shops.
The places we live in are going backwards and people feel miserable and helpless.
Some people will tell you that this is all about the economy. But that’s only half of it. Britain’s towns and cities are getting worse because the people making them worse are not being punished.
More than 1,000 people a year are convicted of burglary, not for the first time, not for the second time, but for the third time, and still not going to prison!
People are brazenly walking out of shops with armfuls of stolen goods. Drugs smoked openly in front of the police.
A small number of people are making life a misery for everyone else because they are being allowed to.
For too long, we have worried more about the rights of these criminals than stood up for the rights of victims. No more.
Britain has values, it has standards. If you break them, you will be punished.
That’s why one of the first things that we will do in government will be to hire 10,000 more police officers.
And I will make it very clear to them that their job is to catch criminals.
Right now, crimes are going unreported because people know nothing will happen.
Shoplifters, phone thieves, violent thugs, getting away with it. Just 1 in 20 crimes is being solved in Britain today. It’s shocking.
And it’s not just about catching people; it’s about preventing crimes in the first place.
That’s why we are going to triple stop and search and take knives and drugs off the streets – it works, we should be doing it. We WILL do it.
Many of you will have heard about the inquiry in Nottingham this week.
3 people who were brutally murdered by a man with severe mental health problems, who two years earlier had handed himself to Mi5 for sectioning but was sent home, who 9 months before had assaulted a policeman, triggering an arrest warrant that was still outstanding when the attack occurred.
This man should not have been on the streets.
So today I’m announcing that we will stop putting ideology ahead of public safety.
We will overhaul Labour’s Mental Health Act. And we are going to detain people who pose a risk to the public. Keeping them safe, keeping the public safe.
We cannot have dangerous men running around our towns and cities stabbing people.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was not a one-off. There was one in Edinburgh this week. Another one in Birmingham.
In November, a man got on a train in Cambridgeshire and started stabbing passengers even though earlier that day, he had already stabbed someone on a train in London.
It’s the state’s job to stop these things but the British public is being left in harm’s way.
We need to be smarter too about the way we hunt down serious offenders.
So today I can also announce that we will introduce Live Facial Recognition in crime hotspots across the country, including right here in Harrogate town centre.
We believe this will help catch 24,000 wanted criminals.
It’s not just dangerous crime we’re going to stop. Why should we put up with people in balaclavas riding e-bikes and e-scooters on our pavements?
What kind of country simply allows this to happen
So today I am announcing that the Conservatives will mandate police intervention and enforce increased penalties.
And we will also mandate police enforcement of our drug laws.
We have to do this Conference. We have to do this.
If the Greens get their way, there will be crack cocaine smoked on park benches. If we get ours, drug use will be driven out of our public spaces.
Quite often, wrongdoers need to be fined. Sometimes they need to go to prison. But at other times it’s much quicker and much more useful for lawbreakers to be forced to put right what they’ve done wrong.
That’s why my team has also devised a plan for new ‘Immediate Justice’ Community Sentences where someone committing a lower-level offence can be made to clean up graffiti, our streets or our parks by police immediately.
Not go through a lengthy court process while someone at the council is paid to clear up that mess out of your taxes.
Conference, we cannot have any of this enforcement without a strong economy.
If we want to pay to defend ourselves, to look after people when they’re sick, to keep Britain’s streets safe, we are going to have to get Britain working again.
What I heard from Rachel Reeves at the Spring Statement this week was an exercise in self-deception.
According to her, the British economy is flying. It’s the best it’s ever been.
I have no idea what planet she is living on or which Unidentified Flying Object she has mistaken for our economy because it is not flying.
She says the number of people in work is increasing. What is she talking about?
Unemployment is at its highest rate since the pandemic.
She uses these sham figures to try to convince us, I think even to convince herself, that everything is rosy.
The truth is that youth unemployment is now higher in the UK than the EU for the first time ever.
When was the last time she spoke to a new graduate looking for a job in the worst recruitment market on record caused by Labour’s Jobs Tax?
She boasts that the Bank of England has been cutting interest rates. It would have cut them faster if she hadn’t spiked inflation with billions of pounds of taxes and spending.
She claims the economy is growing. Growth forecasts have been slashed this year.
I wonder why that is?
According to the OBR, “incentives within the tax system… constrain economic activity”.
Let me spell that out for Rachel from customer complaints. What that means is more tax equals less growth.
Ladies and gentlemen, the fact is the British economy is being held back because for too many it no longer makes sense to work hard, to take a risk.
Sickness benefits pay more than the minimum wage. Politicians have taken the easier decision to put up taxes rather than cut public spending.
Like Labour’s Jobs Tax, which is killing investment into this country and costing people their jobs.
And Labour have bowed to political pressure from lobby groups to regulate business in stupid ways. Enough.
It’s time to unleash our animal spirits and our offer will make your life better tomorrow.
Abolish business rates for most pubs, shops, and high streets, cut national insurance for young people by £5,000 so they can make a strong start in life.
Abolish stamp duty so that people can afford to move house.
These are the things my government will do because we are doing the hard work to find savings.
If we want Britain to grow, we need to be an aspirational society where young people feel they can get on in life.
A huge part of this is about skills.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of young people make the decision to go to university because they think it’s going to give them a leg up in life.
But the reality, for many, is that all they leave with, is debt. Debt they will never pay off.
The LEO study has been tracking graduate earnings for more than two decades and we can see, in black and white, which degrees are worth it, and which are not
We can see it in our welfare system. 700,000 graduates are on out of work benefits. It’s astonishing.
And it’s happened because universities get paid whether their graduates do well or not.
No one in politics has been prepared to say “no”, the government will not continue to fund these rip-off courses.” I say enough.
We are going to cut thousands of the courses that provide no economic benefit whatsoever.
And because we have the backbone to do that, we can then cut the interest rate on student loans and double the number of apprentices.
We want to see apprentices in the careers of tomorrow, defence, tech, sectors in which there will be opportunities.
No one else in politics is talking about opportunities for young people. No one else is bothered about sorting out unfair student loans. We are.
We are the only ones who are going to do this. Who else do you think is going to do this? Reform? Nu-uh
They think that if you bring back smoking in pubs and nationalised industry it will bring back the good old days. No, it won’t.
Reform have absolutely no idea what they want Britain to look like in the 2030s. I do.
Conference, war in Iran means more problems are coming down the line.
An oil price shock that will play havoc with the economy.
I honestly don’t know what more it will take for other parties in Britain to realise that we cannot continue with the Net Zero plans that don’t work and rely on imported oil and gas with a higher carbon cost.
Yet Labour press on with their net zero nonsense.
I’ve talked about hard choices today. But this one is an absolute no brainer.
We have to drill our own oil and gas now.
British businesses are paying more for electricity than in any other developed nation.
It’s destroying our economy and we will put an end to it.
This degradation of our economy and our society is making Britain weaker at a time when the world demands strength.
This is real. And it is serious.
Britain is full of people who can tell you what needs fixing. The Conservative Party is the only party talking about how to fix it.
Do not listen to the people who want to get your vote by telling you that everything is irretrievably broken. It’s not. Britain is a great country.
We are a great country full of talent, creativity, and the resilience to meet any test.
What we face today are problems – real, difficult problems – but ones we can fix.
This is a different age than the one that came before. And when the world gets tougher, a great country needs serious leadership.
It needs a serious team. And it needs a plan for a stronger economy and a stronger country.
Britain is in this situation because for too long politicians have failed to take hard choices, telling people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.
And we must acknowledge that this includes previous Conservative governments.
This party is different now from the one that lost the general election.
We have learnt lessons, we have got rid of people who don’t share our values.
Despite spring barely starting, for once I got my spring cleaning done early this year!
Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one Conservative Party, and that Conservative Party is back.
Conference. This is my plan.
Defend our country.
Defend our values.
Take back our streets.
Get Britain working again and restore pride in the places we love.
No other party is thinking about the problems in this much detail. No other party will take the tough but necessary decisions Britain needs.
As Conservatives we know that the Government doesn’t make Britain. People do.
Just like it’s not the government that creates growth. It’s business.
Government exists to create and maintain the conditions for success. Safety. Security. Lower taxes. And enforcement of the law.
The question I want us to be asking people at every election is who do you think is going to be strong enough, who is going to be competent enough, to build something that will make people in this country feel better off?
It doesn’t matter who you are, I can guarantee you that if people feel they can get on in life, start a family, buy a house, build a business.
If they live in a country that feels safe and familiar in villages, towns and cities where the law is upheld, they will live happier lives.
Conference. It was Margaret Thatcher who said that the facts of life are Conservative.
It’s now up to Conservatives to make people realise that she was right and we are on their side.
So conference, thank you. Our wonderful activists and volunteers. Thank you for all that you are doing because we are the party of common sense and the common ground.
Building this requires a team. Not just a team in my shadow cabinet.
We need Conservatives at every level of government from parish councils all the way to Number Ten.
Conservatives who know what we believe in, who share the principles on which all our policies are built.
The time for drama queens and weak leaders is over. We are living in serious times.
Serious times call for serious people.
That is the party I am building.
This is how we are going to fix our country.
Join me and let’s fix it together.”
https://x.com/meljstride/status/2031044361484411143?s=61
The post Mel Stride: Axe the Fuel Tax appeared first on Conservative Home.
Aphra Brandreth MP is Member of Parliament for Chester South & Eddisbury.
Unlocking Opportunity: Why the Commonwealth Matters in a Changing World
Britain has slipped to fourth place in the 2026 Global Soft Power Index, behind the United States, China and now Japan. One explanation often offered for this decline is that Britain has adopted a more isolationist foreign policy since leaving the European Union. Yet this interpretation does not stand up to scrutiny. In reality, under the previous Conservative government, the United Kingdom expanded its engagement with new markets and emerging opportunities beyond Europe, seeking to strengthen ties with regions that will play an increasingly significant role in the global economy in the decades ahead.
One clear example of Britain working in partnership with countries around the world is the Commonwealth, the largest and oldest transnational association of nations. Its membership spans every continent and represents around a third of the world’s population. The modern Commonwealth is sometimes mistakenly viewed as a continuation of the British Empire, but this characterisation is outdated. Today it is better understood as a voluntary family of nations committed to shared principles including development, democracy and peace, where every member state has an equal voice regardless of size or economic strength. The fact that the four most recent members have no historical ties to the British Empire illustrates how the Commonwealth has evolved into a forward-looking partnership rather than a legacy institution. Britain is just one of 56 countries working together through this network of cooperation and shared values. In an increasingly unstable world, the importance of such partnerships, and of working as equal partners, should not be underestimated.
The modern Commonwealth was established in 1949, in the years since the world has changed dramatically. Today with war on our doorstep in Europe, and the Middle East in chaos, it is clear that the international system is becoming increasingly multipolar, uncertain and, at times, dangerous. In this environment, networks that bring countries together around shared values and encourage dialogue between diverse nations matter more than ever – highlighting the enduring importance of the Commonwealth.
Yet Britain today faces a clear soft power challenge. In an increasingly unstable and volatile world, strengthening our hard power remains essential. However, influence in the modern era is exercised in many ways. Too often discussions about global competition focus solely on military capability, whether measured by the size of navies, the strength of air forces, or the number of soldiers in our armies. These capabilities remain vital, but soft power, expressed through our cultural influence, diplomatic networks, educational institutions and economic partnerships, can be just as significant in shaping global influence. This year’s Commonwealth Day offers a timely opportunity not only to celebrate one of the world’s most enduring transnational networks, but also to look ahead. Its theme, “Unlocking Opportunities Together for a Prosperous Commonwealth,” reflects the potential of this partnership to expand cooperation and create new opportunities for its member nations. For Britain, it is an opportunity to deepen collaboration with partners across the Commonwealth and to work together to unlock the opportunities that this unique network provides.
Recent developments illustrate how Commonwealth relationships could help shape the global dynamics of tomorrow. Last week, Canada’s Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre, outlined a vision in which the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand deepen their cooperation in areas such as defence, trade, mobility and skills. Greater collaboration between these nations would not only generate economic, cultural and social benefits, but would also strengthen our collective voice at a time when speaking with clarity and conviction on the international stage matters more than ever.
Of course, it would be unrealistic to replicate a CANZUK-style framework across the entire Commonwealth.
The diversity of its membership, spanning every region, culture and stage of economic development, makes such an arrangement impractical. Yet that diversity is also one of the Commonwealth’s greatest strengths. While deeper integration may be possible between some members, there remains significant scope to expand cooperation across the wider network wherever it is mutually beneficial. Whether through trade, education, diplomacy or development, the Commonwealth provides a unique platform through which its 56 members can strengthen partnerships and unlock new opportunities for growth and collaboration.
Britain must recognise a simple reality.
In today’s world, influence is rarely exercised alone. Power is more widely distributed, and the ability to shape events increasingly depends on the strength of partnerships and alliances. That challenge has been compounded by the current Labour Government’s hesitant and ineffective response to the crisis in the Middle East, which has done little to reinforce Britain’s credibility on the global stage. Networks such as the Commonwealth therefore become even more valuable. If Britain approaches this partnership with ambition, humility and a clear sense of purpose, it can help deepen cooperation between member states while strengthening its own global influence in the process.
By working alongside Commonwealth partners to expand opportunity, strengthen connections and address shared challenges, Britain can help ensure that this remarkable network remains a force for stability, cooperation and prosperity in an increasingly uncertain world.
A team of 32 experts has published a paper proving there is no evidence that ADHD is overdiagnosed — a big fuck you to the Labour government pedalling this dangerous lie.
Government departments unite against disabled people
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has launched reviews into the strain of ‘overdiagnosis’ of neurodivergent and mental health conditions has on the NHS.
Meanwhile, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) is in the process of reforming PIP. One of the main things the disability benefits cuts protests stopped last year was them limiting eligibility. This would’ve especially affected people with conditions such as ADHD. Streeting’s reviews would give them the ammunition to do that.
And it’s not just those departments that are ramping up hatred. Prime Minister Kier Starmer has also stated that there’s a “moral case” for changing PIP eligibility. Moreover, I don’t think we should be taking morality lessons from those enabling genocide.
Experts debunk overdiagnosis myth
With the media complicit in benefits hate, it’s so important that medical experts are standing up and proving the government to be liars.
32 experts came together to publish ADHD (over) diagnosis: fiction, fashion and failure in the British Journal of Psychiatry. The report overwhelmingly rules that
There is no evidence that ADHD is over-diagnosed in the UK
The authors state that, in fact, just 5.4% of children and 3.3% of adults are estimated to have ADHD. They also explain that while health records do show a rise in diagnosis between 2000 and 2018, it is nowhere near what it should be.
While the administrative prevalence of ADHD has increased over time, available pre-pandemic data suggest that it has remained substantially below the ADHD population prevalence in the UK, providing no evidence at present that ADHD is over-diagnosed at a population level.
They said this increase in diagnoses could be because more people know about ADHD than in the past. In the last few years, for instance, far more older women have discovered they have ADHD. This was missed in childhood.
Labour’s lies are a barrier to ADHD diagnosis
The report states that, if anything, it’s still massively underdiagnosed, largely because the NHS isn’t funded enough to support people with ADHD.
Beyond the controversy around over- or under-diagnosis and over-medicalisation of ordinary behaviours or emotions, the main issue is that UK clinical services cannot adequately support individuals with ADHD who need help.
It also skewered the pervasive narrative that ADHD is overdiagnosed, coming from the media and politicians
There is a risk that the narrative claiming ‘ADHD is over-diagnosed’ could be used to deny people with properly-diagnosed ADHD the care they deserve.
Which, funnily enough, is exactly what Labour plans to do.
It’s clear to see that Labour doesn’t actually care if ADHD actually is overdiagnosed; they just want to strip disabled people of vital support. But hopefully, with the overwhelming evidence against them, they will be called on their bullshit.
Featured image via the Canary
LIVE: Reform Launches Local Election Tour
A criminal barrister has demolished Justice Secretary David Lammy on social media for his terrible ability to understand the law and its impacts on ordinary people.
This intervention came after Lammy posted a propaganda clip from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) which compares the incomparable. Apparently, the MoJ believe that having a jury of peers decide a defendant’s guilt when sentences are less than three years is akin to demanding to see an NHS consultant after scraping a knee.
This has been condemned by criminal barristers on X, highlighting just how out of touch our political elite are. Some have said that Lammy’s insistence on curbing our right to a fair trial and attempts to minimise its impact should see the Justice Secretary resign.
The Secret Barrister certainly didn’t mince his words:
Joanna is politer than I am going to be.
For the Justice Secretary – a former barrister – to suggest that being wrongly accused of a crime and imprisoned for three years is just like “scraping your knee”, should be a resignation matter.@DavidLammy owes the public an apology. https://t.co/pN7Rq59TjO
— The Secret Barrister 🦋 (@BarristerSecret) March 8, 2026
Lammy needs to listen: the right to a fair trial includes right to a trial by jury
Once again, the UK government is shown to be woefully inept with cabinet ministers unable to even exercise their supposed specialised knowledge. Lammy, a qualified barrister and first black Briton to study at Harvard, seems incapable, or unwilling, to be honest about the likely impact of his penny-pinching policy to remove jury trials in some criminal cases. This will be applied to ‘either-way’ offences which would see a sentence lesser than three years.
Our own Alex/Rose Cocker wrote in December about the open letter signed by over 100 lawyers slamming the decision to withdraw jury trials through Lammy’s Crown Court Bench Division (CCBD). We wrote:
The letter listed many compelling reasons that the CCBD would be unworkable. It would require significant recruitment of magistrates – a judge and two lay magistrates for most offences. However, the magistracy has been in decline, and there’s serious doubt over whether enough could actually be recruited at all. As such, magistrates and support staff would likely be drawn from the pool staffing Crown Court and magistrates’ courts.
Diverting judges from sitting Crown Court jury trials would not reduce the backlog. Likewise, if there’s money to pay new judges, it should be going to the Crown Court as it currently exists. Similarly, the CCBD need deliberation rooms, office space, waiting rooms, cells and docks. If there’s money for these new facilities, it should go towards reducing the backlog of the existing Crown Court.
However, this new video which compares someone scraping a knee and insisting on a consultant’s attention to our right under the ECHR to a trial by jury is tasteless and out of touch. It also shows that Lammy has refused to heed the warnings from other legal professionals. This freedom exists to protect citizens against state overreach, ensuring that citizens are judged with the oversight of a jury of their peers maintaining transparency and accountability.
Lammy is a qualified lawyer, so he should know better.
Apples and oranges
The offending video from the Ministry of Justice can be seen here:
It’s time to set the facts straight 👇 . pic.twitter.com/sQ27gzps41
— Ministry of Justice (@MoJGovUK) March 8, 2026
Another criminal barrister has also politely highlighted the obvious – a scraped knee is not the same as ending up in prison for up to three years:
Your local friendly criminal barrister here! 👋
I need you to know that anything up to a three year prison sentence imposed without a jury trial is really not the same thing as scraping your knee without seeing a consultant. pic.twitter.com/zwIvUhFfLu
— Joanna Hardy-Susskind (@Joanna__Hardy) March 8, 2026
Joanna Hardy-Susskind elaborated:
A three year prison sentence will destroy your life, ruin your job, almost certainly wreck your mental health, it will impact your relationships, your children, your parents, your prospects of work, having a home, your good name – and you can’t stick a plaster on any of that.
They use an example of stealing a bottle of whisky deliberately, you see. Because it sounds lightweight & silly. But either way offences with sentences less than 3 years will include some sexual assaults, some ABHs, some s20 GBHs & some frauds.
It’s not about whisky.
Or knees.
Hardy-Susskind finished by pointing out the obvious:
I’m not sure which bit is worse. The comparison to hospital, to triage or the gutting of the presumption of innocence.
The trial is there to determine *if* someone has stolen. But the hospital, hopefully, isn’t staring at a bloody knee & asking *if* it’s hurt.
The Secret Barrister further reminded just why we have the right to a trial by jury, and just who it will hurt when taken away:
Every time you read one of these disingenuous – no, strike that – outrageously dishonest propaganda pieces from @DavidLammy and @sarahsackman, remember that the freedoms they wish to curtail are designed to protect people wrongly accused of criminal offences.
And the barrister reminds ‘it could be you’ next:
Every time they distract you with absurd and misleading claims about abolishing juries being necessary to get “offenders” and protect “victims”, what they are trying to hide is that innocent people end up in criminal courts.
It could be you.
It is your rights they are attacking
David and Sarah want to give *you* – the wrongly accused – a lower quality of justice whenever you face up to *three years of your life* in prison.
And they don’t even have the decency to make their case on the evidence.
Just bluster, distraction and, I’m afraid to say, lies.
This account on X possibly highlights just where Lammy’s Freudian slip comes in where he refers to those affected as ‘offenders’. So much for innocent until proven guilty:
What nonsense.
First, they are defendants, not offenders, as they are innocent until proven guilty (a schoolboy error for the Justice Minister)
Second, a defendant electing a Crown Court trial is a legal right, and cannot be dismissed as “choosing to delay”.
The REAL facts are… https://t.co/8GLqUgTg0w
— Daniel ShenSmith (BlackBeltBarrister) (@dshensmith) March 8, 2026
Even Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has spoken up against curbing this necessary civil protection:
Labour’s Justice Minister has already given the game away.
This is not an emergency measure. Labour would do it anyway.
Trial by jury is a cornerstone of British justice. It should not be hollowed out by Ministers who think our ancient liberties are an inconvenience. https://t.co/vJPVweYAUO pic.twitter.com/oJNruEbcyn
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) March 8, 2026
Labour MP Karl Turner confronted Lammy on how life-destroying these sentences can be and highlights those who always seem to evade justice:
If you nicked a bottle of whiskey, Dave. Being convicted for that when you have a good defence would ruin your life. Why doesn’t it ruin the lives of others accused and wrongly convicted of dishonesty. SUB-POSTMASTERS? 🤷🏼♂️ https://t.co/iisygtJMrT
— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) March 8, 2026
Shame on David Lammy
Once again, those in power expect the British public to accept a decline in our quality of life, food, opportunity, and healthcare while our costs continue to rise. Now David Lammy wants to save money by stripping protections from those at the bottom of the ladder. After all, ordinary people do not have access to expensive lawyers and can often be pressured into extremely difficult situations.
All the while this government refuses to look to the wealthiest to cough up fair taxes against their obscene riches. Let alone the fact that it is well known that inequality increases the likelihood of both violent and property crime, so ordinary people will be punished for conditions beyond their control.
Introducing these changes at a time when cases of sexual assault are increasing is also deeply concerning. As the barristers highlighted, the proposal would apply to any case where the potential sentence is less than three years. If prisons become overcrowded, could judges face pressure to impose non-custodial sentences instead? Without the oversight provided by juries, that risk for women and girls becomes far more likely.
We need jury trials: the accused need to be judged by their peers not the elite. We cannot allow the risk for politics, prejudice, and discrimination to gain more ground in our legal system.
Featured image via the Canary
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, likes to present himself as a pious and self-sacrificing servant of the Islamist regime he has suddenly found himself leading. But there are limits to this humility. According to an investigative report by Bloomberg, Khamenei Jr has a property empire worth hundreds of millions of pounds in London alone, including 11 houses in Hampstead and two apartments in Kensington.
London has long had a reputation for being a second home for very rich Middle Eastern princelings. However, the portfolio of Khamenei, who was appointed as his father’s successor over the weekend, appears to be in a different league altogether. His houses in Hampstead are all reportedly on the Bishops Avenue, also known as ‘billionaire’s row’. His two homes in Kensington, as well as reportedly overlooking the Israeli embassy, are a short distance from Kensington Palace, the official home of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Mojtaba Khamenei has done very well for himself indeed.
How this squares with the Islamic Republic’s view of the UK as ‘evil’ – a term used by his father, Ali Khamenei – isn’t immediately obvious. Indeed, despite the republic’s well known antipathy to the West, encapsulated in the regime’s ‘Death to America’ motto, many children of the Iranian leadership seem to prefer life in supposedly corrupt, irreligious societies such as America and the UK. It has been widely reported that the niece of Hassan Rouhani, a former president of Iran, works for Deutsche Bank in London. She is one of apparently 4,000 aghazedehs (Iranian nobles) who have ditched life in the Islamic Republic in favour of life in its supposed existential enemies.
It is further evidence of just how corrupt and hypocritical the Islamic Republic is. Despite extolling simplicity and austerity, and indeed enforcing these ‘ideals’ on its population, the republic’s leaders have enriched themselves at the expense of their long-suffering population. Indeed, before Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed by American and Israeli airstrikes last month, it was reported that he had a business empire worth $95 billion.
For Mojtaba Khamenei to invest in London is comparatively harmless, at least compared with the regime’s other overseas activities. We were reminded of these other activities just last week, when four people were arrested in London on suspicion of spying for Tehran. One man was an Iranian national while the other three were dual Iranian-British citizens.
According to the i paper, Iran has been using the encrypted messaging service, Telegram, to conscript an army of low-level criminals to carry out not only spying and surveillance activities, but also far more serious offences. In February, UK prime minister Keir Starmer stated that the ‘Iranian regime poses a direct threat to dissidents and the Jewish community [in the UK]’. Starmer said that, in the past year alone, UK intelligence services had thwarted 20 ‘potentially lethal’ attacks on British soil.
The Islamic Republic’s sinister reach into British public life is extensive. The Islamic Centre of England (ICE) has been under investigation by the Charity Commission since 2022 for its close ties to the Iranian regime. According to a recent report published by Lord Walney, the government’s former extremism adviser, there are roughly 30 charities and community organisations in the UK maintaining the ‘influence and interests’ of Tehran, of which ICE is allegedly the ‘central node’. The Islamic Republic even has its own school in London – the Islamic Republic of Iran School in Maida Vale, where students were filmed in 2022 singing about the massacre of Jews.
Indeed, Iran has been causing disruption and seeding division in Western countries for some time. In August, Australia told the Iranian ambassador to leave the country after it emerged that the anti-Semitic campaign of terror that has plagued Australia since 7 October 2023 largely bore Tehran’s fingerprints. This included the firebombing of a synagogue in Melbourne as well as repeated attacks on Jewish businesses. According to the head of Australia’s security services, Mike Burgess, Iran had been employing a similar tactic to the one that’s since emerged in the UK: ‘They’re just using cut-outs, including people who are criminals and members of low-level crime gangs to do their bidding.’ Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said the Islamic Republic was attempting ‘to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community’.
There is some consolation in the thought that Mojtaba Khamenei’s London mansions aren’t much use to him now. But the UK should never have allowed the Islamic Republic to gain such a foothold in British society. Iran’s malign influence must be countered, once and for all.
Hugo Timms is a staff writer at spiked.
On International Women’s Day 2026, a group of aggressive far-right men openly harassed MP Hannah Spencer in Manchester. The situation was so concerning that she had to take refuge in a police car.
The new Green MP for Gorton and Denton had been speaking at an anti-fascist event in the city. But a far-right group went from shouting during speeches to actually following her through Piccadilly Gardens.
The far-right agitators were aggressively pushing Spencer on trans questions in particular. And members of the group were clearly itching for a fight. Because there were a number of scuffles around Spencer as police escorted her away from the scene.
Full solidarity with Hannah Spencer, this is absolutely disgraceful behaviour.
This is a direct attack on our democracy, Hannah is an elected MP that has the right to walk free in the city she represents without these extremists behaving like thugs https://t.co/qEdCYKd7ba— Mothin Ali (@MothinAli) March 8, 2026
The police, meanwhile, seemed mostly to take a hands-off approach. This is despite local authorities apparently knowing exactly who some of the agitators were. As one attendee said:
The cops let the known far right roam in and out of the crowd. They let them back in again after they harassed an MP.
I was there. The cops let the known far right roam in and out of the crowd. They let them back in again after they harassed an MP. The anti-fascists dealt with it.
— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026
Even after the far right went for Hannah Spencer, the cops let them BACK into the dispersing group to cause more trouble. GMP has a LOT of questions to answer. Why do they enable the far right over and over?
— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026
Everyone.. and cops… knows the names of those threatening Hannah Spencer. Thing is, GMP doesn’t care
— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026
Solidarity with Hannah Spencer & all who had to deal with fascist thugs today in Manchester.
No surprise that it is fans of ‘Tommy Robinson’ who attacked @unisontheunion members…on #InternationalWomensDay2026!@AntiRacismDay @Searchlight_mag pic.twitter.com/b0BN5cHFRs— Unite Against Fascism (@uaf) March 8, 2026
The YouTube fascists, she said, had been “harassing all afternoon“. Nonetheless, police preferred to have a laugh with them and:
let the far right to the front
Oh they let the far right to the front. They told a steward off for blocking them. Steve James, the short arse with the sign, was at the front. All the camera freaks were harassing all afternoon. GMP like them…
— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026
The scumbags were calling Hannah Spencer a terrorist when she was speaking, and much, much more. We ignored them.
— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026
Judging by the footage, @gmpolice @GMPCityCentre were utterly useless.
Let a group of men chase Hannah through Piccaddilly gardens, throwing punches at the people around her.
These people are known to the police, yet still allowed to do it?
— Aaron. (@Stuff_by_Aaron) March 9, 2026
Far-right voices have tried to gaslight people into thinking Spencer’s team was somehow responsible for scuffles. But if you watch the footage, you can see exactly the type of aggression Spencer and her entourage were facing.
They all do it. Go and antagonise like their hero Tommy, wait for a reaction and then film themselves as a victim. Set of useless dossers who can only grift. The way they use victims of grooming gangs to excuse the fact they soread hate on all Muslims. They don’t care
— Victoria (@Vmartine1905) March 9, 2026
The fascists weren’t there for women. “They were there for intimidation.”
As journalist Femi Oluwole said:
these men were wearing signs that said that they don’t want men in female spaces. Yet they are violently and aggressively pushing their way into a female MP’s personal space. No trans woman has ever made Hannah Spencer feel as unsafe as those men just did, which just shows that they weren’t there because they actually believe in their cause. They were there for intimidation.
No woman should have to face such disgusting far right thuggery like Hannah Spencer did yesterday!
Her face speaks volumes.Love & solidarity to her.
We have to ensure the extreme right are pushed back.
Be on @UKTogetherAll march, March 28th.@AntiRacismDay@Searchlight_mag pic.twitter.com/y1HjfueAUQ— Unite Against Fascism (@uaf) March 9, 2026
Many people felt the same, highlighting the hypocrisy of the agitators:
Wow, it was men with placards claiming to protect women’s spaces who were harassing her and pushing others.
— Bonnie Evans-Hills (@EvansHills) March 9, 2026
The ones harrassing Hannah Spencer kick, punch, harass ALL of the time. Always go for women. They are vile creatures.
— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026
Green MP Hannah Spencer is forced into a police car after anti-trans protesters fight in front of her in Manchester.
I feel SICK watching this. Hannah must have been petrified.
No MP (esp a woman) should ever EVER be in danger like this because of their views. pic.twitter.com/fUiZpa1X9r— Narinder Kaur (@narindertweets) March 8, 2026
As Sue V insisted, the agitators have a record. And police need to take their threat to democracy and public safety seriously:
Worth noting that the camera far right harassing Hannah Spencer were in Gorton and Denton on election day harassing and intimidating people. Over and over. They need a banning order.
— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 9, 2026
As long as authorities fail to deal with them, though, it’s on all the rest of us to protect each other as best we can:
Yes. Same ones attacking Hannah Spencer. Same ones who kicked someone in the face on the 21st. GMP do NOTHING. So its down to us, now. https://t.co/KfKlywSgvO
— Sue V (@suevictorian) March 8, 2026
Featured image via the Canary
In collaboration with Women Against the Far Right, author Blair James has organised a protest event in response to multiple recent events. These include:
Supported by numerous women-focused and feminist groups, the coalition will lead a rally in St Peter’s Square, outside Manchester Central Library. It will take place on Thursday 19 March, starting at 6:30pm.
The rally will feature speeches and readings from organisers, public figures, and artists. Speakers include Harriet Williamson, commissioning editor and reporter from Novara Media and Steph Pike from Stop the War. Stalls from local feminist and women-focused groups are welcome in the rally area.
To mark the beginning of the march, organisers will lead one minute’s silence for victims, followed by a collective “primal scream” in which all attendees will be asked to scream simultaneously to symbolise the reclaiming of women’s voices.
The march will then begin from the rally space and head to:
- Rise Up, Women, the Emmeline Pankhurst statue.
- Over to the Manchester City Centre Police Public Enquiry Counter on Mount Street.
- Around to Manchester Town Hall on Albert Square.
- Down to Manchester Crown Court.
- Through The Avenue in Spinningfields.
- Onto Deansgate.
- Through Jackson’s Row and Bootle Street.
- Over to the Peterloo Massacre Monument on Windmill Street.
- And finally back across to St Peter’s Square.
The route will pass these places to signify our demand for accountability and change. Organisers will then gather marchers back to the rally area and give closing remarks.
Bringing women together
The goal of the event is to bring women together to express their abhorrence of the misogynistic corruption going on today and to create action which is peaceful yet unique, meaningful, and effective.
The event is intersectional and inclusive of all women, non-binary persons, and children. The purpose of the scream is to give a voice to women and survivors and to break the silence which upholds enabling systems, demanding accountability; safeguarding; transparency; and ending abuses against women and children.
The march is held in the evening purposefully to demand women’s safety akin to Reclaim the Night style work.
Speaking about the urge to create the event, James said:
The problem is that men are never really going to be interested or motivated to change systems that support them. Women need to step forward.
Dr Jilly Kay is senior lecturer in Communication and Media at Loughborough University. She specialises in feminist media and is co-convenor of the cross-institutional Media and Gender research group. She called the protest “an important event.”
Adele Dolan from Intersectional Uprising said:
An incredibly powerful event! We look forward to marching alongside you all in solidarity!
Bioengineer, author, and researcher, Ojochide Obidi, called the event a “beautiful initiative.”
Ash Sarkar from Novara Media also said that this is “an important event.”
Steph Barney, CEO of Girls on the Go said that the event is:
incredible and so important – such a meaningful event for the community. We will definitely be sending our team to attend in person and show our support on the 19th. It’s an incredibly powerful initiative and we’re glad to be a part of it.
James, Women Against the Far Right, and all collaborators invite all women from near and far to join the rally and march. More speakers and supporters will be announced in the run up to the event.
Featured image via
3 min read
The government has announced its new cohesion strategy which includes a long-awaited definition of anti-Muslim hatred.
Protecting What Matters, a document outlining Labour’s new cohesion strategy, was officially unveiled by the government this evening after its contents were leaked to The Spectator on Friday.
The paper identifies Islamism and Islamists as the “predominant” threat to civil society and outlines a plan to crackdown on extremism. Powers will be granted to allow government to close extremist charities and suspend members with hate crime convictions, as well as strengthen monitoring of extremism in higher education.
An extra £5 million will be given to the Common Ground Resilience fund, which will tackle divisions in communities and finance interfaith programmes and youth projects to reduce isolation and strengthen social ties.
Steve Reed, the Communities Secretary, said: “We will not allow hatred to destroy the lives and life chances of those who are targeted.
“Right now, Muslim communities are facing shifting levels of abuse. Anti-Muslim hate crimes are at record levels, and they now make up almost half of all religious hate crimes, way out of proportion to the size of our Muslim population.”
Reed added that people have grown up in a country which by global standards is “remarkably cohesive”.
He said: “Cohesion underpins our economic strength, our democratic freedom and our national security. It is a fundamental part of the Britain we love. We have made our choice in place of division, we choose unity, and we know the people of Britain have made the same choice.”
Last week it was reported a special representative on anti-Muslim hostility would also be central to the government’s plans. The plan will include measures to tackle religious hatred and racial discrimination and clamp down on extremism in charities and universities.
A definition of anti-Muslim hatred – in conjunction with the report – was also published this evening after months of anticipation. PoliticsHome was the first news outlet to reveal the full draft definition.
The non-statuary definition focuses on anti-Muslim hostility as “violence, vandalism, harassment, or intimidation, whether physical, verbal, written or electronically communicated” towards Muslims. The government backed away from including a clause which would identity Muslims as a race or perceived to be a race.
Reaction from across the political spectrum has been mixed.
Lord Young of Acton, General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, told PoliticsHome he was concerned the plan will be used to “enforce radical progressive dogma”.
He said: “First, I worry that free speech will be curtailed in the name of promoting social cohesion – that it’s a synonym for social control. Second, I worry that measures designed to counter extremism will be applied to the Right but not to the Left, which is what’s happened with Prevent.
“The risk is that this plan will be used to enforce radical progressive dogma.”
Lord Walney, Co-chair of APPG on Defending Democracy, told PoliticsHome he believed it was good news the government was acting on his recommendations to beef up powers to “tackle extremists who run bogus charities”. However, he said genuine change will require political leadership and not “just a glossy document.
“In particular, ministers must monitor closely whether the new definition of anti-Muslim hatred has a further chilling effect on people’s ability to speak up on the problem of Islamist extremism in Britain.”
Meanwhile Wajid Akhter, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, told PoliticsHome: “Social cohesion cannot be built on suspicion or securitisation, it must be built on trust, equal citizenship and democratic freedoms.
“At a time when anti-Muslim hate crime is rising, and online disinformation is fuelling division, cohesion requires leadership that builds trust rather than deepens suspicion.
“Building a more cohesive society is something we all want to see. We welcome steps by the government that brings communities together rather than divide them further.”
Iran’s branch of the Red Crescent have sent a letter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting an investigation into war crimes committed by the US and Israel. Providing an exhaustive list of the civilian infrastructure and damage to emergency response vehicles, they highlight how civilians are being targeted rather than combatants.
This comes whilst the US and Israel are waging an illegal war of aggression on Iran, which was unprovoked and initiated whilst all parties were at the negotiating table. However, given the criminal warrants already issued for Israel’s genocidal leaders for their longstanding crimes against Palestinians, it is hard to imagine Western leaders will suddenly sit up and listen. After all, this simply marks another act of complicit aggression in Western government’s expanding list of failures.
BREAKING
The Iranian Red Crescent urges the International Criminal Court to investigate US and Israeli war crimes against Iran’s civilians:
6,668 civilian structures
5,535 homes
14 hospitals
65 schools
The list goes on..Trump and Israel are bombing civilians, not combatants. pic.twitter.com/8UNNzuk7IP
— sarah (@sahouraxo) March 8, 2026
Iran Red Crescent: ‘to the honorable prosecutor’
The letter from the Iranian Red Crescent reads as follows:
Dear Prosecutor,
I write on behalf of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, in the discharge of its humanitarian mandate and in reliance upon the binding principles and rules of International Humanitarian Law, to formally submit our protest and request for criminal examination concerning a series of military attacks carried out against civilian objects within the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
According to field reports from relief workers, operational documentation, and data recorded by the Iranian Red Crescent Society, a wide range of residential areas, medical facilities, schools, humanitarian facilities, vital urban infrastructure, and public places were directly or indiscriminately targeted during the recent military attacks.
Based on consolidated recorded data:
- 6,668 civilian structures have been damaged
- 5,535 residential units have been destroyed or damaged
- 1,041 commercial units have been damaged
- 14 medical centers have been affected
- 65 schools have been damaged
- 11 facilities affiliated with the Iranian Red Crescent Society have been targeted
- 3 emergency response vehicles have been damaged
- 7 Iranian Red Crescent relief workers have been killed or injured
Widespread reports describe US-Israeli attacks against Iran that have caused mass-casualty incidents and killed innocent civilians. Most disturbingly, on the first day of this illegal war, bombs struck a school twice, killing 165 schoolchildren and their teachers. The attack has understandably triggered deep grief across Iran, bringing people closer together in the face of what many see as an existential threat from the West.
Western hypocrisy
For those in the West, we have learned since Iraq and since October 7th 2023 that if leaders want to ignore flagrant law breaking, they will. After all, legality isn’t a concern for the powerful, instead their priority is what they can gain from law breaking. We wrote recently about the silence seen after the strike on the school:
If it emerges that the United States deliberately struck a girls’ school, killing scores of defenceless children, will it admit responsibility? Israel’s continued refusal to acknowledge its crimes against Palestinians raises concerned that Washington may display the same level of indifference towards Iranian lives.
At the time of the school girls’ funeral, a time of inextricable grief and mourning for their families, China-based US journalist, Jason Smith, questioned the deafening silence from Western media, saying:
“This should be on the front page of every Western newspaper. Ask yourself: Why isn’t it?”
Given the spinelessness and collaboration in genocide of the UK media and political (and Epstein) class, it’s no surprise at all — but no less appalling for that.”
One week into the US-Israel war on Iran, more than 1,300 Iranians have been killed, with children accounting for 30% of the dead.
US–Israeli strikes hit civilian sites, including at least 20 schools and 10 hospitals, according to UNICEF. Al Jazeera’s Fintan Monaghan reports. pic.twitter.com/JncreuhIVS
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 8, 2026
It comes as no surprise that our leaders seem unable to locate their moral compass or basic humanity. Especially when we remember we are wholly complicit in the war on Iran despite the semantics and maneuvering of the UK government. After all, facilitating bombers makes you just as guilty as sending bombers yourself. Your Party MP Zarah Sultana has been a staunch critic of our involvement in the genocide on Gaza and now the war on Iran, writing on X:
American B-1 bombers are landing on British soil before flying off to bomb Iran, yet Keir Starmer gaslights the nation by claiming the UK isn’t at war.
These aircraft are dropping 2,000lb bombs on schools, hospitals and homes in Iran, where the death toll has already surpassed… pic.twitter.com/btrDZXp0Fd
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) March 7, 2026
American B-1 bombers are landing on British soil before flying off to bomb Iran, yet Keir Starmer gaslights the nation by claiming the UK isn’t at war.
These aircraft are dropping 2,000lb bombs on schools, hospitals and homes in Iran, where the death toll has already surpassed 1,300.
If this illegal war is being launched from our bases, then the UK is directly involved.
70% of the public oppose these attacks.
The Prime Minister needs to grow a spine: stop the bombers landing and kick US troops out of UK bases.
Replying to the letter from the Red Crescent, NHS Doctor Dan Goyal gave his damning indictment of the West in how it conducts its ‘wars’ on X:
There’s a cowardice and arrogance at the heart of all these offences. The rules of war are too inconvenient- easier just to bomb targets that cause the most pain. The rules don’t apply to them anyway. It’s a position we cannot and must not accept.
Israel has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian women and girls in its genocidal war on Gaza.
On International Women’s Day, we look at the number of women and girls Israel killed in Gaza in 2025.#Infograph pic.twitter.com/aCbyls8J2d
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 8, 2026
Another account on X spoke to the existential threat faced by Iran and what we have learned by watching the genocide unfold in Gaza:
A repeat of the Zionist Israeli actions, with the help of Zionist USA and others, against the people of Iran.
It is clear that the American and Israeli governments are in breach of International and humanitarian law and that their actions in Iran are unlawful.
The attacks on Iran, because they fail under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, prohibiting the use of force against another state except in two circumstances.
A country is permitted to act in self-defence after an armed attack.
Military action is permitted when authorised by the UN.
Neither apply in this case.
The Zionist American actions in Iran copy and mirror the Zionist Israeli actions in Gaza and the OPT.
Any action following the illegal war on Iran is by its very nature illegal also.
The genocide is likely to have already started and the Zionist Israeli and USA humanitarian crises created by these illegal and unlawful actions are rightly to be condemned by all right thinking people.
‘Epstein Coalition’ of war criminals
Law and morality should be fixed: killing children is wrong, no matter where they come from or how powerless they are. However, Trump’s ties to Epstein indicate there has been precious little morality under consideration by either of these arrogant brutes in their lifetimes.
But more and more ordinary people wake up to this reality every day, applying more pressure against the powerful.
That pressure must grow until the tide turns in favour of humanity, as opposed to the greedy egos of the powerful.
The US/Israeli Epstein Coalition should be condemned as War Criminals by all who respect International Law. Failure to do so makes one complicit in their War Crimes… https://t.co/t7cgyP6IU6
— Mick Wallace (@wallacemick) March 8, 2026
Featured image via the Canary
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