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Speaking on Monday, the Prime Minister said that he knew the war in the Middle East, triggered by US and Israeli attacks on Iran, was “causing huge concern” for the public.

“Therefore, it’s really important that I reiterate where I stand and where this government stands, because this is not our war and we are not going to be dragged into it,” he said.

Starmer has granted the US permission to use UK bases for what he describes as defensive strikes on Tehran. However, he has refused to commit Britain to deeper involvement, leading to repeated public criticism from US President Donald Trump.

Later on Monday, the PM will host a Downing Street round table with senior leaders from the energy, shipping, financial and insurance sectors, alongside the UK’s Commander Maritime Operations, who will set out the security picture in the Strait of Hormuz and the Middle East.

Iranian threats to attack ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz, which is one of the most important trade routes in the world, have led to a spike in oil and gas prices since the conflict began.

Petrol prices in the UK have already been affected by the war, and the government is expected to announce financial support for households most exposed to rising energy bills.

However, there is now growing alarm over the impact on food prices, with fertiliser, crucial to food production, being impacted by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Starmer was speaking to reporters at the launch of Labour’s local elections campaign in Wolverhampton.

The party is expected to face a bruising set of results when elections take place in English councils, Scotland and Wales on 7 May.

The PM has sought to make the Iran war a dividing line with his rivals, saying Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage wanted to go “straight in with both feet into the war without thinking through the consequences”.

“It’s terrible judgement because taking your country to war is the single most important decision a prime minister can ever take. 

“And if they had been in government, we would be in a war with no plan.”

Starmer, whose own leadership could come under pressure if Labour’s performance in May is as bad as many in the party fear, pointed to what the government was doing to protect households from cost-of-living pressures worsened by the Iran war.

The PM has indicated that he wants to take a targeted approach to protecting people from soaring energy bills. 

Last week, he told MPs he was “acutely aware” of how much it cost the taxpayer when former prime minister Liz Truss gave blanket energy bill support in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Starmer also said this morning that he would chair another Cobra meeting on Tuesday to discuss the economic impact of the war.

However, he insisted that the advice to motorists is that there was “no need to do anything other than what is normal” amid warnings about fuel shortages.

On Sunday, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told Sky News that drivers should “fill up as normal” and insisted that the government was “well prepared” for disruption.

Dutch national Olax Outis from campaign group Free The Filton 24 Netherlands (NL) will appear at Southwark Crown Court on Monday 30 March after a month in prison without trial.

Olax Outis in court

Olax has been held in a UK prison for a month for allegedly defacing the Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square with finger paint – a crime which in his home country would be considered a misdemeanor at most.

He has denied criminal damage, while the prosecution claimed that the finger paint caused £11,970 in damage to the statue.

Olax painted messages such as “NEVER AGAIN IS NOW”, “STOP THE GENICIDE”, “FREE PALESTINE”, “ZIONIST WAR CRIMINAL” and “GLOBALISE THE INTIFADA!” in the bronze Churchill statue on February 27, was arrested and has remained in custody since.

The conditions of the UK prisons have been described by Olax as “grim”. He reported that some days he receives insufficient food, there are cockroaches in the cells and he is regularly moved around, making it incredibly difficult to keep in touch with his family abroad.

Silence

Today Olax will appear before Southwark Crown Court for his plea hearing where he will find out whether he will be released on bail, granted permanent release, or remain in custody for his peaceful resistance against complicity in the extermination of the Palestinian people.

His solitary action was the first by Free the Filton 24 NL outside the Netherlands. Since its inception, the group has stood in solidarity with the British resistance against the genocide in Palestine. The governments of both the Netherlands and the UK refuse to condemn the Palestinian genocide and are complicit through passive and active support for Israel.

The governments of the UK and the Netherlands remain silent regarding the arrest and disproportionate incarceration of Olax. Aside from automated email replies, there has been no response following emails and letters to the relevant ministries on Olax’ behalf.

Featured image via the Canary

Mark Webber explores the impact of the Iran crisis on NATO, highlighting the trend towards an increasingly Europeanised alliance built on deeper ties and increased spending which he suggests will continue regardless of the outcome of the conflict. 

For NATO, these are hard times for optimism. Still, NATO’s upbeat Secretary General, Mark Rutte is not to be deflected. In mid-February, on the back of a seeming resolution of the Greenland crisis, Rutte claimed the alliance was ‘the strongest it has been since the fall of the Berlin Wall.’ In the midst of the US-Israel war with Iran, Rutte has managed both to commend the campaign and to suggest the allies will come out of it more united, not less.

Can one square this Panglossian position with the reality of the latest transatlantic trauma? President Trump, who never needs an excuse to belittle NATO, has suggested the alliance ‘faces a very bad future’ if its members do not help the US reopen the Straits of Hormuz, shuttered by Iran. A week ago, the UK along with nineteen NATO allies plus Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea expressed their ‘readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait.’ No discernible movement has, however, occurred since. At NATO HQ in Brussels, there has been no discussion of a coordinated maritime effort.

The war has impacted the alliance directly. Iranian missiles have been intercepted by NATO-supplied air defences in Turkey, the NATO training mission in Iraq has been withdrawn and US F35s have been transferred from the Cold Response exercise in Norway to the Gulf. Individual allies have been unwilling to join the US-Israeli campaign, but bases in several countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Portugal have been used to facilitate ‘one of the most logistically complex operations the US military has been involved in for decades.’ Only Spain has refused the US access to its bases.

Practical support has thus not been inconsequential. But politically, the United States has acted in isolation. NATO’s major allies – Germany, the UK and France – have kept their distance. Trump’s current European bête noire, Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez has publicly condemned the ‘illegal’ war. Even Trump’s supporters – the leaders of Italy, Hungary and Slovakia – have questioned the wisdom of the American campaign.

On Iran, just as with Greenland, NATO is divided between the United States and the rest. This could well feed an ongoing animus in the Trump administration. Trump (or, for that matter, his fellow NATO sceptics, Vice-President J.D. Vance and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth) could turn against the alliance at any moment. None of this bodes well for NATO’s next summit (scheduled for July in Ankara). By that point, the war will either be over on terms declared by the Trump administration or will have entrapped the American military in an unwinnable conflict. Either outcome is perilous for transatlantic unity. A self-defined victory would propel Trump toward further destructive acts of adventure. Failure, meanwhile, could have very similar results, as Trump chooses new targets to compensate for the Iranian misadventure and criticises allies to deflect blame for his own strategic ineptitude. Whether propelled by ambition or ire, action against Cuba seems increasingly likely. This would be a marginal issue for NATO. But a reprise of Trump’s hankering after Greenland would return the alliance to crisis mode.

The NATO allies have dealt with the demands of the two Trump administrations through a mixture of deference (agreeing to ambitious defence spending targets), detachment (as currently over Iran) and political resolve (as with the Greenland crisis earlier this year). In parallel, they have taken serious steps to reduce their military dependency on the United States. Some of this is out of urgent necessity. The Trump administration’s severance of military aid to Ukraine means the Europeans now fund the lion’s share of arms transfers to that embattled country. In addition, Europeans have deepened defence cooperation within the EU. They have also cooperated through overlapping minilateral and bilateral defence initiatives. This ‘clustering’ of defence is not new. The British-led Joint Expeditionary Force has been operational since 2015; the European Air Transport Command was established in 2010. Yet such initiatives have accelerated in recent years. Between 2022 and 2025, European states signed among themselves 135 bilateral defence partnerships.

NATO itself is quietly becoming Europeanised. And this, tellingly, has America’s support. In recent months, the Pentagon has helped execute a reform of the NATO command structure that will see Americans relinquishing oversight of NATO Joint Force Commands (JFC) Norfolk and Naples (where a Brit and Italian will take up command). German officers already command NATO’s two other JFCs at Brunssum and Ulm. US commanders will retain NATO’s tactical land and air commands and will acquire from the British oversight of NATO maritime command. The US is not, therefore, rushing for the exit. This is a gradual shift, but it is a planned one aimed at greater European responsibility. The US also wants greater European effort – the ability to field, according to Under Secretary of War, Elbridge Colby, a ‘preponderance of the forces required to deter and, if necessary, defeat conventional aggression in Europe.’ Here too there is marked progress. Defence budget increases alongside Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO have boosted Europe’s military standing. In a conventional war with Russia, NATO would still struggle if the United States was not fully committed. However, the steps needed to correct this deficiency are, according to a recent Atlantic Council report ‘well within the capabilities of [the] NATO allies.’

Three long-term trends now seem evident irrespective of the Iran war or, indeed, Trump’s disparagement of NATO. First, a security architecture is developing in Europe – involving the EU, a Europeanised NATO, clustered defence, and a de facto wartime alliance with Ukraine – which is not reliant on American design. The Trump administration is through the alliance engaged with but not seeking oversight of this network. Second, Europe’s centre of strategic gravity is now in the east and north. NATO ally Turkey has been exposed by the Iran war, but there are no moves afoot to galvanise NATO’s ‘southern’ agenda. NATO’s frontline is adjacent to Russia and here leadership on defence spending and military mobilisation is being demonstrated by Germany, Poland, the Baltics and the Nordic states, not by NATO’s traditional European big hitters France, Italy and the UK. Third, these developments, require strategic deftness. Clinging to the hope that America will rediscover its transatlantic vocation amounts to strategic paralysis. If, to return to Rutte, NATO is to be strong it will be so on the back of its European component.

By Mark Webber, Professor of International Politics, University of Birmingham

While all eyes are focused on the bigger regional issues, there has been an unprecedented increase in settler violence across the occupied West Bank.

Attacks on Palestinians by illegal “Israeli” colonists are no longer isolated acts of violence but a state policy of deliberate and organised terrorism.

At a recent press briefing, Palestine’s minister of foreign affairs and expatriates, Varsen Shahin, pointed to a sharp increase in the frequency and severity of settler attacks. She explained that such violence includes murder, physical assaults, the burning of homes and agricultural lands, destruction of infrastructure, theft and incitement practices, such as targeting places of worship.

The objective of these actions, she said, is to intimidate Palestinians and force them off of their land.

Shahin stressed that the situation in the occupied West Bank can no longer be viewed as isolated “acts of violence”, but as terrorism. She described this settler terrorism as “a deliberate and organised system of provocation” and a “state policy” designed to terrorise, displace and inflame.

Its purpose is to uproot us and provoke reactions that can be exploited for escalation against us. It is a calculated strategy to justify continuation and expansion of genocidal violence against the Palestinians, carried out by settler militias and armed gangs, who are illegally residing in occupied territory and supported by “very influential people in the government.

Israeli settlers armed by government, protected by IOF

These colonial Jewish settlers operate under the protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). They are armed and funded by the “Israeli” government, and constitute a direct extension of policies of annexation and settlement expansion. Shahin noted that the impunity and lack of international accountability, which has been ongoing for decades, has allowed Israel to do whatever it wants, including getting away with genocide.

She said:

Settler terrorism complements the accelerating settlement expansion that is occurring, through approval of new settlement units, new settlements, new planning measures and new legislation. All this entrenches the settlement enterprise and fulfills Israel’s expansions and colonialist policies, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

She added:

These acts are illegal under international law and aim to normalise permanent control of the occupied state of Palestine, undermine the Palestinian right to self-determination, and try to force us to leave. When we are forced to leave, they will then call that voluntary.

More than 20 Palestinians have been injured in the latest reported settler attacks.

In the Khalla Amira and Rujoum Ali areas of Masafer Yatta, in the South Hebron Hills, settlers released their livestock near people’s homes on 25 March. They assaulted Palestinians in the area, injuring and hospitalising several. The IOF then arrived, firing tear gas and sound grenades at residents. Seven Palestinians were abducted and several people were detained.

Tragedy: One man, 31, dead, and others injured

In another incident in the evening of the same day, vehicles carrying Palestinian workers on the Umm al-Khair to Fateh Sidreh road, in the Masafer Yatta area, were chased by settlers accompanied by the IOF. They opened fire on the vehicles which led to one overturning and catching fire.

Yusri Majed Abu Qabita, 31, was killed and three other Palestinian men were injured.

No Palestinian is spared from this settler terrorism. An elderly man was injured in an attack in the Tubas governorate, in the Northern occupied West Bank.

East of Tulkarm, in the town of Ramin, settlers stole sheep and injured two Palestinian men.

About 750,000 Zionist settlers live illegally in settlements across the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem. They carry out crimes against Palestinians all day every day, but harsh words and meaningless sanctions from the international community do absolutely nothing to stop them. As yet, they have faced no accountability for any of their vicious crimes.

Fourteen Palestinians were killed by settler terrorism in 2025 while 11 people have been murdered in the first three months of 2026, according to figures from the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC).

In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled “Israel’s” occupation of Palestine is illegal, and called for all settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem to be evacuated.

Shahin summed up the situation and said:

Not only are our lives, our dignity and our rights threatened, but humanity, morality and justice under international law, and its applicability to all similarly. This is a real test. If the test fails in Palestine it will fail elsewhere, and the suffering will mount elsewhere.

Featured image via the Canary

As Keir Starmer takes the Labour Party further and further right, a group of councillors in the London borough of Hackney finally left in May 2024. They became Hackney Independent Socialists. And almost two years later, they’re actively collaborating with the local Green Party to defeat Labour and the far right in May’s local elections.

The Canary spoke to Heather Mendick and Claudia Turbet-Delof from the Hackney Independent Socialist Collective (HISC) to find out more about their campaign alongside the Greens, which Mendick said:

should be a model for red-green collaboration all across the country

Excitement in Hackney as “people power” grows outside Labour

Hackney councillor Turbet-Delof said that seeing an increase in “anti-migrant rhetoric” from Starmer’s Labour meant she had “one foot out” of the party already. It felt like an “irreversible” shift. And then, Labour’s position on Israel’s genocide in Gaza “really clarified things”, as the party suspended her and others for backing ceasefire calls.

For Turbet-Delof, leaving Labour was about staying true to her principles. And HISC is unapologetic about where it stands. Mendick added that there’s a lot in common between HISC and the Greens, but the differences are still important:

The possibility of having a different agenda that’s explicitly socialist, and that comes from a small group that’s very locally based, I think is really powerful.

HISC is very much about “people power”, Mendick stressed, with huge turnouts among the membership for meetings. There’s a lot of interest and “nearly everyone is doing something”.

The fact that HISC councillors have scrutinised the council effectively and “brought things to light”, Turbet-Delof said, has helped to make “headline news”. And this in turn got residents’ attention and support, because:

they now finally feel that there is an alternative

“Making history” with a Green–Independent alliance

HISC members’ positive relationships with Greens on the council and in local campaigns have helped to foster organic collaboration. Turbet-Delof says they were “really keen to work together” in the local election campaign as a result:

it is something that benefits both, and it’s something that residents also like to hear, that it’s a collaboration.

And as Mendick insisted, this isn’t just about a “non-aggression pact”, but an “active collaboration” with “joint canvassing”. She explained that:

We have leaflets, posters, calling cards, all with two logos on…

We’re doing something new… and people are super enthusiastic. When you say to people, look, we’re making history in Hackney, here are two logos on the same piece of literature, people are like ‘wow’…

I don’t think anywhere in the country is doing what we’re doing.

At its heart, Mendick said, HISC wants to help:

to get the left working constructively together as far as that is possible

Turbet-Delof agreed, adding:

We have to stand and speak and respect one another.

Thanks to everyone who’s put up our ❤️💚 posters in Homerton #localelections pic.twitter.com/zLRfsvcG9y

— Hackney Independent Socialist Collective (@HackneyIndSG) March 22, 2026

Your Party has also reached out to HISC with an invitation to collaborate. HISC members will make a “collective decision” about that.

Green-HISC councillors will try to ‘shift the power relationship’

Turbet-Delof believes “a lot of councillors” in Hackney are currently “quite detached” from community work. And on some big local estates, she said, some people have told her:

no one has ever knocked on my door. It’s the first time I’ve seen a councillor.

Mendick added:

The question I ask on doorsteps is… what do you want to change in Hackney? …

We’ve learned from knocking on doors and talking to people, and our positions have changed in response to that.

And this is a key way HISC wants the council to change. As Mendick explained:

We want to shift that power relationship between residents and the council. And we’ve got a very explicit commitment that, if we are in power with the Greens, you can’t simply do a consultation and then just be like, ‘tick the box, then we’ll go on and do what we were planning to do anyway’. If you have an engagement process, whatever comes out of it, you have to commit to implementing it.

This is important, she stressed, because:

If you really want to build a movement, you have to start with that stuff. You have to make a difference in people’s lives. You have to show that the damp on their wall can get sorted, that their light can work again, that their lift can work again.

As HISC’s manifesto says, it is already:

collaborating with residents and campaign groups, by:

Holding regular People’s Forums where we can learn from residents about the issues that matter to them.

And both Turbet-Delof and Mendick asserted that this connection with the community will continue after the election.

HISC candidates in Hackney’s local election

Alongside all the Green candidates in Hackney, the HISC candidates in the joint campaign will be:

• Fliss Premru (standing for re-election in Clissold Ward).
• Claudia Turbet-Delof and Penny Wrout (both standing for re-election in Victoria Ward).
• Alana Heaney and Heather Mendick (standing for the first time in Homerton).
• Sarah Byrne (standing for the first time in London Fields).

You can see HISC’s campaign videos here and manifesto here. The nine areas of focus in the manifesto are:

1. Democracy and Workers’ Rights
2. Community Wealth Building
3. Human Rights and International Solidarity
4. A Cultural and Creative Hackney
5. Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing
6. Transport
7. Low-cost Safe Secure Housing for All
8. Migrants’ Rights and Anti-racism
9. Ageing and Living Well

New candidate photo for @HackneyIndSG and @hackneygreens in Homerton ward. pic.twitter.com/FWWFy8nz9L

— Heather Mendick (@helensclegel) March 15, 2026

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All six of our council candidates have signed the pledge for Palestine 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/XVEE8FLUYO

— Hackney Independent Socialist Collective (@HackneyIndSG) March 19, 2026

Some photos from our three canvassing sessions yesterday ❤️💚
🙏🙏🏾 to everyone who took the time for a chat when we knocked on your door pic.twitter.com/8XNidaezPF

— Hackney Independent Socialist Collective (@HackneyIndSG) February 23, 2026

Featured image via the Canary