4 min read12 min

One lesson from the conflict in Iran is that a cyber attack is the opening move of modern warfare. Israel proved this, hacking Tehran’s CCTV cameras to mark key targets and the Ayatollah himself for US and Israeli bombing.

But the UK is severely underprepared for this reality. As our energy sector rapidly digitalises like the rest of the world, a new target is opening up for hackers, and unless we learn from the Iran-US war, they will be able to strike at the heart of our industries, government and households.

Our nation is no stranger to having its energy weaponised, causing economic and social pain to British households. From blackouts in the 1970s due to the miners’ strikes and the oil crisis, to energy bills soaring when gas prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Cyber attacks can recreate this economic damage, and no form of energy supply is safe from attack. Whether it is gas, renewables or nuclear, every form of energy that our nation relies upon is susceptible. And as our energy system continues to digitalise, the threat cyber attacks pose to our country is growing.

The UK’s energy system is not prepared for such attacks, and Labour is failing to address this threat to our security.

Our enemies know this all too well. Over 90 per cent of the largest energy firms have already fallen victim to cybersecurity breaches to date, with attacks becoming increasingly regular. And they can repeat the damage other hackers have done to major British companies on our energy system, similar to the attack on Jaguar Land Rover in my constituency of Meriden and Solihull East in 2025 that cost the UK economy an estimated £1.9bn. This also caused major disruption throughout the automotive supply chain and has left companies facing bankruptcy.

Unless we strengthen our security, a cyber attack from anywhere in the world could switch off our energy supply, bringing much of our daily life and our economy to a grinding halt.

Despite this urgent need to take action, the government has ignored the severity of this threat and failed to tackle it since taking office. The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill is a unique opportunity to tackle this glaring oversight. However, Labour ministers are squandering this opportunity to protect our energy supply from cyber attacks.

This is why I am calling on the government to strengthen our energy system against cyber attacks by going further in the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill.

Firstly, the bill should only allow data from the UK energy sector to be processed either within UK territory or that of allied countries with robust cybersecurity mechanisms. By limiting the processing of this data to places we can trust, we would make it harder for cyber criminals to access energy firms’ data and use it for nefarious purposes.

Furthermore, the government should also expand the requirements for energy companies to report when they are victim to cyber attacks. Reporting these attacks to government cybersecurity agencies is essential for deterring further attacks and alerting them to existing holes in our security. Although there are already reporting requirements in the UK, they are not fit for purpose, and the bill does not go far enough to improve them. The current state of the bill means many cyber attacks will continue to go unreported to the relevant cybersecurity agency, reducing our ability to establish where our energy grid is exposed and to respond accordingly.

The risk cyber attacks pose to the UK’s energy security is clear, as is the government’s failure to address this threat. By amending the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill to secure energy firms’ data and ensure more cyber attacks are reported, we can strengthen our cyber security and make it harder for our enemies to turn off our power.

Saqib Bhatti is Conservative MP for Meriden and Solihull East

4 min read23 min

For decades, China has realised the importance of energy security to its long-term success. It increased electrification, with a corresponding rise in domestic renewables and a massive increase in strategic oil and gas reserves.

Meanwhile, the UK has failed to learn the lessons of energy crises dating back to the 1970s. The dual shocks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East present an opportunity to correct this.

These events have shown in the starkest terms that relying on global markets alone leaves the UK dangerously exposed to external shocks. Energy security is why the government and the oil and gas industry must abandon short-term, distracting arguments around price and tax revenues, and work together.

The physical protection of energy infrastructure is central to national resilience and our deterrence posture. In 2024, the UK relied on imports for 43.8 per cent of its primary energy, up sharply from 28 per cent in 2020, reflecting a significant rise in dependence on external suppliers.

Domestic oil and gas production fell to a record low, declining 6.5 per cent year on year, as output from the UK’s mature continental shelf continued to contract. Production is now around 20 per cent of its 2000 level. Meanwhile, UK gas consumption in 2024 reached 689 TWh, compared to domestic production of just 344 TWh, leaving a substantial structural deficit.

In a world of rising geopolitical tension, that deficit is a strategic weakness. A stable, managed level of North Sea output is not about returning to past production peaks; it is about ensuring the UK retains sovereign access to critical energy supplies when global markets tighten, or hostile states attempt to disrupt or attack our country.

Offshore Energies UK accepts that increased production in North Sea oil and gas would have no meaningful impact on UK energy prices, as that product is sold on an international market, which dictates the price. A secondary claim that increased production would generate tax receipts to bring down energy prices is also questionable. Research by the University of Oxford found that even in the implausible scenario of the UK being able to maximise North Sea oil and gas and use all revenues to subsidise lower energy bills, the impact would be limited, a maximum of £82 per year off a household bill.

However, there are two reasons the future of North Sea oil and gas remains critical and should be supported.

First, given the volatility and increased tension around the world, the government should explore an agreement to allow increased extraction with a binding commitment that a sufficient reserve is created against future shocks and, in the event of a crisis, North Sea oil and gas would be provided to UK markets for a fixed, lower price to protect households and businesses.

Second, we must fully bridge the skills gap between current oil and gas and a more secure renewables future. Around 154,000 workers are employed across the UK’s offshore energy sector. These are well-paid and highly technical jobs protected by trade unions.

The UK recently secured a record 14.7 GW of new renewable capacity, enough to power up to 16m homes. The UK now has an unprecedented acceleration in renewable deployment and a major reinforcement of the UK’s long-term energy security and resilience.

This represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build careers in high-skill, high-wage, union-protected industries. But that opportunity only exists if we preserve the workforce pipeline built by the North Sea.

Skills in the North Sea oil and gas supply chain are directly transferable to the renewable system: subsea engineering, marine operations, fabrication, grid upgrades and home construction. Yet the oil and gas workforce risks falling to between 57,000–71,000 by the early 2030s. Losing that capability would weaken our security and our ability to deliver large-scale clean energy projects.

A stable tax regime matters too. That is why the Oil and Gas Price Mechanism should replace the Energy Profits Levy, supporting investment while ensuring the public benefit when prices are high. The oil and gas industry should be working with government to make the case that a secure, responsibly managed North Sea is essential to national resilience and deterrence, and is the bridge to the skills we need for the UK’s renewable future.

Graeme Downie is the Labour MP for Dunfermline & Dollar

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has confirmed the organization’s commitment to Iran’s participation in the 2026 World Cup finals, emphasizing that there is no alternative plan to exclude them despite the political complexities surrounding the tournament.

ESPN quoted Infantino as saying during an interview with the Mexican channel N+ Univision:

We want Iran to play… they will play in the World Cup. There is no Plan B, C, or D; there is only one Plan A.

Infantino explained that FIFA remains committed to holding the tournament as scheduled, with the participation of all qualified teams, stressing that the organization seeks to “build bridges” through football, far removed from political tensions.

These statements come amid escalating geopolitical tensions, particularly with the United States, along with Canada and Mexico, hosting the next World Cup. This has raised questions about Iran’s potential participation or the possibility of moving its matches to another country, given the escalating US-Israeli conflict with Iran.

According to the agency, the Iranian Football Federation had proposed playing its matches outside the United States, but FIFA has not yet shown any inclination to amend its organizational plans.

The 2026 World Cup is scheduled to take place between June 11 and July 19, marking the first edition to feature 48 teams and be held across three countries.

Featured image via the Canary

Keir Starmer spoke from Downing Street on Wednesday morning as the Iran war entered its second month (Alamy)

3 min read52 min

Speaking on Wednesday morning, the Prime Minister said that while the Iran war “will impact the future of our country”, the UK is “well placed to weather it”.

“I want to reassure the British people that no matter how fierce this storm, we are well-placed to weather it, and that we have a long-term plan to emerge from it a stronger and more secure nation.”

Starmer announced that Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will host a meeting with 35 nations on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz later this week, with military planners to also “look at how we can marshal our capabilities and make the strait accessible and safe after the fighting has stopped”.

But he said: “I do have to level with people on this. This will not be easy.”

The PM said “the most effective way” to alleviate the cost of living in Britain is to push for “de-escalation in the Middle East, a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz”.

Significant proportions of the world’s oil and gas supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz, making it a vital shipping lane.

However, traffic through the lane has plummeted since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, with Tehran threatening to attack ships passing through it.

The disruption is causing energy prices to increase around the world, and there are also concerns about the impact it could have on food prices. The Food and Drink Federation has estimated that food inflation will hit 9 per cent in the UK this year as a result of the conflict.

On Wednesday, several measures aimed at tackling the cost of living come into force, including increases to the national living wage and the national minimum wage, support for households using heating oil, and money off energy bills.

However, the government is expected to announce further support for households most exposed to rising energy prices in the coming weeks, with household bills expected to rise significantly when the Ofgem price cap expires in July.

The war in Iran has now entered its second month, after the US and Israel began a series of strikes on Iran in February this year. US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the US would pull out of Iran in “two or three weeks” and is set to give an “important update” on the war in the early hours of Thursday morning.

On Tuesday, Buckingham Palace confirmed that King Charles and Queen Camilla’s state visit to the US would go ahead this month, despite Trump having repeatedly attacked the UK in public over its refusal to play a greater part in the US and Israel’s war with Iran.

On Monday, Starmer reiterated that the Iran conflict is “not our [the UK’s] war”.

PM says Iran war shows UK must be closer to EU

Speaking from Downing Street this morning, Starmer said that it is “increasingly clear” in light of the war in the Middle East that the UK’s “long-term national interest requires closer partnership with our allies in Europe and with the European Union.”

The Prime Minister indicated that he wanted to take the UK even closer to the bloc’s single market as part of a major reset, announcing that there would be a new summit with the EU later this year.

“We want to be more ambitious, closer economic cooperation, closer security cooperation, a partnership that recognises our shared values, our shared interest and our shared future, a partnership for the dangerous world that we must navigate together, a world where this government will be guided, at all times, by the interests of the British people.”

Sara Hagemann unpacks the results of the recent elections in Denmark and argues the distribution of votes speaks to broader patterns of political change across Europe.

Denmark went to the polls on 24 March, and the result was, by any measure, historically striking. The Social Democrats under Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen won the most seats — 38 out of 179 in the Folketing — but with just 21.9% of the vote, this marks the party’s worst result since 1903. Their two coalition partners, centre-right Venstre and the Moderates, also lost ground significantly: Venstre fell to 10.1% and 18 seats, its worst result in the party’s 156-year history, while the Moderates ended on 7.7% and 14 seats. Neither the left-leaning “red bloc” (84 seats) nor the right-leaning “blue bloc” (77 seats) secured the 90 seats needed for a majority. It is clear that the ongoing coalition negotiations will be protracted and complex, with Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s Moderates occupying a decisive kingmaker role.

The elections can hence be described as a muddy outcome, yet with a clear message from the voters: the incumbent centre parties may have performed well on the international stage as they handled the unwelcome attention from the US over Greenland, and also delivered on a stellar EU presidency last year, but they did not convince the Danes on domestic issues. Indeed, the campaign exposed a deep divide over two issues in particular: environmental policy and immigration. Taken together, the results show a set of structural dynamics worth examining carefully — not least because they speak to broader patterns of political change across Europe.

One of the most striking features of this election was the degree to which the traditional left-right axis has become blurred among the larger centre parties. The outgoing government was itself an unusual creature: a cross-bloc coalition of the Social Democrats, Venstre, and the Moderates, straddling the historic red-blue divide. Its formation in 2022 was widely seen as an anomaly; the 2026 result suggests it may instead signal something more structural.

The Social Democrats have spent years migrating rightward on immigration while maintaining a strong welfare-state platform, and in this campaign moved further still — proposing a new wealth tax while simultaneously competing with Venstre on deportation policy. Venstre, in turn, entered the election supporting VAT cuts on food, a traditionally centre-left position, while promoting corporate tax reductions. The result: it became increasingly difficult for voters to locate clear ideological distance between the major parties on core economic questions.

This convergence in the centre of the main parties has now fed a flight of voters towards alternatives at both ends of the spectrum. The Green Left’s rise is the clearest expression on the left: around 15% of former Social Democrat voters switched to the more left-wing Green Left (SF) — a single shift that accounted for close to half of all Social Democrat losses. Conversely, the resurgence of the Danish People’s Party reflects a mirror image on the right, all based on a campaign to get even tougher on immigration (where Denmark is already a notorious hard-liner in Europe).

Hence, what this election makes clear is that Danish politics is increasingly organised around two cleavages that cut across the old left-right axis: immigration and environmental policy. This pattern is well-documented in comparative European politics — the transformation from one-dimensional left-right competition to multi-dimensional contestation around cultural, communitarian, and ecological values is a central finding of the past decade’s scholarship on Western European party systems. The common term is GAL-TAN: indicating the endpoints of a new “scale” based on ‘Green-Alternative-Libertarian’ and ‘Traditional-Authoritarian-Nationalist’ values.

On immigration, the competition across the spectrum was striking. The Social Democrats campaigned on a package of measures Frederiksen herself described as the strictest immigration regime in Europe, including proposals for a new Deportation Agency to handle cases through an administrative rather than judicial track, and continued support for offshore asylum processing in partnership with other EU countries. Venstre matched this with a stricter deportation reform as a central plank. The Danish People’s Party went further, calling for “remigration” — the large-scale removal of immigrants, particularly Muslims — and leader Morten Messerschmidt stated publicly that his party would only support a government committed to actively reducing the number of Muslims in Denmark.

The effect of this cross-party bidding war was paradoxical for the Social Democrats: having moved substantially rightward on immigration — a strategy that alienated some left-leaning voters — they were nonetheless attacked from the right as insufficiently tough. Immigration, once primarily the terrain of the radical right, has become a contest across the whole party system.

The environmental dimension is equally revealing. The 2026 campaign became, improbably, as much about pigs as about any other single domestic issue. Denmark is Europe’s most pig-dense country, producing close to 30 million animals annually, and the environmental consequences — nitrate pollution of groundwater, pesticide contamination, and threats to drinking water quality — became a major campaign theme in the final weeks, driven by new research and a citizens’ initiative that gathered over 80,000 signatures. Green organisations launched what they called a ‘svinevalg’ — pig election — framing the vote as a choice between agricultural interests and environmental and public health.

Alongside farming policy, opposition to large-scale onshore solar development emerged as a distinct political fault line — particularly among rural parties on the right, pointing to a broader urban-rural dimension in environmental politics. The Denmark Democrats campaigned against the siting of solar farms on agricultural land under the slogan “yes to fields of wheat, no to fields of iron,” framing Denmark’s rapid renewable energy expansion as a threat to rural landscapes and agricultural communities.

Coalition negotiations will now revolve almost entirely around the Moderates. Løkke Rasmussen’s call on election night to stop talk of “corner flags” and come play “in the middle” was both a negotiating position and an accurate description of his strategic leverage. A continuation of some form of centrist arrangement — whether under Frederiksen or Venstre’s Troels Lund Poulsen — remains the most likely outcome.

For observers in the UK and across Europe, the most important question is what this means for Danish foreign policy. Here, the answer is considerably clearer than the domestic picture. On Ukraine, European defence, and NATO, Denmark has been among the most consistent and vocal European voices — and this position enjoys cross-party consensus. Regardless of who leads the next government, Denmark’s commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty, its support for European defence investment, and its role as a reliable EU partner will not waver.

By Sara Hagemann, Professor, University of Copenhagen, and Visiting Professor, London School of Economics and Political Science.

MLAs and representatives of the community and voluntary sector are among those who have slammed the Labour government for the decision to push ahead with funding cuts to charities in the north of Ireland. As a result of post-Brexit expenditure changes, on April 1 Westminster will replace the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) with the Local Growth Fund (LGF). The UKSPF supplied money previously provided by the EU. The move will result in a loss of £16m per year for the community and voluntary sector, going from £25 million to just £9 million.

People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll was among those who condemned the decision, saying:

From Wednesday, Westminster will reduce funding for community support programmes by a staggering 64%. This will leave 11,000 people without employment support, and equates to roughly 400 job losses in the sector. It’s particularly cruel that on the same day hundreds of charity workers are handed redundancy notices, a £14,000 pay increase for MLAs will come into effect.

Politicians to get 27% pay rise as charities have funds slashed

The independent remuneration board confirmed last month that MLAs would be receiving the obscene salary uptick, taking salaries up to £67,200. Part of their reasoning was that it will be combined with penalties in the event of another Stormont shutdown. There will be 10% cuts on each of weeks 6, 12 and 18 in the event of a collapse. This seems like curious logic, given the whopping pay boost gives MLAs a buffer that makes financial penalties much easier to absorb.

Carroll called on Stormont to fix the problem through transfer of moneys from corporate rates relief:

Rather than begging Westminster for help that clearly isn’t coming, the Executive must step in today. It is entirely within their remit to provide the £15.8 million to keep these services afloat. The five big parties found £1.2 million for a 27% pay hike and handed over £76 million in rates breaks for the likes of Moy Park and Coca Cola last year alone. It’s time they cough up for people who need it most.

England, Scotland and Wales have all long since abolished these corporate handouts. Carroll also criticised Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) education minister Paul Givan for “overseeing a slow-motion collapse of youth services“. He concluded:

Working class communities didn’t create this crisis and they shouldn’t be made to pay for it.

The cuts will primarily affect employment support programs. The Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) represents charity and community groups across the Six Counties (a decolonial term to refer to the north of Ireland). Earlier in March their CEO Celine McStravick highlighted the effect cuts will have on already marginalised groups:

This drastic reduction in funding for Local Growth will strip away vital services for people furthest from the labour market – including young people, those with disabilities or returning to work after long‑term illness and those with caring responsibilities. These are precisely the groups most in need of targeted, sustained intervention and support.

Disabled people to lose crucial support

The Chief Commissioner for the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland Geraldine McGahey had previously highlighted the support needed by disabled people to assist them into employment. She said:

Recent figures report that the disability employment rate here remains stubbornly low at 43.4%, while the disability employment gap is most recently reported as 40.3 percentage points and remains the largest of any of the UK regions.

Ultimately Northern Ireland simply cannot afford cuts to the very limited budgets that currently exist for this important and often life changing work.

NICVA’s McStravick contrasted the support Westminster provides other nations under its control with that granted to the North of Ireland:

Today’s announcement from the Prime Minister highlights a growing disparity between the opportunities being created elsewhere in the UK and the shrinking support available for those most acutely in need across Northern Ireland. While England is benefitting from billions in new investment to tackle youth unemployment and expand apprenticeships, Northern Ireland is witnessing its core employability infrastructure being hollowed out.

Secretary of state for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn has said he expects Stormont to cover the gap in funding itself. However, multiple Northern Ireland Executive ministers have already said they are unable to cover the bare minimum for their departments as it is.

The first day of April is offering fresh opportunities for Westminster to once again show it is populated by fools. Labour continues its trend of being penny wise and pound foolish, as it fails to cough up tiny sums that would pay off many times in the long run.

Featured image via the Canary

Western media’s reporting of the Anglo-American-Zionist strategy of decapitation of leaders in the Middle East is so prolific that one might think they don’t see a problem with it.

As ever, a central element of settler colonialism and imperialism is cognitive dissonance. After all, imagine the absolute uproar in the West if a political leader was beheaded. But for leaders from the Global South, suddenly beheading is a genius military manoeuvre ripe with incisive intelligence operations.

Western media salivates

Greg Miller of the Washington Post, describing what amounts to state terrorism by Israel, uses words like “tactics,” “honed,” and “capable.”

How Israel tracks and targets Iran’s leaders – with an expanding role from AI. A story from Tel Aviv. https://t.co/tGSd54V9CU

— Greg Miller (@gregpmiller) March 30, 2026

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He says:

Israel’s targeted killing tactics — bombs planted months before being detonated, drones capable of slipping into apartment windows and supersonic missiles fired from stealth fighter jets — have been honed by years of conflict in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

“Years of conflict” is a funny way of saying ‘belligerent invasions from a rogue state,’ but okay Greg.

The assassination of Khamenei is described a “singular intelligence breakthrough.”

Even when Miller offers criticism, it is not of the terrorism or extrajudicial killings, but because the goals of the decapitation strategy are “elusive” or the AI is not “foolproof.”

There are many such cases.

‘A whiff’

The FT asks whether the killing of a sovereign state’s leader can ever be justified.

When, if ever, is it an appropriate tactic of war or foreign policy to engage in a ‘decapitation strike’ — the intentional targeted killing of the leaders of another state?

Martin Sandbu reports: https://t.co/wGDMLpIRlh pic.twitter.com/YQOcSCgzWW

— Financial Times (@FT) March 28, 2026

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To the FT’s defence, at least it concludes that there is “more than a whiff of racism or imperialism” about this strategy. We’d call it an unbearable, rancid stench – but there we are.

Sandbu says:

And it is not a coincidence that when heads of state or government have been targeted, it has usually been in what used to be known as the third world. There is more than a whiff of racism or imperialism in the selective respect the norm enjoyed in the first place, of the same type as has been called out in the International Criminal Court for tending to pursue the leaders of poor countries.

The whole essay, nevertheless, is an ice-cold bucket of imperialism. The essay worries about “what we lose when we lose the norm.” The “we” is unmistakably Western.

And, the framing Iran’s ability to survive decapitation is also replete with racist innuendos.

The hydra at the core of Iran’s regime built to survive decapitation https://t.co/AT708WPILP

— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) March 27, 2026

The Times, for instance, somehow calls Iran’s government a hydra. Calling a sovereign government a mythical beast strips it of legitimacy before the analysis even starts. It frames Iran not as a country with people, laws, and a history, but as a monster that needs killing.

State terrorism

Across Western media, the killing of leaders is often framed as a strategy.

Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, in a letter to the Security Council, called the US-Israeli policy of “assassination lists” as state terrorism.

He said the promotion of such lists is no different from the terrorist actions that have deliberately bombed and killed hundreds of schoolchildren, targeted hospitals, and destroyed cultural heritage sites.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf were on the US-Israeli assassination target lists.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, are among those killed by US and Israeli strikes.

Norman Finkelstein said in a recent interview that the assassination of Khamenei on February 28 was “the most brazen, flagrant, outrageous breach of the UN Charter ever.” He specifically pointed to Article 2 and Article 51 of the UN Charter.

He pointed to Article 2 of the UN Charter, which requires states to exhaust diplomatic means before resorting to war. The Omanis were mediating between the US and Iran. Oman confirmed that talks were moving forward.

Secondly, he pointed to Article 51, which allows self-defence only in the event of an armed attack.

Finkelstein explained that there is a narrow exception for a preemptive strike, like if missiles were already in the air or planes were on route and couldn’t be turned back. “None of those applied in this situation,” he said.

So let’s ask Western media: why is state terrorism called “strategy,” and why are UN violations treated as a “dilemma”?

Featured image via the Canary

If the above headline makes no sense to you, it’s because you’re unfamiliar with the tradition of egg rolling. This is a game played around Easter in which children roll hard-boiled eggs down a big hill. The reason you’ve never heard of it is because it’s localised to Scotland and the Lancashire city of Preston.

It’s hitting the news now, because PETA have stepped in to ask that we use potatoes instead of eggs. And as a Prestonian myself, I want to say this is the worst thing to ever happen to someone in the Easter period (barring the crucifixion, of course).

PETA is urging a city council to “modernise” their famous Easter egg roll – by swapping traditional hens’ eggs for dyed potatoes.https://t.co/pdCFY6vRaE

— ITV Granada Reports (@GranadaReports) March 31, 2026

The spud, the bad, and the eggly

Wikipedia notes the following about egg rolling:

In Lancashire there are annual egg rolling competitions at Holcombe Hill near Ramsbottom and Avenham Park in Preston. Egg rolling has been a tradition at Avenham Park for hundreds of years, but in recent years chocolate eggs have been used.

We were already using chocolate eggs when I grew up in the 90’s, so this is nothing new. If it rained, we used to roll them down the stairs at home. When I grew up, I was baffled to learn that most people eat their chocolate eggs without first rolling them down some sort of incline.

Wikipedia adds:

Traditionally, the eggs were wrapped in onion skins and boiled to give them a mottled, gold appearance (although today they usually are painted), and the children competed to see who could roll their egg the farthest. There is an old Lancashire legend that says the broken eggshells should be crushed carefully afterward, or these would be stolen and used as boats by witches.

No one believes the above now, of course, because it’s well known Preston witches build their boats from fiberglass.

Getting to the story at hand, Blog Preston reported:

An animal rights organisation has urged Preston City Council to swap eggs for dyed potatoes for the annual tradition of egg-rolling.

People have been visiting Avenham Park to roll eggs down the hill for more than 150 years and thousands of people attend every year.

But PETA has written to Preston City Council urging them to switch eggs for dyed ‘Easter potatoes’ – despite the majority of people now rolling chocolate eggs rather than boiled eggs.

In PETA’s own words:

Children love animals and would be sad to learn that the eggs used for fun and games at Preston’s egg rolling event come from tormented hens who live miserable lives on Britain’s farms.

Easter should be a time of renewal and joy for all sentient beings – and that means hens, too.

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There are a couple of problems with PETA’s stance. The first is they’re several decades too late, because people mostly use chocolate eggs now. The second is there are no inspectors checking attendees’ eggs to ensure they’re up to code. People just rock up and roll; it’s incredibly informal like that.

As Preston City Council said:

The event does not prescribe the type of egg to be rolled, and visitors have the choice as to what they roll down the hill.

This isn’t the first time that PETA has attached itself to a baffling campaign anyway:

Dear @peta

As the parent of a child with Autism, kindly get in the bin.

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What is your issue with people who are neurodivergent?

This is next level ableism and flat out lies. pic.twitter.com/G8gvVgsRhE

— Alex Tiffin (@RespectIsVital) January 5, 2021

If you’ve read this and would like to know more about Preston, our other big controversy is that historians keep asking our promoters stop claiming Toto wrote their smash hit Africa in one of our nightclubs. We’re also the birthplace of R2-D2 actor Kenny Baker (RIP).

Featured image via Visit Preston

On 25 March 2026, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly voted to recognise the Transatlantic Slave Trade as the ‘gravest crime against humanity’. It was a move that many hoped would increase legitimacy for reparations and justice for the descendants and the countries affected by the trafficking of 12 to 17 million African people to the Americas between 1502 and 1888.

The resolution follows over three years of campaigning – particularly by Ghana, which brought the resolution forward – and has been supported by 123 countries. It calls for discussions around reparations, compensation and systemic reforms.

UN secretary general António Guterres said:

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was a crime against humanity that struck at the core of personhood, broke up families and devastated communities… I welcome the steps countries are taking to apologise for their role in the evil of slavery and to join an honest dialogue about its lasting consequences…

Controversy

The UN declaration has unsurprisingly sparked opposition around the world, particularly from former colonial powers in Western Europe and the United States, which took part in and benefitted from the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Only three countries – the United States, Israel and Argentina – voted against the declaration. 52 other countries, most of them from the EU and Britain, abstained from the vote.

The U.S. Ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council Dan Negrea argued:

The United States strongly objects to this cynical usage of historical wrongs as a leverage point in an attempt to reallocate modern resources to people and nations who are distantly related to the historical victims.

Negrea’s position deliberately ignores and downplays the longstanding impact that the slave trade has had on international relations, as well as the impoverishment, economic and political inequality that plagues many Black communities today.

Others argued that if reparations are being demanded of Western nations, then the same should be demanded of African states and societies that partook in selling Africans to Europeans:

Britain should not pay reparations.

We abstained from voting against paying reparations for the transatlantic slave trade in yet another egregious example of this Labour Government’s desperate attempt to curry favour.

The transatlantic slave trade was a deplorable and horrific… pic.twitter.com/yYCYunWzOM

— Ben Obese-Jecty MP (@BenObeseJecty) March 26, 2026

Within a class context, there is an argument for this. But such arguments are often made in order to deflect from Western/European accountability.

There are families across West Africa that profited from the slave trade, who probably should face their own accountability. But this will likely come after the process of decolonisation in these African societies is fully complete and the power of slave-trading families’ descendants and Western-backed puppet leaders is broken.

This would require Africa to be fully liberated from the Western sphere, which is economically and politically against the interests of the West.

The reality of British slavery

In the UK, the leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, argued that the UK should have voted against the resolution and described the UK position as an act of ‘cowardice’.

Russia, China and Iran vote with others to demand trillions in reparations from UK taxpayers…and the Labour government abstain!

Britain led the fight to end slavery.

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Why didn’t Starmer’s representative vote against this? Ignorance…or cowardice?

We shouldn’t be paying for a… https://t.co/nWlzBxhb5w

— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) March 26, 2026

Her position reflects UK’s mainstream position on slavery, which overemphasises the country’s role in ending the slave trade rather than its role in perpetuating and expanding it.

This obscures the horrific reality of the UK’s role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its historical and economic impact, which continues to affect former British colonies today, particularly in the Caribbean.

In the 18th century, Britain was shipping more Africans than any other Western power. Plantations in the British Caribbean had become the most heavily enslaved societies on Earth at the time, resulting in the demographic transformation of huge portions of the Caribbean. To put this into perspective, between 1640 and 1807, Britain trafficked 3.4 million Africans across the Atlantic Ocean, representing the second-highest amount, just behind Portugal/Brazil.

Slavery was an important part of the British economy. Profits from plantations boosted capital accumulation, which helped to expand industrial production and accelerate the Industrial Revolution. Wealth generated from the slave trade was invested in businesses, banks, ports, institutions and entire communities. It was transformative on a scale very few understand.

The significance of the UN resolution

Many people believe that the UN resolution is part of a growing political trend that is calling for reparations and justice for countries and communities affected by the slave trade.

A few years ago, the Netherlands apologised for its role in slavery, which I reported on as part of a wider trend among European states to reposition their relations with formally colonised countries. As power slowly shifts to the Global South, the pressure and incentives to name and label slavery as a crime against humanity will grow.

Cynically, an argument could be made that the UN resolution is more about preserving the declining influence and legitimacy of the liberal world order. Countries that are products of the slave trade (particularly those in South America, the Caribbean and West Africa) increasingly choose to build deeper relations with China, India and Russia – powerful countries without the historical baggage and legacy of Western European barbarism and exploitation.

But Western countries still want to control the narrative around accountability. Ultimately, they also want to control the terms of any reparations, because they know that acknowledgment could easily spiral into calls to seize the very economic foundations that their modern economies have been built on.

Can the UN make any meaningful difference?

The question I have is whether this declaration will make any long-term meaningful difference that is tangible to African diaspora communities.

I am not alone in this. Professor Kehinde Andrews, a long-time opponent and critic of the UN, views the resolution as a distraction. He has reiterated his position that Western liberal institutions, like the UN, remain arms of imperialism that act in a more covert and ‘friendly’ way:

‘You left your mind in Africa if you think the UN is recognising slavery as a “crime against humanity’ in 2026′. New @makeitplainorg pod where I warn about the dangers of reparations when it comes from CARICOM, ADOS and big companies. Watch https://t.co/i9Y9W4qO5m pic.twitter.com/cWyelke4Eb

— Kehinde Andrews (@kehinde_andrews) March 28, 2026

Another issue is the fact that the UN does not have any power to enforce reparations or reparatory justice. The fact is that many former slave-trading nations – such as the US, France and the UK – sit on the security council of the UN and wield substantial influence over it. This includes veto powers that will always limit the extent to which the UN could act on issues like this.

However, supporters of the resolution argue that the UN still matters. The fact that the resolution has 123 countries supporting it, representing the majority of the world, serves as a compass for the direction the world is going in, particularly in terms of the the Global South’s relationship to the West.

This relationship is likely to become more tense with time. Countries have indicated their desire to correct historical crimes upon which Western countries have built themselves on. It is possible that this won’t end with the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Western crimes of colonialism and genocide could eventually follow.

Legitimacy in crisis

For Western countries, legitimacy is key to not being left behind. But an inability to face accountability and transform their relationship with the Global South could eventually put liberal institutions like the UN in crisis, if Global South countries start building their own international institutions.

From the West’s support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza to its inability to condemn US imperialism against Venezuela, Cuba and Iran, Western legitimacy is already in crisis. Combined with the inability of Western countries to accept the UN declaration of the Transatlantic Slave Trade as the gravest crime against humanity, this sends a message that, from 1502 to 2026, the West is still the same and unwilling to change and evolve.