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Healey Confirms UK Only Acting Defensively Despite Iranian Attacks on British Servicemen and Cyprus Base

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Healey Confirms UK Only Acting Defensively Despite Iranian Attacks on British Servicemen and Cyprus Base

Healey Confirms UK Only Acting Defensively Despite Iranian Attacks on British Servicemen and Cyprus Base

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John Healey condemns ‘indiscriminate’ attacks on Bahrain

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1 March 2026

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John Healey condemns 'indiscriminate' attacks on Bahrain

On Trevor Phillips this morning, UK defence minister John Healey condemned ‘indiscriminate’ attacks on Bahrain by Iran. This is despite widespread reports confirming it was a US military base. However, Healey said nothing about the blatant indiscriminate attacks by Israel that have brutally murdered almost 150 women and children, bombing a girls’ elementary school in Iran.

Nevertheless, it’s no surprise as he seems perfectly happy to ignore the flagrant breach of international law in the US and Israel’s war of aggression on Iran. He even went so far as to suggest that the regime ‘lashing out’ in the Middle East is Iran.

Apparently murdering dozens of schoolgirls isn’t illegal in the eyes of our defence minister.

John Healey: US-Israeli bombing campaign is a ‘positive action’

In the interview, Healey was asked about the legality and legitimacy of the unexpected attack by Israel and the US on Iran. He didn’t state it was legal, clearly wary to show that level of support, but notably said he didn’t disagree with Phillips that the act was ‘positive’. Unsurprisingly, Phillips failed to bring up the Israeli bombing of a girls’ school in Iran, most of those killed between the ages of 7 and 12.

The double standard is hard to ignore, as Saul Staniforth highlighted on X:

As a result, it’s hard to avoid the painful reality that it appears John Healey either is undisturbed by the majority of those murdered being women and children in Iran on day one.

Or is his omission indirectly confirming the attack by Israel and supported by the US was ‘discriminate’ so deliberately? Given the advanced technology that has been on clear display from Israel in its brutal genocide on Palestine and acts of aggression on Lebanon, it’s incredibly hard to accept it as ‘accidental’.

According to international law, the Israel-US attack on Iran represents an illegal, unprovoked and aggressive act. In light of that, Iran very much has the legal right to defend itself. This is why it is ever more crucial for western leaders to remember the rule of law to prevent this escalating even further across the region. After all, I can’t imagine a western leader would hold back if a girls’ school had been bombed on our own territory.

Selective condemnation

This should come as no surprise that our leaders seem reluctant to defend and uphold international law. They’ve done so ever since October 7th, 2023, refusing to step on the wrong side of the rogue US President.

We wrote yesterday about Thornberry’s surprise recollection of the rule of law, declaring the attack on Iran was ‘illegal’. Whilst it’s a positive development, it also highlights how selective western government officials are in determining legality of military campaigns conducted by allies.

Our own Joe Glenton wrote:

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She’s not entirely wrong. The strikes are illegal and ill-advised. Their consequences are likely to be severe not just for the wider region, but also for the global economy.

But still, there are a couple of thorny issues we must first address.

Thornberry has herself previously defended Israel’s genocidal misconduct in Gaza. In 2024, when asked on BBC if Israel cutting off food and electricity in Gaza was “within international law”:

Thornberry, with a straight-face, said:

I think Israel has an absolute right to defend itself against terrorism…

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We do not consent to WWIII

Thankfully, many more have been loud in their condemnation of these attacks and those who had been complicit in Gaza are stepping out of turn with their colleagues, such as Thornberry. Once again, as we saw with the genocide on Gaza, ordinary people are overwhelmingly able to understand the rule of law without a need to selectively apply it. This highlights that those who have power have precious little sense of principle.

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As Zarah Sultana stated on X, we need a mass movement to stop the world careening into WWIII and we need that now.

Featured image via the Canary

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Why You Shouldn’t Grant Any App ‘Full Access’ To Your Phone Camera Roll

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1 March 2026

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You don't want every app to gain access to your most private memories.

When you decide to upload a photo on to your Instagram or social media, you will face a choice: Are you going to let the app see your entire camera roll or not?

Many of the apps that we use every day will ask if you want to grant the app full access to your phone’s images and videos ― and you should think twice before permitting this, no matter how convenient it is, privacy experts say.

“When you limit access to only select photos, you’re both … protecting yourself from accidentally uploading multiple pictures you do not intend, and ensuring that the app can’t access more than you want, either by accident or malicious intent,” said Thorin Klosowski, a security and privacy activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Your camera roll doesn’t just have fun photos from vacations and pictures of your families, it’s also a record of who you are and what you like. Many of us often take photos for verification that reveal our identities like passports and new credit cards. These are the kind of images scammers want to exploit. In 2023, researchers discovered that malicious apps were scanning users’ image galleries to hunt for crypto wallet access recovery phrases. Google and Apple later removed these apps from their stores.

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You don't want every app to gain access to your most private memories.

milorad kravic via Getty Images

You don’t want every app to gain access to your most private memories.

It’s definitely more inconvenient to search through albums to find that one photo you want to post instead of having the full library within an app, but that’s the point. That extra time you take to select one photo forces you to think about what exactly you want to share with an app that may compromise your privacy later.

Meta, in particular, has a long history of concerning privacy advocates. In 2022, Facebook gave police private messages of a mother and daughter facing criminal charges for allegedly carrying out an abortion.

“That’s an especially striking example of how Meta is willing to share data with law enforcement … to continue chipping away at Americans’ privacy and civil rights,” said Will Owen, communication director for the nonprofit Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.

Last year, a Facebook feature asked users to grant access to their phone’s camera roll in order to automatically suggest AI-edited versions of their photos. The pop-up prompt would ask: “Allow cloud processing to get creative ideas from your camera roll?” However, if users permitted this, they also opted into having their images and facial features analyzed by Meta’s AI ― which upset some users. This feature no longer appears available to users within Facebook. Meta did not respond to HuffPost questions about the status of this feature.

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In general, you should always double-check what you’re letting an app see from your phone. On Facebook, you can do this by going to the Facebook app, choosing “Settings & Privacy” and then selecting “Camera roll sharing suggestions” within “Settings.” From there, you can toggle on or off the option to “Get camera roll suggestions when you’re browsing Facebook.”

Refusing to grant full access to any one app is one small way to stop yourself from sharing images you would regret later by accident or on purpose.

Klosowski said he’s seen “countless stories over the years of people just accidentally uploading their entire photo libraries to social media because of confusing prompts.”

When you refuse to grant your favourite social media app full access to your camera roll, it will take you more steps to find and select your preferred image, and this will be a bit more of a hassle. “I realise people find the photo picker cumbersome because the user experience is kind of awful,” Klosowski said.

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“But a side effect is it also puts a little speed bump in front of you while you’re thinking about whether you should post that photo to begin with, which isn’t always a bad thing,” he continued.

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backlash after interviewer asks why it’s attacking US bases

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1 March 2026

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backlash after interviewer asks why it’s attacking US bases

Social media users have responded with blistering incredulity, outrage and bitter mockery to a US interviewer asking a spokesman why Iran is bombing US bases. His response:

Um, because you’re bombing us from those bases? What do you want me to say?

Could anything better sum up the dishonesty and stupidity of western media and the entitled arrogance of the US? Even US respondents thought so too:

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Others pointed out how the idiot question entirely fits within the usual western ‘mainstream’ media framing of western imperialism and aggression:

But among the many sane respondents, just a few demonstrated that some parts of the US population are no less stupid or blinkered than the media that spoon-feeds them this nonsense. Some were outraged that a spokesman from Iran should be interviewed by US media at all.

Others thought they were being clever by claiming the bombers had come from ships, not from those US bases the ships use. As if in war, you only get to retaliate against the parts of your enemy that are directly involved.

Canary readers please, if you’re ever in a fight and someone punches you with their right hand, you can only hit back on that same right hand — anywhere else is not fair play.

Still others just demonstrated how lacking a gag reflex they are when it comes to swallowing MAGA BS:

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And others pointed out how the US allows itself to be led by the nose by the one actual nuclear-armed rogue state in the region:

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Two corrupt states with nuclear weapons and idiots and liars for bosses and mouthpieces are threatening one that is trying to exist flanked by the nuclear armed idiot-liars. One televised interview question was all it took to (again) put a spotlight on it.

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Healey: British Government Now Considering Raising Terrorist Threat Level

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1 March 2026

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Healey: British Government Now Considering Raising Terrorist Threat Level

Healey: British Government Now Considering Raising Terrorist Threat Level

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Exclusive footage shows Iranian missiles over Doha

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1 March 2026

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Exclusive footage shows Iranian missiles over Doha

Exclusive footage provided to Skwawkbox direct from migrant workers in Doha, Qatar shows large fires from Iranian missile strikes — and continuing barrages overnight from 28 February into the early hours of 1 March 2026.

Iran continues to strike US bases in Doha and Bahrain in retaliation for illegal and unprovoked US and Israeli attacks on its people:

While the air defences in Qatar appear to intercept some of the barrage, other missiles are clearly getting through. The US has tried to deny significant damage to its bases, but at least some of its radar facilities in the region have been destroyed.

Featured image via the Canary

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Many of Trump’s own voters didn’t want to attack Iran. Now he has to win them over.

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1 March 2026

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Many of Trump’s own voters didn’t want to attack Iran. Now he has to win them over.

President Donald Trump’s overnight strikes are forcing a hypothetical debate into reality.

And a president with extraordinary control over his party’s base will test how far his supporters will follow him on an issue that polling showed divided his coalition.

Just half of 2024 Trump voters, 50 percent, supported military action in a POLITICO poll last month — but 30 percent opposed it. Those fractures, combined with largely unified opposition from Democrats, meant Americans broadly did not want an attack on Iran.

In the January POLITICO poll, nearly half of Americans, 45 percent, said the United States should not take military action in Iran; fewer than one-third, 31 percent, said it should. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted last weekend similarly found broad public opposition to military action in Iran.

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The stakes are particularly high for a Republican Party already staring down a difficult midterm landscape, where even small defections from their winning 2024 coalition could carry outsized consequences.

Part of the challenge for Trump is that support for military intervention in Iran was strongest among Trump’s base — and far weaker outside of it. A 61 percent majority of Trump voters who self-identified as “MAGA Republicans” said they support military action, according to The POLITICO Poll conducted Jan. 16 to 19, when Trump was ramping up his rhetoric against Iran but an outright attack remained hypothetical. That’s much higher than the 42 percent of Trump voters who do not identify as “MAGA” who said the same.

That leaves Trump navigating an evolving issue where support within his coalition — at least before the strikes — was real but not overwhelming and where overall public opposition outweighed support.

Democrats were largely unified. Two-thirds of voters who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 said the U.S. should not intervene in Iran, while just 18 percent said it should, the POLITICO survey conducted by Public First found. The Economist/YouGov found 76 percent of Democrats opposed an attack. That Democratic unity is a warning sign for the GOP: It means that before the strikes, there were not enough pro-intervention Democrats to offset the anti-intervention Republicans.

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Trump has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to reshape Republican public opinion, bringing his voters along on issues including trade and foreign policy. Whether that pattern holds here may depend on how the conflict unfolds.

“The political risk depends on the outcome,” Michigan-based Republican strategist Jason Roe told POLITICO. “If we break Iran without terrorist attacks coming to America or harm coming to allies in the region, it will be a political win for Trump. … If this expands into a protracted conflict, or ends up with troops on the ground, it will be a liability.”

That dynamic underscores the broader tension inside the modern GOP — a party base deeply loyal to the president and largely unified around an “America First” prerogative, now being tested by his own foreign policy decisions.

The divide also illustrates the longtime debate within the Republican Party between the hawks favoring a more aggressive posture on the world stage and those skeptical of intervention.

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Mercedes Schlapp, a senior fellow at the Conservative Political Action Conference, said the length and severity of conflict could determine how Trump’s MAGA base responds.

“I think that the MAGA base will make it very loud and clear to the President that they will not necessarily agree, if it becomes a situation that it becomes a prolonged war,” she said on C-SPAN’s Ceasefire earlier this week.

Polling was already showing early signs of skepticism about overseas entanglements, including among Republicans. A February POLITICO Poll found that 47 percent of Americans said the U.S. government is too focused on international issues and not focused enough on domestic ones, while roughly one-quarter said it is striking the right balance.

The question did not reference Trump directly. Even so, 41 percent of his 2024 voters said the U.S. government is too focused on international issues, including about half — 49 percent — of Trump voters who do not consider themselves MAGA Republicans.

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Those non-MAGA Trump voters are especially important for the GOP heading into November, and the president’s ability to overcome their initial opposition could prove crucial to maintaining control of Congress. Otherwise, if they swing back to Democrats — or sit out the midterms — Trump’s base alone is not enough to carry his party to midterm successes.

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Why Does My Mind Race At Night? It Could Be Your Body Clock

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1 March 2026

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Why Does My Mind Race At Night? It Could Be Your Body Clock

Researchers increasingly think that our Circadian rhythm, or body clock, matters more to our sleep than we realise. In fact, one study suggested our internal rhythm might matter more than sleep duration when it comes to feeling rested.

And in an Australian paper, which was published in Sleep Medicine, researchers found that people who struggle with racing thoughts that keep them up at night seem to have differences in their Circadian rhythm.

“Unlike good sleepers, whose cognitive state shifted predictably from daytime problem-solving to nighttime disengagement, those with insomnia failed to downshift as strongly,” the study’s lead researcher, Professor Kurt Lushington, said.

Why might people with racing thoughts at night have different body clocks?

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In this research, scientists placed 32 adults (half of whom had insomnia; the other half were healthy sleepers) in an environment with as few external body clock cues as possible.

They were placed in a bed in a dimly-lit room for 24 hours, with carefully-measured food and activity. This was done to isolate the participant’s Circadian rhythms.

The scientists noticed that, even with no factors like sunlight, most participants’ body clock worked roughly in tandem in the daytime: their mental acitivty was highest in the morning and tapered off in the afternoon.

But among the insomniacs, whose racing thoughts kept them up at night, some differences were noted later on.

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Not only was their “cognitive peak” – the time at which their mind was busiest – 6.5 hours later, on average, than those without insomnia, but, Dr Lushington said, “Their thought patterns stayed more daytime-like in the nighttime hours when the brain should be quietening”.

Sleep, he added, is “about the brain disengaging from goal-directed thought and emotional involvement.

“Our study shows that in insomnia, this disengagement is blunted and delayed, likely due to circadian rhythm abnormalities. This means that the brain doesn’t receive strong signals to ‘power down’ at night.”

Is there anything I can do to stop my brain racing at night?

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According to study co-author Professor Jill Dorrian, this research could help to guide insomnia treatments which focus on sufferers’ body clocks in the future.

“These include timed light exposure and structured daily routines that may restore the natural day-night variation in thought patterns,” she said (sleep experts have previously recommended getting some outdoor morning light if you can, as this helps to regulate our Circadian rhythm).

Additionally, Professor Dorrian ended, “Practising mindfulness may also help quieten the mind at night”.

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UK Defence Secretary John Healey Silent On Iran Strikes Support

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1 March 2026

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UK Defence Secretary John Healey Silent On Iran Strikes Support

John Healey has refused to say whether the UK government backs the US and Israeli bombing of Iran which killed the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The defence secretary would only confirm that Britain “played no part” in the military action.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard confirmed in the early hours of Sunday that Khamenei had died, and said it would launch its “most-intense offensive operation” against American and Israeli targets in response.

That led to Donald Trump warning they “better not do that, because if they do we will hit them with a force that has never been seen before”.

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Countries across the Middle East have already been attacked by Iran as tensions in the region threaten to explode into a full-blown war

Nevertheless, Healey refused to be drawn on the government’s position when asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.

She asked the cabinet minister whether he thought the American and Israeli action was “reckless or do you think it was right”?

Healey said: “We played no part in these strikes as Britain.”

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But Kuenssberg told him: “We know that, you’ve said that already. But this is a moment of history.

“Everyone watching this morning will want to know and expect to know from their government is Britain on the side of those two countries who have killed Iran’s Supreme Leader?”

Healey said: “I think people watching will want to know now, today, that Britain is on top of what’s necessary to do what we can to keep them safe, to reinforce regional stability, prevent further escalation, and that’s my task and that’s my priority as defence secretary of the UK.”

The US and Israel described Saturday’s attacks on Iran as a “pre-emptive” strike against a Tehran government intent on developing nuclear weapons.

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It retaliation from Iran, with strikes reported in several Gulf countries including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

In a statement from Downing Street on Saturday, Keir Starmer said the UK “played no role” in the strikes on Iran.

“But we have long been clear – the regime in Iran is utterly abhorrent,” he added.

“They have murdered thousands of their own people, brutally crushed dissent, and sought to destabilise the region.”

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Starmer said Iran “must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon” and called for the resumption of diplomatic efforts to prevent that from happening.

He said: “Iran can end this now. They should refrain from further strikes, give up their weapons programmes, and cease the appalling violence and repression against the Iranian people – who deserve the right to determine their own future, in line with our longstanding position.

“That is the route to de-escalation and back to the negotiating table.”

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“Few people will mourn the Ayatollah’s death” – Healey

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1 March 2026

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"Few people will mourn the Ayatollah's death" - Healey

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Bahrain citizens cheer as Iranian missiles strike US base

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1 March 2026

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Bahrain citizens cheer as Iranian missiles strike US base

Bahrainis have been filmed cheering “like it’s New Year’s fireworks” as a new barrage of Iranian missiles hit a US base in Bahrain:

The footage brings to mind scenes from the June 2025 ’12-day war’ in which Palestinians cheered as they watched Iranian missiles slam into their oppressor’s military facilities.

The small island in the Persian Gulf, which was a British protectorate (also read: colony) in the 19th century, has a majority Shia population and a Sunni king. In 2011, Bahrain saw a popular uprising violently crushed by an army from Saudi Arabia and its allies, which remain stationed (also read as occupying) on the island.

Iran’s strikes on the US and Israel are in retaliation for the axis’s unprovoked attacks on Iran, which murdered hundreds on 28 February 2026, including at least 85 schoolgirls and their teachers.

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Featured image via the Canary

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