Politics
Minister Questions Jim Ratcliffes Patriotism Over Immigration Comments
A Labour minister has questioned Manchester United co-owner Jim Ratcliffe’s patriotism after he claimed “the UK is being colonised” by immigrants.
Jake Richards pointed out that Ratcliffe “has moved to Monaco to save £4-billion worth of tax” and suggested he should therefore be ignored.
Ratcliffe, who is also the founder and chairman of petro-chemical giants Ineos, told Sky News: “You can’t have an economy with nine million people on benefits and huge levels of immigrants coming in.
“I mean, the UK is being colonised. It’s costing too much money. The UK has been colonised by immigrants.”
He also wrongly claimed the UK’s population had increased by 12 million since 2020. The true figure is closer to three million.
Keir Starmer called Ratcliffe’s remarks “offensive and wrong” and said he should apologise.
On BBC Breakfast on Thursday morning, Richards, who is a justice minister, said Ratcliffe’s comments were “completely wrong”.
He said: “It’s completely absurd to suggest that our country is somehow being invaded or taken over by immigration.
“It’s offensive because many people come to this country, work incredibly hard, often in public services, especially our NHS and our social care, and to suggest that they are somehow coming here to take over is offensive too.”
The minister it was was “perfectly legitimate” for people to raise concerns about immigration, which the government had pledged to bring down.
But he added: “The way in which we talk about that, and the way in which we discuss and label immigrations and immigrants who come to our country and contribute has to be done very carefully.
“Jim Ratcliffe’s comments fail that test miserably, coupled with the fact that Jim Ratcliffe has moved to Monaco to save £4 billion-worth of tax in this country. One might question whether he is the patriot we need to comment on this issue.”
Ratcliffe did receive the backing of Liz Truss, who was forced to quit as prime minister after 49 days after crashing the economy.
She said: “Ratcliffe is right. Now let’s see him and fellow business leaders step up and help fix the country. We need their skills. In particular they need to replace the senior bureaucrats who have failed.”
Politics
Politics Home | Andy Burnham Says Labour’s By-Election Defeat Shows “Chasm” Between Westminster And Voters
(Alamy)
3 min read
Andy Burnham has said that Labour’s historic defeat at the Gorton and Denton by-election demonstrated the “chasm” between Westminster and the public.
In his first public intervention since Labour lost the Greater Manchester contest to the Greens last week, Burnham said the result ought to be a “code red for Westminster politics”.
Labour had controlled the constituency for over 100 years before falling to third place behind the Greens and Reform UK last week.
Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, wanted to be Labour’s candidate and was widely seen as the party’s most likely chance of keeping hold of the seat, but was blocked by senior Labour officials, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
As well as being a bruising result for Labour, it was another blow to Westminster’s historic, two-party system, with neither of the top two parties being Labour or the Conservatives.
Speaking at an event in London hosted by the Centre for Cities think tank on Wednesday, Burnham said: “What I want to say today is that the time has most definitely come for a serious conversation about our political system and its pervading culture, particularly so in the aftermath of the Gorton and Denton by-election.
“It revealed the full depth of the chasm between people and Westminster politics. I don’t think anybody can seriously dispute that statement.”
The Labour defeat has triggered a debate within the party about what direction the party should go in to rebuild its public support.
Many Labour MPs believe their campaign strategy was misguided, focusing too much on attacking Zack Polanski’s Greens instead of setting out a positive case for what the Starmer government had achieved in office.
Burnham warned that the country was falling into an “extremely dangerous” place and argued Westminster needed fundamental change. He cited recent research by the think tank More in Common, which found almost three in five voters believe the cost of living crisis will never end.
The Greater Manchester Mayor criticised Whitehall for failing devolve further powers to the UK regions and said it looks like the centre of government doesn’t “actually want growth” outside of London.
“I’m getting to the point where I just refuse to spend any more of my working week making the case to Whitehall for more devolved powers, because I spend way too much of my time doing that.
“Why aren’t they just looking at the evidence, getting behind us, and getting on with it? It just makes you think they don’t actually want growth everywhere.
“They actually care more about holding on to something down here in their silos than actually getting the whole of the country growing. So, we need Whitehall reform, most definitely. But we also need Westminster reform if we are to bring Manchesterism to life everywhere.”
Burnham renewed his call for major constitutional reform, including a proportional voting system and replacing the House of Lords with an elected senate of regions and nations.
Nigel Farage is clearly struggling to accept Reform’s defeat in Gorton and Denton. So much so that the racist little fuckwit is now proposing an end to Commonwealth voting, and scaling back postal votes.
And, as the Canary reported yesterday, Farage’s swerve to a Trump-style denial of an entirely legal process is a worrying sign for democracy.
Farage: Scary, scary Commonwealth
In his Mail article, Farage laid the groundwork for his call to end Commonwealth voting:
Yes, I know Britain has a historic association with the Commonwealth.
But if we do not, then I fear that what we have seen in Gorton and Denton will play itself out in many areas where local electoral elections are taking place in May.
I’m sorry, but surely it is only right that British citizens should be able to vote in British elections on British issues – not have international problems that are taking place thousands of miles away brought into campaigning.
Ok, so there’s a few things here – just for accuracy, you understand. That ‘historic association’ is ‘hundreds of years of violent colonial subjugation’. ‘What we have seen’ in Gorton and Denton is ‘Reform losing’. However, what he means is ‘electoral theft’, which is something he made up.
And yes, candidates campaign on foreign issues. It’s part of an MP’s job. That’s why we have a fucking foreign secretary, for Christ’s sake.
Farage also wrote regarding Commonwealth voting:
in my opinion this is having a terrifying effect on the British electoral process.
I am well aware many people will find this to be shattering news.
Some will even find it difficult to believe. But I have checked this out legally and I am right.
Now, suspicious cunt that I am, I’d point out that Farage is being very ambiguous about what exactly he’s checked out legally.
Is it that Commonwealth voting has a terrifying effect on British elections? No, it can’t be that – he stated that the terrifying effect was his opinion. Rather, is it merely that people from the Commonwealth who have leave to enter the UK can vote?
Because one of those things would be very scary to Daily Mail readers, and would get them all wound up. The other would be, you know, actually true.
Commonwealth voting
So, Farage now has a new attack line on UK democracy. He’s running around spouting lines like:
I do believe for national elections they should be voted in by British voters only… otherwise we get a really very, very perverse influence on our politics.
That ‘only Brits should vote in British elections’ might be very convincing if his audience is only half paying attention (or racist). ‘Yeah, why would we let foreign nationals vote in our elections?’ kind of thing.
So, let’s take a look. When exactly can one of those scary foreigners vote in a UK election?
First up, background information. The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 56 countries, including some 2.7 billion people. The vast majority of the countries were former victims of violent British colonialism, including Kenya, Rwanda, Pakistan, and Barbados.
As to which Commonwealth citizens can vote in the UK, the rules differ slightly depending on which UK country we’re talking about. Let’s use England as our example, given that the by-election in question was English.
The Electoral Commission explains that:
Qualifying Commonwealth citizens are entitled to register as Parliamentary and as local government electors provided that on the relevant date they also fulfil the age and residence requirements for registration and are not subject to any other legal incapacity.
And further:
A person is a qualifying Commonwealth citizen if they do not require permission to enter or stay in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man or they do require permission to enter or stay in the UK but have been granted such permission, or are treated as having been granted such permission.
Ok, so a Commonwealth citizen can vote here if they live here. They can live here because they’re a citizen of a country Britain once ransacked to claim as its own. And again – they now live here.
A vote seems like less than the bare minimum the UK can offer.
Restricting democracy for definitely non-evil reasons
So, in response to this dire threat to our democracy, what is Reform planning to do?
Speaking at a press conference in London, Farage stated that his party would ban Commonwealth citizens from voting in UK elections. He later remembered that Ireland exists, and clarified that Irish citizens could still vote in the UK under his plans.
He also announced his intention to massively restrict postal voting. Postal votes, he claimed, should only be granted to people with a “good reason”, because postal voting is:
massively open to fraud and intimidation.
In his opinion, those good reasons included working abroad, being disabled, or being an older person.
The Electoral Commision website explains that:
In-person voters were more likely to say that they voted using their preferred method (96%) compared to postal voters (91%), suggesting that some did choose to vote by post out of necessity.
We asked postal voters why they chose to vote by post and most (32%) said it was because they did not want to vote in person. However, some said it was because they did not have time to go to their polling station on 4 July (13%), were away on holiday (14%) or found it difficult to access or travel to their polling station (18%).
So, most postal voters would already vote in person if they actually could. However, travelling to a polling station can be difficult, either because of time or distance.
In other words, Farage’s plans would massively disenfranchise busy working people and those in remote rural areas. You know, those people Reform keeps lying through their teeth about caring for.
As I wrote previously, Farage’s false claims of electoral fraud are a method of voter suppression. Once you can make the public doubt the democratic process, you can throw out any election result that doesn’t suit you.
And of course, the elections that don’t suit Farage are the elections that Farage doesn’t win. Don’t just take my word for it though – Georgie Laming, Hope Not Hate’s campaign director, pointed out that Farage has a:
track record of seeking to undermine elections and the wider democratic process.
Like his close ally Donald Trump, Farage has regularly disputed election defeats, including in Oldham in 2015, Peterborough in 2019 and Rochdale in 2024.
The fact that the mainstream UK media are suddenly taking Farage’s claims even vaguely seriously is proof of just how open to fascism our country has become.
Featured image via the Canary
As the embers of WW III were heard crackling into life across the East, Mr Speaker began PMQs reminding Members of the need for good temper and moderation in their language and the need for respectful debate. “Pete Wishart!” “Thank you Mr Speaker,” he began, Parliament’s favourite Scot. “The campaign slogan in Scotland may be…
It is hard to imagine what university-aged Iranians – many of whom have been putting their lives on the line in defiance of their nation’s brutal theocratic regime – would make of their counterparts in the UK. Indeed, while thousands of young Iranians danced in the streets following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a US-Israeli strike last week, students at Britain’s top institutions appear to be having a much harder time coming to terms with his demise.
Several student-led Ahlulbayt Islamic Societies (AbSocs) in universities across the UK have paid mournful tribute to the late dictator. The AbSoc at the University of Greenwich shared information about a vigil for Khamenei with its members, which was held on Sunday in London’s Maida Vale. Greenwich had previously held a meet-and-greet event, at which bookmarks depicting Khamenei were scattered among sweets. The Muslim Student Council (MSC), which is responsible for overseeing many UK AbSocs, said it had cancelled a planned iftar event out of ‘respect and in honour of our beloved shuhada [martyrs]’. The same post-featured a black and white image of Iran’s former supreme leader. Students at Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds and Manchester similarly expressed their ‘condolences’ for the tyrant.
Perhaps the most excessive outpouring of grief came from the University College London’s AbSoc, which posted a high-school-yearbook-style image of Khamenei and lamented the ‘unimaginable loss for the ummah [global Muslim community]’ that his ‘martyrdom’ has brought. The group went on to remind members that, even following the passing of their ‘beloved sayed’ (a ‘religious guide’ and ‘spiritual reference point’), the ‘resistance’ is far from over. Shia Muslims in the West, it said, ‘must remain aware and ready’. Ready for what, one wonders?
You do not have to support the US intervention in Iran to be alarmed by the students shedding tears for the ayatollah. Under his rule, Iranian authorities violently suppressed dissent. They arrested, tortured and executed those who spoke out against the Islamic Republic. Mandatory hijab-wearing is imposed by law, with security forces routinely capturing and punishing women for dress-code violations. In 2022, 22-year-old Kurd Mahsa Amini died after being detained by Iran’s morality police, sparking the Woman, Life, Freedom protests across the country. Amini had just been admitted to a university in Urmia to study biology. Yet in 2026, students at a top London university openly celebrate the regime that killed her.
When it comes to the keffiyeh-wearing tote-bag-resistance class, many of whom grew up in Kent or Surrey and know nothing of Iran, Islamism or anything else, it is easy to dismiss such ayatollah apologism as ignorance, stupidity or naivety. Indeed, the bizarre notion that Islamic extremists – from Hamas and Hezbollah to the ayatollahs – are a part of some ‘global left alliance’ has a long, shameful history among post-class ‘progressives’. Meanwhile, Britain’s Islamists, who are legion on modern campuses, understand perfectly well what they are supporting and why when they express grief for Khamenei.
Since the student vigils started garnering attention in the press, the MSC has hit back, accusing the media of trying to ‘smear Shia Muslim students’. It also claims that accusations of ‘extremism’ are ‘Islamophobic’ for focussing on a ‘fake issue’ that ‘does not exist in the UK’.
The trouble is, the embrace of Islamist fanaticism is sadly nothing new for British universities. We saw it in October 2023, when students at Oxford chanted ‘Long live the intifada’ on campus. We saw it last year, when a ‘feminist’ society at Goldsmiths held a ‘night of remembrance’ for the butchers and rapists of the 7 October pogrom. No doubt we shall see more of it tonight, when the University of Manchester holds its candlelit vigil in honour of the supreme leader’s memory.
These campus celebrations of Islamic tyranny can no longer be dismissed as simple naivety or youthful radicalism. It is now a fixture of British universities and beyond. Those weeping for the ayatollah know they are on the side of barbarism.
Georgina Mumford is a content producer at spiked.
Lambeth Green Party has slammed “disgraceful” Labour austerity. And it’s going to mobilise members for a UNISON-backed protest outside the council’s budget-setting meeting at 6pm on 4 March.
The Greens added that, if they were to form an administration in May, they would put Lambeth at the centre of a network of “anti-cuts councils”, mobilising against central government austerity.
Labour- cuts, cuts, cuts
Changes to local government funding that Labour introduced this year have cut funding for Lambeth. And this has left the council with a budget shortfall projection of £130m by 2029.
Due to the government cuts and years of local financial mismanagement, the Lambeth Labour administration is looking to save £46.58m for the 2026/27 budget. And it’s proposing £100m in cuts by 2029/30.
While aiming to raise some cash from revenue-raising measures, the local administration will rely primarily on restructures and cuts to frontline services.
Lambeth’s own equalities impact assessment of the cuts has concluded that 24 of the 78 agreed savings will have ‘negative impacts’ on Lambeth residents. Labour has refused to publish this analysis.
The council has also put in a request for Exceptional Financial Support of £116m over three years from central government.
This Exceptional Financial Support comes on top of £40m of support received last year to balance the housing revenue account. It isn’t a grant and Lambeth council will need to pay it back through the sale of more public assets.
Greens fighting back against Austerity
Scott Ainslie, Green Party councillor for Streatham St Leonard’s ward, said:
Lambeth Greens have been proud to stand alongside our community, and local unions, to fight against cuts for the past 16 years. On 4 March, we will join the protests outside the town hall.
By many measures, the cuts being we’re facing now are worse than they were under the Tories. These cuts have been made even worse by the years of financial mismanagement by the local Labour administration. That means more jobs lost, more services cut back, residents let down and vulnerable people left to fend for themselves.
Lambeth Labour have finally run out of people to blame. This is Labour austerity, at every level. Austerity is a political choice – we need to make different choices.
Nicole Griffiths, Green Party councillor for Streatham St Leonard’s ward, said:
There is no public support for this agenda of endless cuts – and there is a clear alternative: tax the super rich and big business, and invest in our communities.
On 4 March, we will again be tabling amendments to Labour’s budget. But Lambeth Labour can simply vote them down, and they barely scratch the surface of the disgraceful austerity being imposed by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves.
We need a political earthquake – and that begins on 7 May when Lambeth can elect its first Green administration. In office, the Greens will put Lambeth at the heart of a nationwide network of anti-cuts councils, mobilising and empowering communities to fight austerity.
Featured image via the Canary
Not even three years ago, paid goons of the Islamic Republic murdered a 13-year-old British girl. They bashed their way into the room in which she had scrabbled for sanctuary with her mother and sister and shot her to death. They then set a fire, reducing the girl to ash. She could only be identified by her dental records. The tyrants in Tehran celebrated. They marshalled their supporters on to the streets to sing and dance over this orgy of violence that entailed the merciless slaying of a British innocent. It’s a ‘turning point in history’, they crowed, as reporters were in the girl’s blackened home, holding their noses against the stench of death.
Her name was Yahel Sharabi. And I intend to say it to every fellow Briton who says the crisis in the Middle East ‘has nothing to do with us’. And to every slack-jawed Labour minister twiddling awkwardly with their ties as one of the great geopolitical emergencies of our time swirls all around them. And to every keffiyeh-smothered smug leftist who is currently painting the Islamic Republic as the innocent victim of an ‘unprovoked war of aggression’. Was the killing and immolation of a British girl not a provocation? Was the murder of her in the arms of her mother and sister – who were also killed – not an act of aggression? Was the slaying that day of a thousand others who were guilty of the same crime as young Yahel – they were Jews – not war?
Yahel was one of 18 British citizens murdered by Hamas and its allies on 7 October 2023. Her sister Noiya, 16, and her mother Lianne, who was born in Bristol, were two others. There was also Aner Shapiro, 22, who ran into a public bomb shelter with 30 others from the Nova music festival. He threw back seven of the grenades that the Hamas fascists hurled in, but was killed by the eighth. There was Nadav Popplewell, 51, spirited into Gaza by Hamas brutes and then killed. And Bernard Cowan, 57, from Glasgow, shot dead in Kibbutz Sufa: the only Scot killed that day. More British citizens were killed on 7 October 2023 than in any terror attack since the ISIS mass shooting at Sousse, Tunisia in 2015.
And their killers were backed by the Islamic Republic. The Iranian regime funded Hamas to the tune of $100million a year. It provided Hamas with weapons tech and logistical support. It had intimate knowledge of Hamas’s fascistic plans for 7 October. It has since held numerous official celebrations of the barbarism of that day. Nothing to do with us? The Iran-backed murder of 18 British citizens, most of them Jews? Perhaps Britain’s handwringers might let us know their threshold for Jew-murder, the point at which the foreign-funded killing of our Jewish compatriots might finally prick their slumbering consciences. Tell us: how many dead British Jews would be the price of your moral concern? Twenty-five? Fifty? A hundred?
This is not to justify what is currently taking place. I am as troubled as so many others are by the events in Iran and the surrounding region. I’m a little like Tulsi Gabbard used to be, before she threw her lot in with the Trumpists: a ‘hawk’ when it comes to going after terrorist outfits that invade our lands or butcher our citizens, but a ‘dove’ when it comes to wars of regime change. History tells us regime-change wars have a nasty habit of unleashing regional instability while stealing the democratic initiative from the liberty-thirsting populace in the regime at hand. If Iran is to be freed from the squatting thugs of the Islamist theocracy, it is only the Iranian people who will do it.
No, this is an attempt to drag some historical context on to the morally barren wasteland of infantile posturing we have borne witness to these past few days. The woke left’s depiction of Iran as the guiltless victim of Western imperialism is an outrageous lie. The crank right’s claim that Israel is the cause of every war in the Middle East – if not the whole world – reeks to the heavens of anti-Semitic ahistoricism. The UK government’s flummoxed nonchalance about the whole thing speaks to how thoroughly the technocratic mind-virus blinds one to truth and morality. This tyrannical regime funded the murder of our Jewish countrymen. Including a child. Does that mean nothing to you?
This started on 7 October. People say it didn’t, but it did. That is the day on which the so-called Axis of Resistance declared war on the Jewish State, and through the Jewish State on the West. That’s the day when Iran’s most brutish proxy – Hamas – sent a 6,000-strong army of jihadists into Israel. They arrived by land, sea and air to rape and murder Jews, including British Jews. It was the next day, 8 October, that Iran’s proxies in Lebanon – Hezbollah – started to rain missiles on northern Israel, causing the internal displacement of 60,000 civilians. They were later joined by Iran’s proxies in Yemen – the Houthis, another avowedly anti-Semitic army – who have fired more than a hundred missiles and drones at the Jewish nation over the past year or so.
When people describe the Israel-US attack on the theocrats in Tehran as ‘unprovoked’, what they are really saying is that they do not consider the mass murder of Jews to be a provocation. When they call it unwarranted aggression, they’re saying the violent destruction of Jewish life is not something worth getting aggressive about. When they describe Israeli strikes against Tehran as an ‘escalation’, and never used that word for the Tehran-sponsored barbarism inflicted on Israel, they betray their own hyper-paternalistic Third Worldism. They confirm that in their Western-centric worldview, America and Israel are responsible for every earthly ill, while child-like states such as the Islamic Republic merely respond. Or ‘resist’. It’s ‘resistance’ when the Islamic Republic and its proxies kill Jews, but a ‘war crime’ when the Jews and their allies push back. We see you.
Events in Iran speak not to any criminal madness or bloodlust on the part of the American Empire and the Jewish State, but rather to the suicidal lunacy of 7 October. You don’t have to support the current regime-change efforts to recognise that the Iranian regime and its murderous proxies brought this calamity upon themselves. The 7 October attacks will go down as the most self-destructive military adventure of modern times, an act of apocalyptic vanity. Yahya Sinwar, the architect of that grim day, thought he would bring Zionism to its knees and provoke a Nazi-like expulsion of Jews from the Holy Land. Yet now he is dead, his movement of Hamas is decimated, Hezbollah is flagging, and the Iranian backers of their anti-Semitic crusade are under severe pressure.
The Islamic Republic did this to itself. It forgot that killing Jews has consequences now. It isn’t the 1490s or the 1930s. The rape and murder of Jews comes with repercussions these days. That the regime forgot this is somewhat understandable. It is, after all, consumed by cosmic delusions, by an inflated sense of holy importance as the final boss of Jew hatred. The Western left’s neglect of this truth, however, is less forgivable. You would think that woke agitators who love to talk about ‘consequence culture’ would recognise that murdering a thousand Jews might provoke war. Their demonisation of Israel and absolution of the Islamic Republic is not ‘anti-imperialism’ – it is the double racism of seeing the Jewish State as the sole author of violence in the Middle East and ‘brown’ Persians and Arabs as witless, wide-eyed victims.
It is terrible that the people of Gaza suffered so much in the wars of 7 October. It is terrible that Iranian civilians are now suffering in these wars, too. But this era of apocalyptic violence was started not by Israel or America but by the Islamic Republic. What concerns me is that the military suicide committed by Islamists on 7 October is finding its echo in the moral suicide of the West in the same period. Witness the Hamas sympathy on our streets these past two years or the current floundering of our rulers who can’t even bring themselves to say the Islamic Republic is a wicked regime whose Jew hatred, misogyny, homophobia and intolerance run counter to the moral virtues of our own civilisation. If you don’t think the killing of Yahel Sharabi and a thousand other Jews is an act of historic importance, then you have been defeated, too. Iran and its proxies may not have succeeded in destroying the Jewish nation, but they destroyed your soul.
Some MPs have divided the internet after they were filmed dancing in parliament even as the crisis in the Middle East rages.
Parliamentarians, including the Speaker of the Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, gathered in Portcullis House on Wednesday morning while Strictly Come Dancing stars Angela Rippon and Alex Kingston showed them some moves.
The event was meant to promote how dancing can boost health and wellbeing, but others have slammed the gathering for being insensitive.
Since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Saturday, Tehran’s retaliatory strikes have pulled the whole of the Middle East into disarray.
The UK is currently weighing up how to defend its own military base in Cyprus following an Iranian drone attack.
Keir Starmer has already given the US permission to use its British bases to target Iran, too.
International affairs aside, MPs have also come under scrutiny this week after the independent expenses watchdog announced their basic salary will rise by 5% to £98,599 in April.
So people have, naturally, been questioning the timing of this dance lesson while clips of jubiliant MPs have been repeatedly on social media.
But not everyone was against it.
Some social media users said it was time to “lighten up” and suggested voters actually like seeing their politicians prove they know how to have fun on occasion.
Meanwhile others took the chance to joke about U-turns…something Keir Starmer has become very famous for, having chalked up more than a dozen since being elected in July 2024…
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed in a press conference that a US military submarine has torpedoed a warship from Iran in international waters. This attack sunk the vessel, resulting in the murder of at least 80 with “dozens more injured” off the coast of Sri Lanka.
More than 100 were earlier said to be missing following the attack.
Showing footage of the attack, Hegseth stated:
The Iranian navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.
Notably, Hegseth also highlighted that this strike on Tuesday night was the first sinking by torpedo since WWII. It is important to note, this has been disputed and appears to be more indicative of the first struck by the US since the mass casualties of the Second World War.
A U.S. submarine sunk an Iranian warship in international waters, says U.S. defence secretary Pete Hegseth.
He says it’s the “first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since the Second World War”.
Iran latest 🔗 https://t.co/MSOfDN6aRq
📺 Sky 501 pic.twitter.com/67JYtqLngA
— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 4, 2026
Iran distress call on Tuesday night
Sri Lankan politician Vijitha Herath spoke on behalf of the Sri Lankan navy confirming that “multiple bodies had been recovered,” with 32 injured in the incident now being treated in hospital. This follows the Sri Lankan navy answering their distress call just outside of their island’s territorial waters. Subsequently, they sent air force planes and ships on a rescue mission to the Iranian frigate ‘Iris Dena’.
Herath further informed that the ship had 180 souls on board.
The periscope video when American torpedo (launched by a submarine) hits the Iranian naval ship IRIS Dena. The Iranian ship was outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters but still within its economic zone, 44 nautical miles (81km) off the southern coastal city of Galle.
Sri Lankan… pic.twitter.com/pmhcuhCvHl
— Dr. Syed Mohd Murtaza مرتضیٰ (@syedmohdmurtaza) March 4, 2026
According to the Independent:
The Iris Dena, one of Iran’s newest warships, was the centrepiece of a two-ship international tour in 2023 that included port calls in countries including South Africa and Brazil, and was accompanied by the support ship IRIS Makran, a converted oil tanker.
Iris Dena, along with IRIS Makran, faced designated sanctions in February 2023 due to them supplying weapons to Russia which have been used against civilian targets in Ukraine.
US submarine sunk Iranian warship in Indian Ocean with torpedo, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says – follow live https://t.co/QtWkbJmW6m
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) March 4, 2026
War of aggression is escalating
This act of aggression from the US comes on the fifth day of what has widely been recognised to be an illegal war of aggression by the US and Israel. Israel has long been operating an apartheid system against Palestine, and is now nearly three years into its genocide on Gaza, despite huge condemnation.
After all, Israel’s genocide and crimes against humanity have been condemned by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague. Longstanding arrest warrants have also been issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israeli leaders’ integral in the mass murder that has been live streamed since October 7th, 2023.
This news today marks an escalation in the US-Israeli military aggression against Iran. This makes it all the more important that powerful men face sufficient oversight before the world descends into chaos and never-before-seen levels of suffering across the Middle East.
We wrote today on a bill tabled by Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn in an attempt to address this serious issue, supported by eleven co-sponsors:
Corbyn has tabled the bill following Keir Starmer’s clear, public commitment to allow the US to use UK military bases in US and Israel’s illegal war on Iran for ‘defence’ purposes.
Because these two rogue states break international law daily, we must apply rigorous oversight and scrutinise government decisions that make us complicit in a war of aggression on Iran.
The full title of the bill is:
Bill to require parliamentary approval for the deployment of UK armed forces and military equipment for armed conflict; to require parliamentary approval for the granting of permission by Ministers for use of UK military bases and equipment by other nations for armed conflict; to require the withdrawal of that permission in circumstances where parliamentary approval is not granted; to provide for certain exemptions from these requirements; to make provision for retrospective parliamentary approval in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.
Another Iraq: an aggression built on lies
US and Israel attacked Iran first on 28 February without provocation. Iran was offering unprecedented concessions in negotiations at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. And the UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.
However, lies were used by the US administration to justify its illegal war. Given it is working in tandem with Pinocchio-Israel who can’t seem to distinguish the difference between fact or fiction, the direction of travel is clear.
Those who believe in the necessity of the rule of law, applied without fear or favour, must now defend it harder than ever before. Otherwise, mass casualties will be seen on all sides of the conflict, whilst the powerful walk away unscathed.
Featured image via the Canary
On Tuesday, 3 March, the last “blood moon” we’re expected to see until 2028 rose.
Sadly, though, it wasn’t visible in the UK. But “blood rain”, which may be coming on Thursday 5 and Friday 6 March, is expected to fall in our skies, the BBC reports.
What on Earth is “blood rain”?
It’s an unofficial term for red rain.
The colour comes from red dust and sand. It can look red as it falls, and/or leave reddish dust splotches on surfaces it lands on when they dry.
These particles get caught up in the atmosphere when they’re kicked up by powerful winds and storms.
And once they’re up there, they can sometimes become part of clouds and, therefore, integrate into the rain.
They can be carried for “thousands of miles,” the Met Office explained, which is why particles from far-off deserts can fall as “blood rain” in the UK.
Where does this week’s “blood rain” come from?
The rust-coloured rain coming our way includes sand from the Sahara.
It’s coming on warm air currents rising from the south. It comes after Iberian Storm Regina has moved into the Western Mediterranean, bringing rain and (crucially) howling winds with it.
As those conditions raged on, they “drew up warm southerly winds from North Africa, lifting fine Saharan dust high into the atmosphere,” the BBC said.
Where will “blood rain” fall in the UK?
Because the rain comes from the south, England and Wales are expected to have a higher chance of seeing “blood rain”.
The “blood rain” is likeliest to fall on Thursday and Friday (5 and 6 March).
How common is “blood rain” in the UK?
It’s not that unusual for dust from the Sahara to reach us.
But it’s relatively rare for enough red dust to enter the atmosphere to create “blood rain” in the UK.
Usually, when we do get sandy or dusty rain, it comes in more drab yellow or rain colours.
We might get fiery sunsets, too
Remember the “blood moon” we mentioned earlier? That turns red because, during a total lunar eclipse, Earth sits between the moon and the sun, meaning rays have to pass through our atmosphere.
And because shorter wavelengths, e.g., blue, scatter more quickly than longer ones, like red and orange, the moon looks tangerine or crimson.
Something similar happens when the sun’s light is filtered through a lot of suspended dust.
The particles high in the air scatter sunlight, creating incredibly vibrant and “fiery” sunsets and sunrises, rich with golds, oranges, and scarlet colours.
I’ll be keeping my camera phone with me at morning and evening this week.
UK animal charity Open Cages has rebranded to Anima, reflecting its global identity as Anima International.
The change comes as Anima prepares to invest “more resources than ever” into its campaign to end the use of fast-growing “frankenchickens” in the UK.
The announcement follows major recent wins for the animal rights group. These include Poland’s fur farming ban and a world-first decision in Norway to phase out fast-growing chickens completely.
The UK is one of Europe’s largest chicken producers. And over 90% of UK chickens are bred to grow at unnaturally fast rates. This commonly leads to severe welfare problems, including chronic pain, lameness, and sometimes even heart attack. Anima International has identified the UK as a key strategic priority in its efforts to reduce animal suffering.
Commenting on the rebrand, Connor Jackson, CEO of Anima, said:
The breeding of fast-growing chickens represents one of the biggest sources of animal suffering in the world, and it’s a practice that is out of step with public sentiment. As a result, a transition is already happening in countries such as Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany.
Our mission to achieve this in the UK hasn’t changed; we’re preparing to devote more resources than ever to this fight. Our new identity reflects our increasing focus on Britain as a priority for our entire organisation, given the snail’s pace at which we are solving this animal welfare crisis.
Waitrose is the only major UK company to have totally phased out fast growing chickens, branding the practice an “animal welfare crisis”. M&S has done it for 30% of its products. KFC, Nando’s and several other restaurants recently abandoned their commitments to make the change. Whilst companies such as Pret and Greggs are yet to follow through on their commitments.
Anima International is a global animal advocacy organisation with six national groups. It has two decades of experience working to end animal suffering. Now operating as Anima in the UK, the organisation plans to launch its largest UK campaign yet, later this year.
Featured image via Anima International
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