Politics
Rafe Fletcher: Britain needs muscular citizenship
Rafe Fletcher is the founder of CWG.
My memories of Japan are coloured by British triumphalism. In 2019, I was in Oita to see England thrash Australia in the Rugby World Cup. And last November, I saw Oasis play to a sell-out crowd in Tokyo.
Touring acts are more welcome than those putting down permanent roots. Japan’s foreign resident population is growing and, at four million, now constitutes around three percent of the population. They are readily identifiable in such an ethnically homogeneous country.
Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who models herself on Britain’s own Iron Lady, won a landslide victory last month. She is pro-market and firm on immigration. But, as yet, her latter stance is heavier on rhetoric than policy. Because Japan is in a precarious position. How does it balance public demand to retain a clear national identity with the structural challenges of the world’s oldest population? Barring a sudden reproductive resurgence or a robotics revolution, foreign workers have to fix lopsided demographics.
Japan is an outlier because national identity is so intertwined with ethnicity. But the subject is nonetheless getting a bit more mainstream in Britain. Elon Musk recently swung behind Rupert Lowe’s splinter group Restore, because it takes predictions of a white British minority seriously. Nigel Farage’s caution about who that conversation encourages seemingly lost him the prospect of Musk’s backing.
Polite conversation avoids the topic because Britain’s demographic transformation was unplanned.
In 1945, Britain was almost as ethnically uniform as contemporary Japan. Politicians did not anticipate that post-war immigration from the Caribbean and South Asia would change that. It was then imagined as a temporary response to acute labour shortages. In 1956, debates in the House of Lords still referred to Commonwealth arrivals as “visitors”. The historian Colin Holmes notes that migrants largely shared that impression, writing in John Bull’s Island that they viewed themselves as “temporary labourers or sojourners…hoping to return home with needed capital.”
Social change was an unintended consequence of addressing economic needs. That does not make it inherently good or bad. But it suggests the country never really confronted what British identity meant once it could no longer be assumed. The familiarity of language and looks is easier to grasp than values when it comes to creating a sense of belonging.
That search for shared values is made harder by what Suella Braverman condemns as the “casual, anything-goes approach to culture and identity”. Nebulous catch-all appeals to “tolerance”, or worse, “diversity”, are flimsily ascribed as defining national characteristics. It lacks any active sense of participation. It undervalues Britain by negating any real commitment to it.
It’s here, of course, that I must go back to Asia to suggest a different way of doing things. In Singapore, my immigration status is made very apparent. There is little sensitivity in designating Employment Pass (EP) holders like me as “foreigner” in official correspondence. Singapore’s foreign population is substantial – constituting almost two million of its six million population – but clearly delineated. We are not part of the civic realm and have no access to state-funded services.
There is a route to deeper integration through Permanent Residency (PR). But there are strict qualifying criteria and even successful applicants do not gain permanent rights. PR holders must renew their status every five years. It can be revoked for criminal misconduct or a deemed lack of economic contribution. Increased civic status also comes with accompanying responsibilities. Most notably, your male offspring will be subject to compulsory National Service at 18.
Every year, around 25,000 PRs go one step further and obtain citizenship. There is no explicitly ethnic aspect to this. But it’s generally recognised that it follows founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s strategy of pursuing a certain demographic equilibrium. He pledged that Singapore would always be majority Chinese with smaller Malay and Indian minorities. New citizenships broadly preserve that balance.
Speaking at Imperial College in 2002, Lee argued that Britain’s lack of similar micromanagement breeds an ailing society. He said that importing workers without any plan for uniting races or cultures led to ghettoisation. Something that was evident only last week as the Greens won in Gorton and Denton by appealing to extranational affiliations in the Middle East.
But such technocratic planning is not possible in Britain. The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood revealed in November that the previous government’s attempt to fill between 6,000 and 40,000 jobs in the health and care sector led to the arrival of 616,000 individuals between 2022 and 2024. If Britain is overshooting those targets by 1,400 percent, it is unlikely to fare too well with strategically planned quotas.
The more pertinent lesson lies in what Lee observes Britain has lost since 1945: “that quiet pride and self-confidence, that national cohesiveness that marked out the British people after victory in World War Two.”
It stems from insecurity in what being British really means. It is no longer something simply inherited nor is it anything easily articulated. Restoring confidence instead requires a sense of reciprocity. Singapore does this well in its prohibition of dual citizenship and enforcement of National Service. It forces citizens to actively participate and forego any other national loyalties.
Britain, by contrast, asks very little of its people. Even though it’s to my advantage, I’m always astonished at the treatment of Brits abroad. As Dubai expats discover now, we retain full access to state services without any of the onerous tax implications. Similarly, it allows its passport to be part of an international portfolio – somewhere to hedge your bets rather than commit.
And it offers few binding experiences to really bring an increasingly diverse population together. Unfortunately it came towards the back end of his premiership but a similar national service scheme was one of Sunak’s brighter ideas, particularly when university increasingly looks an imprudent bet.
Britain needs a more muscular vision of identity rooted in commitment. Pride cannot reside only in the vestiges of cultural triumphs abroad. It must inspire loyalty at home too.
The racist Labour government will stop issuing study visas to people from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan. Additionally, it is stopping skilled work visas for people from Afghanistan.
The Home Office claims the changes are due to “widespread abuse” and will take effect this month.
Figures suggest that individuals from those four countries are most likely to come to the UK to study and then make an asylum claim.
War, oppression, genocide
But all four of those countries are experiencing various levels of oppression, war, and genocide.
Since US troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban has reigned over the nation. This has included public executions, amputations, and flogging. Of course, the UK played a huge role in destabilising the country. It was a key ally in the US-led invasion, the initial overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, and ultimately, it sparked a violent, long-term conflict against the resurgent Taliban.
In Cameroon, the government forces and armed separatists from the English-speaking minority have been fighting since 2016. It has killed over 6,500 people and displaced 584,000. It is reported that 1.8m people need humanitarian aid.
According to Oxford Law:
Since 2018, the UK government has supported the London-based firm, New Age, to win a contract to develop an offshore gas project in Cameroon estimated to be worth more than $250 million. This lucrative contract sees money going directly to the state-owned company SNH, which reportedly funds the elite armed forces of the Cameroon state.
Since 2017, the military in Myanmar has been committing genocide against the Muslim Rohingya population. The military frequently attacks schools, hospitals and civilian infrastructure, whilst throwing journalists in prison. Once again, the regime is backed by over 200 British companies.
In Sudan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are committing genocide in the pursuit of gold. The UK is a major supplier to the UAE, and British Military equipment often turns up in the hands of the RSF.
Fuck around and find out
Now, Shabana Mahmood, Home Secretary, has said she was:
taking the unprecedented decision to refuse visas for those nationals seeking to exploit our generosity.
And, according to the BBC:
The Home Office said a higher proportion of people than average from the four specified country cited destitution as part of their asylum claim, and there were 16,000 people from the four countries currently being supported.
About 95% of Afghans who arrived in the UK on a study visa then applied for asylum since 2021, while applications by students from Myanmar increased 16-fold and claims by students from Cameroon and Sudan more than quadrupled.
It’s such a coincidence that asylum claims are higher from the countries where there is ongoing genocide, armed conflict, and US and UK involvement.
Maybe if the UK stopped funding illegal wars, supplying arms to terrorist nations, and destabilising the Middle East, fewer people might need to escape war-torn countries.
There’s a thought for you, Shabana.
Featured image via GBNews/ YouTube
The majority of Western leaders have shown that when shit hits the fan, and civilian lives are at stake, they will side with genocidal maniacs (Trump) instead of doing the right thing.
Except Spain, of course, which condemned:
unilateral military action by the US and Israel.
It also banned the US from using Spanish military bases to attack Iran.
BREAKING: 🇪🇸 Spain’s PM says his country rejects the ‘unilateral military action by the US and Israel’
Spain is consistently based 👏🏼 pic.twitter.com/EmFfzpZdzg
— ADAM (@AdameMedia) February 28, 2026
BREAKING: 🇪🇸🇺🇸 Spain BAN the United States from using Spanish military bases for attacks on Iran.
Viva Espagne 👏🏼 https://t.co/r1yNi14a5X pic.twitter.com/piHQPmMWag
— ADAM (@AdameMedia) March 2, 2026
Trump’s lap dogs
Other Western leaders have shown their true colours: Trump’s lapdogs, which is even worse when you consider that Trump is only bombing Iran to distract us from the fact that he is a massive nonce.
100%. These pedophiles thought if they start wars, they will not be prosecuted as they have more urgent matters on hand. https://t.co/r0D6kLIW25
— WeirdUniverse (@QqReviews) March 4, 2026
He is mentioned in the Epstein files thousands of times – and he thinks carpet bombing Iran is going to make us forget.
Before the US and Israel launched their war on Iran five days ago, fallout from the newly released Jeffrey Epstein files was spreading globally https://t.co/Qr4hvpbfNt pic.twitter.com/rv4aegIC2U
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 4, 2026
In the UK, Keir Starmer initially told Trump he couldn’t use military bases to attack Iran.
But of course, once the US and Israel bombed a little girl’s school, he changed his mind.
It seems that even a former Director of Prosecutions can be bought by Israel and Trump.
Starmer initially denied Trump use of UK bases for his attack on Iran
Trump says Starmer was “worried about the legality”
Trump then bombed a girls school, massacring dozens of kids
Next day, Starmer changed his mind and made Britain a belligerent
We are ruled by psychopaths pic.twitter.com/PLwcx9ipl4
— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) March 2, 2026
The West bangs on about freeing Iranian women, but the reality is that they’re ok with rich white men (ahem, Trump), both murdering and raping little girls.
The back-and-forth is theatre.
It creates the illusion of legal caution before landing exactly where the establishment always lands.
Outcomes don’t shift, they’re managed. The Epstein class sits above the choreography.
We are indeed ruled by satanic psychopaths. https://t.co/yb1gARheoO
— Nayab Chaudhry (@Nayab_AC) March 2, 2026
Talk about hypocrisy.
Stiff competition
Now, Starmer, along with Germany and France, has said they are willing to assist “in some capacity” with the US and Israeli action against the regime.
Specifically, they said:
potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source.
Similarly, the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, claims he is ok with the US embargoing Spain.
Merz is giving Starmer stiff competition for Best in Show as Donald Trump’s poodle. https://t.co/vle5nDADwL
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) March 3, 2026
For the third time in history, Germany is on the wrong side of a world war.
Prime Minister Rob Jetten of the Netherlands said that “Iran’s attacks must stop”. Again, no mention of the US and Israel’s indiscriminate and unprovoked attacks on Iran.
In Poland, President Karol Nawrocki said he had advance knowledge of the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran. Which is worrying, given one of the first targets was a school full of little girls.
Other Western leaders who have condemned Iran’s attacks include Austria, Belgium, Malta and Portugal,
The Portuguese Government has been following with great concern, from the very first moment, the evolution of the situation in the Middle East, in close coordination with our European partners, partners in the region, and NATO allies.
Under the coordination of the Ministry of…
— Luís Montenegro (@LMontenegro_PT) February 28, 2026
Time after time, Western leaders have come out to condemn Iran’s retaliatory strikes. Of course, they fail to mention why they are retaliating, the thousands of people Israel has murdered, or the fact that Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that actually has nuclear weapons.
Trump is nothing but a bully. He even claimed he might have forced Israel’s hand in attacking Iran. But Western leaders are enabling his bullshit – along with Netanyahu’s. One day we will see them all in the Hague – and then they will have been against this all along.
Featured image via Associated Press/YouTube
Christian Bale has spoken out about the news that a new movie adaptation of American Psycho is in the works.
The Oscar winner had a major breakthrough moment in the early 2000s when he was cast as serial killer Patrick Bateman in the film version of American Psycho, based on Bret Easton Ellis’ novel of the same name.
Back in 2024, it was first reported that Call Me By Your Name and Challengers director Luca Guadagnino was working on putting his own spin on the novel, which Christian has now shared his thoughts on during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“Whoever wants to give it a shot, give it a pop,” he said, when asked about who should be the next actor to play Patrick Bateman.
“I loved making [American Psycho] with [director] Mary Harron so many years back, [I have] fantastic memories of it all.”
He continued: “Bold choice of anyone to try to do a – I don’t know if they’re doing a remake or what, I don’t know anything else about it. But all the best to ’em, I like brave people.”
Last week, Bret Easton Ellis told Variety that “a couple of high-profile actors” had already turned down an offer to play Patrick Bateman.
“I think maybe because they don’t want to be in the shoes of Christian Bale,” he added.
Lionsgate/Kobal/Shutterstock
Back in December 2024, Variety alleged that Austin Butler was “poised to star” in the film, following previous rumours that Jacob Elordi “was being eyed”.
Meanwhile, The White Lotus star Patrick Schwarzenegger has made no secret of his hopes to land the part, telling one fan that he’d “love nothing more” than to be cast as Patrick Bateman in the film.
The first adaptation of American Psycho gained a cult following after its release in 2000, and was last year named by The New York Times as the best movie of the 21st century.
An oft-forgotten sequel, starring Mila Kunis and William Shatner, came out direct-to-video in 2002.
The US and Israel’s joint strikes on Iran will have sent ripples across Russia as Donald Trump targets one of Vladimir Putin’s international allies.
Iran previously supplied Russia with crucial weapons for its war in Ukraine and offered support at a time when Putin remains isolated on the world stage.
But, as attention shifts away from Russia’s grinding offensive in Ukraine and refusal to compromise in peace talks, the emerging conflict in the Middle East could end up working to Putin’s advantage.
Here’s what you need to know.
Loss of An Ally
The US-Israeli strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday, and his immediate successor was taken out in a subsequent attack.
Putin denounced it as “murder … committed in cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law” in a statement on the Kremlin’s website.
Though the Iranian regime has not completely collapse just yet, the strikes have weakened Tehran.
The strikes also came months after another ally, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, was kidnapped by US authorities, and more than a year after Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was overthrown by opposition forces.
All three leaders had ties to Putin’s regime.
According to geopolitical expert and partner of the international law firm Pillsbury, Matthew Oresman, Russia is now “in a worse position today than it was a week ago”.
He told HuffPost UK: “Iran was a major supporter of Russia, including providing significant military equipment and other support for its war in Ukraine – it has now lost this.”
Similarly, Chatham House’s associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia programme, Keir Giles, said Russia will be “dismayed” after the “severe embarrassment” of an ally.
A Boost For Resources
Iran has been providing Russia with weapons to use against Ukraine, meaning the strikes could cause significant disruption to Putin’s offensive.
But Dr Simon Bennett – director of the civil safety and security unit at the University of Leicester – said Moscow was already weaning itself off Iranian supplied weapons and manufacturing its own Shahed drones.
Bennett told HuffPost UK: “Whatever economic and diplomatic support Russia was providing the Khamenei regime can now be redeployed in support of his war on Ukraine.”
Iran was also a rival source of oil for Putin, who lost many European customers over his attack on Ukraine as governments slapped sanctions on the authoritarian.
If Iran’s own supplies become inaccessible, “Putin’s depleted coffers will be replenished by rising oil and gas prices,” Bennett pointed out.
“As the coffers fill, Putin will be able to further develop Russia’s war economy and intensify his assault on Ukraine.”
Giles said Putin would also benefit from the “US reducing its own munitions’ supply” with its attack on Iran – thus reducing the likelihood it could go after Russia.
A Trump Distraction
Trump’s focus appears to be on the Middle East right now, allowing Russia to continue with its war of attrition away from the spotlight.
Oresman said: “The US is now distracted by the Iranian conflict, which limits its ability to focus on Ukraine or provide it military support.
“The US certainly won’t commit to any aggressive attack on Russia now, given its stretched resources and the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
“Putin may even be thinking that the US will be more inclined to rush a peace deal on Ukraine just to free up the resources and attention.”
But as Giles noted, the strikes may have put Putin’s long-term plans under strain.
The strikes “torpedoed the ‘spheres of interest’ idea”, which was thought to interest both Trump and Putin.
The concept suggests the US, Russia and China would agree to divide the world up into their own areas of influences.
But, the Middle East did not appear to be part of the US’s planned areas, suggesting Trump has already exceeded his boundaries.
Exposes Europe’s Vulnerabilities
Putin is known to detest everything Europe stands for – and this war has highlighted the continent’s limitations.
Bennett said: “Britain’s inability to defend its overseas assets – witness the RAF’s inability to shoot down a slow-flying drone before it impacted the runway at Akrotiri [in Cyprus] – will confirm Putin’s view that western Europe is militarily weak and there for the taking. And he’s not wrong.”
He said the UK only has six destroyers and seven frigates right now, but it needs dozens of both if it were ever to fight Russia.
Europe’s split response to the strikes on Iran will have delighted the Kremlin, too, with Spain and the UK calling the war “unlawful”, while Germany appears to stand by the White House.
Giles also told HuffPost UK it makes sense why “Russia is now being so vocal about international law” right now after Khamenei’s death.
There is an international arrest warrant out for Putin, which stops him from travelling to certain countries – so he will relish any opportunity to call out supposed double standards.
What Will This Mean For Ukraine?
Ukraine is likely be in two minds over the conflict in Iran.
On one hand, it must be “soul-destroying to see European allies willing to do for Israel what they won’t do for Ukraine”, according to Giles, who said it shows once again that Kyiv “is low in the pecking order”.
To make matters worse, Europe’s ability to supply Ukraine with weapons and America’s ability to sell military devices to the Europe for Kyiv may also be impacted by the war.
But Giles added that a US distraction is “not necessarily a bad thing” for Ukraine.
Trump has falsely blamed Kyiv for holding up talks and pushed the country to give up more land in the name of peace.
A delay, while prolonging the conflict on the frontlines, might therefore take the pressure off.
What Happens Next?
Russia is not looking to aggravate the US, according to the experts, pointing to the way Putin did not even mention Trump with his condemnation of Khamenei’s killing.
Oresman said Putin is in a “wait and see” mode, adding: “I don’t expect Putin to make any big moves in the near term, preferring to wait to see if the Iranian situation creates an opportunity for Russia to gain leverage in [Ukraine] negotiations.”
Giles said Russia could assist Iran in retaliation – but then it would be in the conflict with the US, and Putin is keen to keep Trump on side.
He said that, just as China is “sitting back and watching” what unfolds in Ukraine, Russia is doing the same when it comes to Iran.
Zendaya’s mum has added her voice to the ongoing speculation about whether the Euphoria actor quietly married her partner Tom Holland without the world knowing.
Over the weekend, Zendaya’s long-time stylist Law Roach made headlines when he told reporters that the Emmy winner and Marvel hero had already privately tied the knot.
“The wedding has already happened!” he told Access Hollywood, when pressed on what he could share about the couple’s upcoming nuptials. “You missed it!”
Law then made the same remarks to Entertainment Tonight, adding: “The wedding’s over, sorry!”
After video footage of the exchange went viral, Zendaya’s mum Claire Stoermer reposted the Entertainment Tonight interview on her Instagram story earlier this week.
“The laugh…” she added, per BuzzFeed, alongside a laughing emoji, referring to the RuPaul’s Drag Race regular’s reaction in the clip.
Michael Kovac via Getty Images for ELLE
HuffPost UK contacted Zendaya and Tom Holland’s representatives earlier this week but did not receive a response.
Over the years, the pair have become renowned for keeping their relationship out of the spotlight, only acknowledging their romance in 2021 when pictures of them kissing were made public.
Zendaya and Tom met on the set of the 2017 superhero movie Spider-Man: Homecoming, in which he played the titular hero and she appeared as his classmate and love interest, MJ.
Later this year, they will share the screen again in Oscar-winning filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to his hit movie Oppenheimer, a new adaptation of the epic The Odyssey.
Zendaya is rumoured to be playing the Greek goddess Athena in the film, while Tom is set to appear as Telemachus, the on-screen son of Matt Damon’s Odysseus.
Joining Zendaya and Tom in the star-studded cast of The Odyssey will be Oscar winners Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron and Anne Hathaway, as well as Nolan regulars Benny Safdie, Elliot Page and Robert Pattinson.
Mitchell Palmer is an economist at the Adam Smith Institute.
The British housing market is broken, especially in the South East of England. In London, the average private renter spends more than 40 per cent of their income on rent, while more than 15 per cent of private rentals are not deemed ‘decent’ for human habitation. At the same time, first-home buyers struggle to accumulate a deposit. This creates misery, as well as unmeetable demand for social housing.
But the consequences are even more dire than they first appear. Since the Global Financial Crisis, Britain’s economic output per capita has remained basically static. As new research from the Adam Smith Institute shows, housing is to blame for much of this stagnation. Of the 10–20 per cent of additional growth we identified as available, fixing our planning system alone accounts for around 7 percentage points. It is the largest single pro-growth move we could make.
The reason is simple. When homes are scarce and expensive, everything else suffers. Workers can’t relocate to better opportunities. Businesses struggle to recruit. Families spend more of their income on subpar housing and less on everything else. Productivity falls, wages stagnate, and growth slows.
Despite this obvious catastrophe, Britain has made it harder and harder to build. Our planning system gives councils wide discretion to delay or block development, even in places crying out for homes. Layers of regulation add years of uncertainty and cost, especially for small and medium-sized builders who once delivered much of the country’s housing.
The result is a supply crunch that never seems to ease. Even when demand softens, the underlying shortage remains. That’s why prices rebound so quickly, and why rents barely ever fall.
Everyone knows the conventional solutions offered to this problem. The left proposes more social housing. Both sides demand tougher rules on private landlords. On a good day, politicians even propose loosening rules that restrict the supply of high-density housing in town centres or near railway stations. These three proposals are not equal, but all are insufficient. They do not solve the monopoly problem at the heart of the housing crisis.
What we need are competitive urban land markets.
Landowners must feel a rush to build for fear of a missed opportunity and someone else satisfying demand. To make this threat real, governments must enable development on a wide variety of different plots, both inside and outside the city limits, and at a scale much larger than anticipated housing demand. Much of this housing will never be built; it simply needs to be threatened.
This is the concept at the heart of New Zealand’s successful housing reforms. As the Kiwi housing minister Chris Bishop recently put it, ‘abundant development opportunities [will] drive down land prices and create housing choice’. The reforms are still in progress, but they are already paying dividends. Auckland – a city of 1.5 million – is now building three times as many dwellings as London – a city of 9 million. Unsurprisingly, rents are now 19 per cent more affordable, relative to incomes, than they were in 2015.
To create competitive urban land markets in this country, we will need to throw out the discretionary planning system entirely. It should be replaced with a transparent framework of pre-determined, liberal development rights, so landowners know that building is not a special favour granted by the state but a normal economic activity. Crucially, these rights should respond to market signals: If land prices surge in a city, more land should automatically be released for development.
At the same time, councils should abandon the idea of merely meeting minimum housing targets, which entrenches scarcity and monopoly power, and instead enable housing wherever it can reasonably be accommodated, letting the market choose between abundant sites.
Finally, Britain must relax green belt constraints and invest in transport to cut commuting times. Done properly, this growth can pay for itself through land value uplift, just as the Metropolitan Railway once did and Japan’s railways still do today.
Politicians talk a lot about ‘boosting growth’. Unfortunately, a few new towns or tower blocks won’t solve Britain’s housing crisis. De facto rent controls and higher social housing obligations certainly won’t. If the government is serious about making it easier to build homes they need to commit to reshaping our broken urban land market. Until we fix that, Britain’s housing crisis will keep doing what it’s done for years: quietly making us all poorer.
A Labour MP has spoken out after her husband was arrested on suspicion of spying for China.
Joani Reid’s spouse, lobbyist David Taylor, was arrested along with two other men – one of whom is understood to be the partner of a former Labour MP.
The Metropolitan Police said the suspects – aged 39, 43 and 68 – were arrested by counter-terrorism officers in London and Wales after being accused of assisting a foreign intelligence service.
All three men remain in custody and searches have been carried out at the addresses where they were arrested, the force added.
Reid, the MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven, said: “I have never seen anything to make me suspect my husband has broken any law.
“I am not part of my husband’s business activities and neither I nor my children are part of this investigation, and we should not be treated by media organisations as though we are. Above all I expect media organisations to respect my children’s privacy.”
She continued: “I have never been to China. I have never spoken on China or China related matters in the Commons. I have never asked a question on China-related matters.
“As far as I am aware I have never met any Chinese businesses whilst I have been an MP, any Chinese diplomats or government employees, nor raised any concern with ministers or anyone else on behalf of, even coincidentally, Chinese interests.
“I am a social democrat who believes in freedom of expression, free trade unions and free elections. I am not any sort of admirer or apologist for the Chinese Communist party’s dictatorship.”
Updating the Commons, security minister Dan Jarvis said there will be “severe consequences” if it is proven that China attempted to interfere with UK sovereign affairs.
He said the investigation “relates to China” and “foreign interference targeting UK democracy”.
He told MPs: “Let me be clear, if there is proven evidence of attempts by China to interfere with UK sovereign affairs, we will impose severe consequences and hold all actors involved to account.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been forced to backtrack. The hapless Rubio told reporters ahead of a classified briefing to Congress members that Israel made US join the attack on Iran.
Rubio had previously said that:
a plan from Israel to attack Iran spurred the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes.
His statement was then contradicted by US President Donald Trump who said on 3 March:
If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.
Rubio then told reporters by way of backtracking (and without reference to his original statement):
I told you, this had to happen anyway, the president made a decision, and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program
Once the president made a decision that negotiations were not going to work … the decision was made to strike.
Adding:
The bottom line is this. We, the president, determined we were not going to get hit first.
Democrats go anti-war
US Democrats received a classified briefing from Rubio, defence secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior officials on 3 March. There are limits on what those briefed can disclose to the public.
Senator Elizabeth Warren posted on X on 3 March:
It is so much worse than you thought.
You are right to be worried. The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies, and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation.
I just left a classified briefing with the Trump Administration about the war in Iran.
I was worried before, but I’m more worried now. pic.twitter.com/HoSWLVWrR8
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 3, 2026
The death toll in the war has risen rapidly to over 1000 as of 4 March:
🚨At least 1,097 civilians have been killed in U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran since Feb. 28, including 181 children under 10, according to monitor HRANA.
In the past 24 hours, the group recorded 104 attacks across 19 provinces, with strikes hitting military bases, medical… https://t.co/dBi6DraVkL
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) March 4, 2026
The US-Israel attack on Iran is now pulling in European countries like France, Greece and the UK. Israel has begun a ground invasion of Lebanon. In Washington DC, the heart of US empire, they’re debating matters of procedure.
Featured image via the Canary
German chancellor Friedrich Merz said of last year’s illegal US-Israeli attacks on Iran that “Israel is doing the dirty work for us all”. Now he has said that the protections of international law shouldn’t apply to Iran. Because rogue states ignore international law.
Except that when he says ‘rogue states’, he doesn’t mean Israel and the US, which just ditched international law to murder Iranian schoolgirls, assassinate Iran’s leader and blow up around twenty Iranian hospitals. He doesn’t mean their enablers – like the German and UK governments – who ignored international law to support the Epstein class’s genocide and now to abet its latest illegal war.
He means Iran.
German double standards
Merz said that “now is not the time” (we’ve heard that before) to “lecture” the US and Israel about their lawbreaking. But apparently now is the time to lecture the victims and tell them international law doesn’t protect them because that doesn’t suit Trump or Netanyahu.
Because Iran hasn’t done the ‘right’ thing and surrendered completely to US and Israel’s demands and the amplification of their European cheerleaders, as he made clear:
Appeals from Europe, including from Germany, and condemnations of Iranian violations of international law, and even extensive sanctions, have achieved little over the years and decades…international legal assessments will have relatively little effect. This is all the more true if they remain largely without consequence… therefore, now is not the time to lecture our partners and allies.
What international law?
Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Wolfgang Janitsch described the comments as “a long farewell to international law”.
Even in Germany, which has a genocide-long record of brutal repression of protests against Israel’s crimes, Merz’s comments caused outrage. So his spokesperson tried to backtrack without backtracking, insisting both that Germany respects international law and doesn’t at the same time:
Germany does not question international law. I want to make that absolutely clear. But there is also a security interest that is not addressed by international law.
Responsible Statecraft summed up the situation succinctly:
Craven Europeans give US and Israel a blank check for illegal war. They frame the crisis not as an act of war against a UN member state, but as a natural consequence of Tehran’s failure to capitulate unconditionally.
Perhaps it’s Merz, like Starmer and his fellow criminals, who needs the protection of international law – but only of his right to a fair trial in the Hague before going down for crimes against humanity.
Featured image via the Canary
Palestine activists are preparing to lobby Welsh pension bosses. And they’ll be pushing the case for divestment, human rights and justice for Palestinians. The push will call on the Wales Pension Partnership to divest pension money from companies complicit in the oppression of Palestinians.
The activists, from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others, will come to Cardiff from all over Wales. They’ll form a Red Line protest from 9.30am on 10 March at County Hall in Cardiff during a meeting of the Wales Pension Partnership. And they’ll call on the pension fund to divest from genocide.
The Red Line for Gaza campaign takes inspiration from symbolic ‘red line’ protests around Wales and the world. Protesters carry a symbolic red line fabric. The red lines the Israeli government continues to cross include starvation as a weapon of war, and targeting and killing civilians seeking safety (including children), journalists, medics and care givers.
The Wales Pension Partnership
The Wales Pension Partnership invests £1.1bn on behalf of Welsh local authorities in companies enabling Israel’s genocide. They include Elbit, Palantir, Barclays Bank and companies critical to the West Bank settlements. The United Nations has declared these settlements illegal.
Despite the declared ceasefire, Israel continues to attack Gaza and the West Bank, with hundreds killed and infrastructure destroyed. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Israel has killed over 100 children in Gaza since the ceasefire. Israel has intensified, not relaxed, land confiscation – especially in the West Bank.
Ten Welsh councils have already voted to back divestment by their pension funds, yet the Wales Pension Partnership refuses to act. On 4 March Rhondda Cynon Taf council will debate and hopefully pass a divestment motion. While on 5 March Pembrokeshire council will debate divestment by Dyfed Pension Fund.
The Wales Pension Partnership approach is what it calls “constructive engagement” with companies identified as potentially complicit in human right abuses.
Bethan Sayed is co-chair of PSC Cymru. PSC Cymru is the Welsh branches of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Ahead of the protest, she said:
The Wales Pension Partnership prefers to write polite letters to companies selling the means of genocide than pulling the rug on them. It’s not good enough, and that’s why we call on the WPP to change course and set about pulling money out of these companies.
Our focus is firmly on the lack of decisive divestment despite most councils in Wales demanding it. Genocide continues.
Featured image via the Canary
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