UK Watch

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Self-flying fighter jets, uncrewed submarines and drones will be at the center of Britain’s future military under a defence plan announced Tuesday that reflects a world of conflicts transformed by technology.

Like other NATO countries, the U.K. is under pressure to increase defence spending to counter a more aggressive Russia and less reliable United States. But its Defense Investment Plan has been repeatedly delayed as military leaders and Treasury officials wrangled over the cost, and critics said its pledge of a 15 billion pound ($20 billion) boost to defence spending won’t be enough.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the plan will keep Britain safe in “a more dangerous and volatile world than at any time for decades.”

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There’s no longer much foreign reporting on television with the exception of natural disasters, or countries where Americans are engaged in military action. That’s certainly true of Europe – except for Britain. The networks, surely focused on ratings, display a fascination with the Royal Family.

On Monday, NBC’s Today featured a four-minute report from London-based Molly Hunter obsessing over Prince Harry’s planned visit to his home country to promote the Invictus Games for veterans that he founded. ABC and CBS also offered full reports speculating on Prince Harry’s visit and whether Meghan Markle and their children will also attend.

On June 17, NBC’s Hunter performed a four-minute Today report (complete with “In Depth” graphic) on the Earth-shaking story that 12-year-old Prince George will attend the Eton College private boys’ school in the fall, just as his father and Prince Harry did. To pad the report, she also touted how Princess Kate did a 24-hour mountain climb for charity after her recovery from cancer.

ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, CNN, and MS NOW cannot be bothered for much more substantive British matters, like a recent report on the rape of young girls that came from Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe. The report estimates rape gangs victimized at least 250,000 girls across 149 local British authorities since the 1990s. It says many victims were young teenagers. Some were as young as four years old.

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Robert Jenrick has said it is “legitimate” for the media to ask questions about Nigel Farage’s £5m personal donation from a cryptocurrency billionaire, just days after the Reform UK leader told an interviewer it was “none of your business”.

Jenrick, who is Reform’s shadow chancellor, said voters on the doorstep were not asking about the money given to Farage by the Thailand-based British crypto investor Christopher Harborne.

However, he acknowledged it was not unreasonable for the media to have questions about the £5m, in contrast to Farage’s claim earlier this week that it was a private matter.

At the British Chambers of Commerce ann

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When Jen was 17, she was introduced to a gang of Iraqi Kurdish Muslim men who called her and other girls “white trash” and “English pig‑dogs” while they raped and trafficked them across the U.K. to rape gang ”parties.”

Jen decided to speak up in the Rape Gang Inquiry Report “so that religiously-motivated coercive abuse is properly recognized and confronted, even when doing so is politically, culturally, or socially controversial.”

In response, Rape Crisis England and Wales, a U.K. “feminist” social services organization “working to end sexual violence and abuse,” released a statement calling the report racist for pointing out that 95% of the gang members are Muslim and exploited girls because they were white.

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London — Labour Party lawmaker Andy Burnham, who looks increasingly likely to be Britain’s next prime minister, has previously criticized President Trump, accusing the American leader of bringing “instability” to the world.

Current Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Monday that he would resign in the wake of disastrous local elections in May, and 20 resignations from his government.

As his Labour Party still has a large majority of seats in the U.K. parliament — won in the last national elections in 2024 — it gets to pick Starmer’s replacement, and Burnham is widely expected to get the job.

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A 36-year-old Scottish man appeared in court Tuesday charged with five counts of attempted murder with a racist and terror motive after an attack left five people injured last Friday.

Lewis Hawkes, who was further charged with assault and robbery, breach of the peace and culpable and reckless conduct, did not enter a plea at Edinburgh Sheriff Court but was remanded in custody and is due back in court next week.

He is suspected of carrying out attacks motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment.

Restore Britian’s Rupert Lowe delivered the Rape Gang Inquiry report he promised. The report claims 250,000 mostly white British girls were systematically raped, tortured, and trafficked by mostly Pakistani gangs (95%). These “gangs” involved whole families. Lowe summarized the report, claiming, “The mass rape of vulnerable working class white girls by gangs of primarily Pakistani Muslim men is pure unfettered evil.”

Go Deeper

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Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, is no evil: that is the current left-wing UK Labour government’s attitude toward the spreading of anti-immigrant “disinformation” online. Last week, Liz Kendall, Labour’s Minister for Science, Innovation, and Shutting Everybody Up, warned of an imminent amendment to her party’s Online Safety Act censorship laws as follows:

What prompted Kendall’s move was the riots that broke out in Belfast, in the UK province of Northern Ireland, last week, after a Sudanese Muslim immigrant tried to saw the head off a partially deaf and disabled local man named Stephen Ogilvie. This was immediately after stabbing Ogilvie in the eyes, making him blind as well as deaf now, too. Reports suggest the victim will lose at least one of his eyes.

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What just happened? The UK’s long-expected social media ban for under-16s has finally been confirmed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, though it’s not expected to be introduced until spring 2027. The PM also revealed that livestreaming will be prohibited, while restrictions will be enabled by default for 17-year-olds.

The UK was one of several countries examining potential under-16 social media bans, following the lead of nations such as Australia.

On Monday, Starmer announced a full, rather than partial, ban as he is not “prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children.”

“Social media is making children unhappy, it’s making it easier for bullies to harass and abuse them, and it could even be harming their mental health,” the Prime Minister added.

The ban also includes restrictions on online products such as gaming apps, including removing the option to message with strangers.

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Apparently, it’s “Loneliness Awareness Week,” thanks to a global campaign emanating from the United Kingdom.

On the surface, the idea of a “Loneliness Awareness Week” sounds as cozy as the founding organization’s name, Marmalade Trust. That group self-identifies as a “charity,” but it acts more like a nongovernmental organization (NGO) devoted to government and globalist involvement in shaping our social connections.

Marmalade Trust’s home page proudly announces that its mission to fight loneliness is “joined by organisations globally,” including 10 Downing Street, the U.K.’s National Health Service, the BBC, The Guardian, Public Health England, and various other globalist and media outlets. On another page, it boasts that Loneliness Awareness Week has had the involvement of “the Royal Family, the Prime Minister, the Mayor of London, NHS trusts, and all government departments.  We have even had a special Royal Mail postage stamp!” The London transit authority is also partnering with the campaign by encouraging people to chat with strangers on public transit, seemingly to help overcome the loneliness epidemic.

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New UK government AI planning prototype built with Gemini aims to halve the time it takes to process homeowner applications

Around the world, Governments are exploring how AI can deliver better public services, faster. The UK is working to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029, but local planning authorities are often slowed down by dense paperwork and administrative backlogs. To help get Britain building, we’re partnering with the UK government to help radically shorten the time it takes to process householder planning applications. Our goal is to help officers cut application decision times by 50%, freeing up time for planners so that more homes can be built. We’re excited to see how our National Partnerships for AI, which seek to support reimagining of public services to create more resilient societies, can help Britain build faster.

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After the unprecedented resignation of former Defence Secretary John Healey and his deputy in a massive row about military funding, an armed forces head says operations and training will have to be slashed

The British head of the armed forces has warned the military will have to “dial back’ training and operations if they do not receive greater funding.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, Chief of the Defence Staff, was appearing before the Lords International Relations and Defence Committee. Sir Richard told peers he was “concerned” about funding for “day-to-day activity” in the context of rising inflation following a major government bust-up over defence funding.

Keir Starmer’s government has announced plans to pass a new online safety act that will ban children under 13 from using social media. To assure that children cannot gain access, adults will be required to confirm their identification every time they access the internet. The plan is seen as a scheme to track adult online users, not to protect children from the dangers of the internet.

Go Deeper

The BBC has announced another round of deep cuts as the progressive content marketer continues to lose standing and relevancy among the British people. This time, the cuts are coming in the news division, with 2,000 people targeted for layoffs.

Go Deeper

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British forces on Sunday intercepted a sanctioned oil tanker belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet in the English Channel, the defense ministry said.

The six-hour operation in the early hours was supported by aircraft, including Chinook helicopters, and navy vessels such as the frigate HMS Sutherland.

“In the first U.K.-led operation of its kind, the vessel SMYRTOS was boarded by Royal Marine Commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency, despite Russia’s best efforts to evade sanctions and continue fueling its barbaric war with Ukraine,” the ministry statement said.

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As is so often the case these days, the details of this particular news item are positively harrowing. The UK’s Lancashire Telegraph reported Friday that “a man was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after armed police attended an incident where a teenage girl was reportedly ‘stabbed in the neck.’

This girl was stabbed in the neck. Meanwhile, just a few days ago in Belfast, a Muslim migrant was caught in the act of trying to saw off the head of someone who had offended him. And in Italy, a man named Issam Chlih beheaded a woman while reciting Qur’an verses.

Nor is that even close to all. The magnificent Kevin Downey Jr. gave me a shout-out here for reporting a few other beheading stories, and there is never any shortage. In February in north London, a 13-year-old boy stabbed two other boys, ages 12 and 13, one of them in the neck. As the attacker did his stabbing, he screamed “Allahu akbar”; after he did his work, he fled into a local mosque. In Italy in January, a man of “North African origin” stabbed a priest in the neck as the clergyman walked through Modena’s city center.