Denmark’s move to send blood packs and explosives to Greenland is a clear message to the US: “stay away or we will all be sorry”.

Peter Viggo Jakobsen, an expert on Danish defence, NATO and diplomacy, told The Beacon Denmark has lost faith in US security guarantees following Washington’s constant threats to take the island.

An associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, Professor Jakobsen said as long as US President Donald Trump is in the White House, the faith in Washington’s defence of NATO allies will not be restored.

“We’ve lost faith in the US security guarantees, at least under Trump,” he said.

“That faith will not be restored until you get a different president who has another take on NATO.”

It comes after the US president repeatedly threatened to take Greenland earlier this year.

This saw him double down on threats, telling a press conference they would “find out” how far he was willing to go to take the island - a semi-autonomous Danish territory.

Fears were ramped up after Katie Miller, former Advisor to the Department of Government Efficiency and wife of Stephen Miller, a White House advisor, posted an image of Greenland on X covered in the stars and stripes of the US flag and the caption “soon”.¹

The feud, which died down slightly after Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general, convinced Trump to accept a deal with Denmark, has reignited following the US and Israel’s war in Iran.²

The President called Greenland “THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE ​OF ICE” in a post on social media after telling journalists his feud with NATO started over the island.³

But after Denmark, with help from “France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and also some personnel from the United Kingdom”, sent the explosives and blood packs to Greenland, a clear message was sent, Prof Jakobsen said.

“Hey, this is not going to be 9th of April, 1940 all over again,” he said, referencing Denmark’s surrender to Nazi Germany’s forces in the Second World War.

“We’re going to fight this time, so please stay away or we will all be sorry.”

Prof Jakobsen, who is in the Danish Armed Forces, said he hand inkling ahead of time that the operation would take place, but said there was still a sense of disbelief this action was being taken against the US, a supposed ally.

“If you’d asked me a couple of days before the crisis broke whether Denmark would ever order forces to go to Greenland and tell them to fight the US in the event that the US would try to invade, then I would not have believed it,” he said.

“It’s… unreal that we, all of a sudden, are treating the US as potential enemies who might want to attack our country given that we’ve been in the same alliance since 1949.

The Financial Times reported allies sent personnel to Greenland under the guise of a planned military exercise, with Copenhagen stating this had been relayed to the Pentagon.⁴

But the story, which was originally broken by Danish broadcaster DR, said the real reason they had been sent to the island was to prepare for a possible US attack and invasion.

Prof Jakobsen said it was “unreal” to see colleges equipped for warfighting, but “not against the Russians or the Chinese or some of the usual suspects”, but the US.

Trump had previously said in January that anything less than US control of the island was “unacceptable”.

But Prof Jakobsen said this was confusing as the US has “essentially”, since the Second World War, had military control of Greenland.

The US was, he explains, given free reign to build all the military installations they needed on the island, but following the Cold War, a lot of them were closed as they were no longer needed.

But since Russia has “become a major threat again… the US has done absolutely nothing to increase its military presence in and around Greenland”, with Denmark also asserting there is no current threat from China or Russia to the island.

This lack of build up is despite Trump’s claims the US needed Greenland for the US’ national security.⁵

“It’s not completely untrue when Trump says we only have a couple of dog sleds up there, but that’s because the assessment is that nothing else is required” he said.

“The understanding is that if a serious military threat should develop, then the US will take care of it, as it did during the Cold War, because Denmark on its own cannot do anything against Russia.

“Only the US, in cooperation with the Danish authorities, will be able to deal with that”

Greenland does still play a role in US national security, with the Pituffik Space Base hosting a radar which tracks whether Russia is firing nuclear missiles at the US.⁶

Prof Jakobsen said this sees the US “never give up military control of Greenland,” and nobody expects them to, but what is hard to understand is just what Trump wants - pointing out the US President wants military control over something it has militarily controlled since the Second World War.

“I’ve given up trying to understand what Trump is doing or saying,” he said.

“The other thing we found hard to understand [is] if he wanted to cut a deal with the Greenlandic government over rare earth minerals or critical minerals… well he could have made a phone call and asked for a meeting instead of threatening to use military force,” he said.

But Trump’s stronghanded tactics have resulted in an increase in Danish defence spending, with Copenhagen now spending 3.5% of GDP on defence.⁷

“There’s no way in a very hot place that Denmark would ever have agreed to spend 3.5 % of GDP on defence,” Prof Jakobsen said.

But, he said there is a difference between getting European nations to share the cost of defence and then threatening to take Greenland from the Danes.

“That’s sort of in a different league altogether,” he said.

“Trump has actually been successful with respect to actually getting the Europeans to pay their fair share.

“He’s done that by being very nasty and very rude because when President Biden asked for 3% the year before Trump was elected, we were just laughing at him because he was old and polite and not doing anything.

“Then Trump comes along and he gets 5%. And if he had not been Trump, that would not have happened.”

On 9 April, ​Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s Prime Minister called on Nato allies to push back against Trump’s narrative regarding the island.⁸

“NATO wasn’t there when we needed them, and they won’t be there if we need them again,” Trump posted on TruthSocial, his social media platform.

But Prof Jakobsen said he does not think Trump will follow through with his plans because “nobody in the US understands his argument about Greenland”

“It would probably be even more unpopular than the war on Iran,” he said.

“So in that sense, I think that we have a lot of Americans who agree with us that it would be really, really weird and stupid and crazy to take over Greenland by force.”

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1X (Formerly Twitter), 2026, x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266.

2Jacobsen, Stine. ““We Are Not Some Piece of Ice”: Greenland Hits Back at Trump’s Arctic Insult.” Reuters, 9 Apr. 2026, www.reuters.com/world/europe/greenland-prime-minister-rebuffs-trump-remarks-nato-tensions-rise-2026-04-09/.

3Bao, Anniek. ““Poorly Run, Piece of Ice”: Trump Targets Greenland Again as Iran War Deepens NATO Rift.” CNBC, 9 Apr. 2026, www.cnbc.com/2026/04/09/trump-greenland-nato-rift-iran-war-deepens.html.

4Foy, Henry, et al. “Europe Sends Troops to Greenland in Attempt to Ward off US Threat.” @FinancialTimes, Financial Times, 15 Jan. 2026, www.ft.com/content/047a267d-3644-46b4-9848-85dce4678363?syn-25a6b1a6=1. Accessed 12 Apr. 2026.

5Henley, Jon. ““Unacceptable” for Greenland Not to Be in US Hands, Says Trump.” The Guardian, The Guardian, 14 Jan. 2026, www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/14/greenland-us-trump-talks-denmark.

6Leicester, John. “What to Know about Greenland’s Role in Nuclear Defense and Trump’s “Golden Dome.”” Los Angeles Times, 23 Jan. 2026, www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2026-01-23/what-to-know-about-greenlands-role-in-nuclear-defense-trumps-golden-dome. Accessed 12 Apr. 2026.

7TheCopenhagenPost. “Denmark Reaches Historic 3.5% of GDP in Military Spending and Lower VAT, but Its Financial Surplus Is Almost Gone - the Copenhagen Post.” The Copenhagen Post, 24 Feb. 2026, cphpost.dk/2026-02-24/news/politics/denmark-reaches-historic-3-5-of-gdp-in-military-spending-and-lower-vat-but-its-financial-surplus-is-almost-gone/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2026.

8Jazeera, Al. ““Not Some Piece of Ice”: Greenland Hits Back at Trump Insult.” Al Jazeera, 9 Apr. 2026, www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/9/not-some-piece-of-ice-greenland-hits-back-at-trump-insult.

Disclaimer: This Interview was on the 2nd of April, before the announcement of a two-week ceasefire on the 8th.

On February 28, US President Donald Trump, alongside Israeli Prime Minister and ever-closer ally Benjamin Netanyahu, started to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age”.¹

Oil prices rocketed, Iran’s leadership was targeted and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed.

Since then, Iran pulled one of the only leavers it had and effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz - a critical waterway that sees nearly 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas supply pass through it.²

“Build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT. You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A won’t be there to help you anymore,” Trump’s Truth Social post, directed at the UK, read on 31 March.³

“They prepared for this.”

Commodore Simon Kelly spent over 27 years in the Royal Navy, with his service career seeing him deploy to the Gulf on numerous occasions and captain a number of ships.⁴

He also served as the Deputy Commander UK Strike Forces and led the inaugural NATO Combined Task Force (Atlantic).⁵

Commodore Kelly explained to The Beacon it was “indicative” that we haven’t seen one US ship sail through the Strait since the start of Trump’s war with Iran.

The Strait lies between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, with Iran on the north and the UAE, Oman and Qatar lying below it on the south.

While Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of Defense, and Trump have celebrated the US success against Iran’s conventional navy, it is the Revolutionary Guard Corps that pose a threat in the waterway.

“We’re talking about a really narrow section of water,” Cdre Kelly said.

He explained you can see what ships are travelling through the Strait from the coastline and all it would take is some small fishing vessels or boats to attack.

This is an asymmetric threat, which means the powers are not equal - but this works against the US in this example.

“[The] Iranian Guard Corps… it’s probably been worn down hugely by American action, but it’s huge,” he explained.

“They’re distributed along the coastline and they prepared for this.”

The Feasibility of an Invasion

Cdre Kelly said it is this worst case scenario the Iranians have prepared for and a multi-layered attack is exactly what makes Trump’s claim the UK should just go and “TAKE” the oil so absurd.

“You take the cover off your boat, you push it off that dock… and in a very short space of time, you can get your small boat in close proximity to anything that’s coming through,” he said.

“You’re able to manoeuvre freely, you present an incredibly difficult target because you’re moving, you’re moving fast, you can move erratically.

“There’s no way of going through this low-risk concept that Trump and Hegseth like to throw out there.

“It’s a really, really complicated task.”

This has not stopped the US stacking materiel in the region.

This includes the USS Tripoli, an amphibious readiness group who get troops to an area, and then the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, who would carry out the landing.

USS Boxer is also believed to be heading to the region, as well as 82nd Airborne Division - a rapid parachute infantry division from the US Army.

Alongside all of this, there are also two full US Carrier Strike Groups, with both USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford in the region - with USS George H.W. Bush also headed out to replace Ford.

Cdre Kelly said if all that military might is actually there “to do something with”, that comes with a “terrifying bit… of thinking behind that”.

If the capabilities are used to punch US troops ashore, putting US Marine Corps in as pickets in the Strait of Hormuz”, it could leave personnel trapped in the waterway.

The shape, as an inverted ‘V’, has a number of islands that could “conceivably” be used to put a US Marine Corps footprint ashore.

This includes Kharg Island, a fuel hub for Iran which Cddr Kelly said is about 550 kilometres inside the Gulf.

“I suppose the thinking.. is you land the Marines there and you have your hand around the throat of oil supplies back into Iran and that is used as your bargaining chip,” he explained.

“But it’s only about 30 kilometres off the coastline.

This then leaves the personnel fixed, with the Iranians able to “batter them with whatever they’ve got that the US hasn’t been able to destroy”.

Tehran could also mine the Strait behind the ships used to get personnel ashore, making it nearly impossible to get back out.

“There’s this really quite scary situation when there’s a potential for some kind of amphibious assault into one of these areas where they will be protected.

“They will be ready and the IRGC’s mindset is just one of sacrifice and resilience, it’s cultural, it’s religious, it’s historic and so these aren’t people who are going to throw down their weapons and run away.

“The casualty numbers are going to go up and so you then end up with a situation in which the American president and his administration have ordered them in there.

“It’s inevitable that there will be significant losses and so that’s why there’s sort of the military planner in me [who] thinks, well, you can’t conceive of using this lever.”

America’s Scapegoats

Trump has repeatedly chastised European allies for their lack of support in the US and Israel’s war in Iran.⁶

This included his criticism of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who he said was looking to “join wars after [the US has] already won”.⁷

“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said of the PM.

It came after Sir Keir appeared to not allow the US to launch attacks from UK bases, namely RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia, which is located in the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

But it is easier to blame someone else rather than take responsibility, Cddr Kelly pointed out, adding it could be a case of “strategic amnesia”.

“I think it’s much easier to blame NATO, they keep on saying NATO,” he said.

“They’re either showing a fundamentalist misunderstanding of what that alliance means or they’re using it conveniently.”

Trump has since also blamed South Korea and Japan for not helping as much as he thinks they should have.

“What they’re doing is if you blame someone else for the situation that you find yourself in, you can go down your off-ramp. and you can very conveniently shift the focus onto someone else.”

“You can say, ‘well, we’ve done what we need to, the Strait of Hormuz is up to someone else.”

“My view would be that it’s much easier to say… ‘the price is going up at the pump in the US is not because of us, it’s because our European partners… aren’t doing what they should do.”

The conflict has since escalated, with Trump claiming he would bomb Iran back to the Stone Age and later asserting “a whole civilisation will die tonight” unless Tehran agreed a deal to reopen the waterway.⁸

“There’s no winning this,” Cddr Kelly said.

“There’s no win at all for anyone, I think it potentially ends up as being a generational challenge.”

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1Trump, Donald. “Truth Social.” Truth Social, 2026, truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116329512466946656.

2“Strait of Hormuz Is Chokepoint for 20% of World’s Oil - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).” Eia.gov, 2024, www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=7830.

3Trump, Donald. “Truth Social.” Truth Social, 2026, truthsocial.com/@realdonaldtrump/posts/116323481956698353. Accessed 11 Apr. 2026.

4BIOGRAPHY of COMMANDER SIMON P KELLY ROYAL NAVY. Sept. 2016.

5Ibid

6Jr, Bernd Debusmann, and Claire Keenan. “Trump Criticises Nato as Alliance Chief Mark Rutte Describes Meeting as “Very Frank.”” BBC News, 9 Apr. 2026, www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05d8j9r5ejo.

7Faguy, Ana, and Jack Fenwick. “Trump Accuses Starmer of Seeking to “Join Wars after We’ve Already Won.”” BBC News, 8 Mar. 2026, www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dn3j04lydo.

8Trump, Donald. “Donald J. Trump (@RealDonaldTrump).” Truth Social, 2026, truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116363336033995961.

In this article, we see what the declaration of an “illegal migration emergency” by Kent County Council (KCC) means for Kent, why the opposition decided to walk out, and whether doing this before a by-election was even legal.

The walk-out, on March 19th, was in protest against holding the debate only three weeks before a by-election is held in Margate’s ‘Cliftonville’ ward.

Kent’s opposition councillors allege that by holding the debate, KCC’s Reform UK authority breached, Purdah or the pre-election period, during which the council must halt activities that may influence the election.

The walk-out was agreed upon by council group leaders from: Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, and the Green Party.

Was the meeting legal?

Purdah1 refers to the period immediately before an election or referendum when specific restrictions apply to the body being elected, in this case the county council, and its officers.

The purpose of these restrictions is to prevent governments and local authorities from using their official offices and influence from trying to improperly influence election results. Allowing the governing party to use government resources would severely unbalance any election.

The rules surrounding local authority conduct during Purdah are defined by the Local Government Act (introduced in 1986 and updated in 2011).

This act clearly states that “Local authorities should pay particular regard to the legislation governing publicity during the period of heightened sensitivity before elections”

Holding a debate on whether to declare an “illegal migration emergency” was “plainly in breach of Purdah” according to KCC’s Green Group leader, Mark Hood.

He said that Reform “want to make sure that the narrative around the by-election is immigration. Which the county council can’t control.”

Hood described the meeting as “farcical” and said that he had “lost confidence in the monitoring officer” who he believed had been severely pressured into allowing the debate.

It is the responsibility of a local authority’s monitoring officer to ensure the council fulfils its legal obligations, including during Purdah, and to provide legal advice to councillors.

Harry Rayner, the leader of KCC’s Conservative Group, echoed this sentiment, saying that his group were seeking expert opinion “on whether legal action might be taken.” “Potentially in collaboration with the electoral commission.”

Why did the opposition walk out?

The decision to walk out of the meeting was taken jointly between the council’s opposition groups.

“The reason that the whole opposition left the meeting is because it was clearly unlawful” said Rayner.

Mark Hood agreed that the walk-out was justified. “Some things are so toxic that you can’t debate them” he said, “when the falsehoods are so extreme, you’re legitimising the debate, and legitimising the falsehood.”

Reform UK’s own MPs staged a walk-out from Prime Minister’s Questions the following Wednesday.

“Imitation by Reform is the sincerest form of flattery” said Rayner, in response to the comparison.

Both opposition leaders re-iterated that their walk-out was specifically in response to an unlawful motion, in contrast to the offence taken by Reform MPs at Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s comments.

By-election Background

Former Reform councillor Daniel Taylor, was sentenced to 12 months in prison in February, for behaving in a controlling or coercive way towards his wife.

Taylor was elected as a councillor in May 2025, but was suspended from Reform a month later, and sat as an independent until his sentencing.

Taylor won the seat with a majority of 18% over Labour candidate Peter Mousley, but recent events may have damaged Reform’s popularity.

This includes both Taylor’s sentencing, and the suspension of six other councillors on suspicion of leaking a video of a virtual council meeting.

This appeared to show Kemkaran swearing and shouting at other councillors.

Opposition councillors called for a by-election in the immediate aftermath of Taylor’s suspension, but the councillor opted to remain in post as long as possible.

Any political gain Reform may have hoped for from the delay has surely been offset by the succession of local scandals, which have seen six councillors defect to the Restore Britain party.

April’s by-election may be seen as a test of Reform’s ability to maintain popularity while in office.

In the 2025 election Reform won fifty seven of eighty seats in on Kent County Council but they are now down to only 47. Losing the by-election would reduce Reform’s majority on the council to only six seats.

What does an “illegal migration emergency” even mean?

“Nothing” according to both Rayner and Hood.

The motion declaring the emergency called on the leader of the council Linden Kemkaran to “demand the Labour government stops the arrival of migrants by small boats immediately.”

“KCC has no competence in the matters under consideration” explained Rayner, “any competence lies with the Home Office, and beneath them, the Border Force.”

Hood went further, suggesting that the motion was a deliberate attempt to influence the upcoming by-election.

“They’re desperately trying to distract people away from the fact that their previous candidate was imprisoned for coercive and controlling behaviour.”

The motion passed unanimously in the absence of any opposition councillors.

Hood said: “It’s purely performative politics”

The Deputy leader did not seem surprised. He suggested to journalists “You’ve got to ask yourself, is this Britain or is this Harare?”²

But it was not Harare. Nor was it Gorton and Denton.

It was Oldham West and Royton and the year was 2015.

There is little originality to Farage’s claims of fraud in the Gorton and Denton by-election last week. His history of repeated and uncreative claims of voter fraud as an explanation for loss date back at least 12 years.

This is not an article about the legitimacy of these claims. Before the conclusion of the investigation, the validity of Nigel Farage’s most recent and loudest claim of election fraud is purely speculative.

Maybe he’s right this time. Fourth time lucky as the saying goes.

This article is about Farage’s largely neglected history of claiming fraud in elections that he didn’t win. As Farage vows to crackdown on mail-in voting and voting by Commonwealth citizens, is the PM-in-waiting learning from Trump’s ‘stop the steal’ tactics?³

Nigel Farage’s History of Election Denialism

Exactly a year before the 2015 election, Farage told viewers on LBC that there was “postal voting fraud going on on a third world scale in this country. I know it.”⁴

In the 2015 General election, many supporters claimed that Farage had won the election in South Thanet, circulating the hashtag #Thanetrigged⁵ and successfully triggering⁶ an investigation by the Kent police following complaints from non-constituents. Farage himself never formally acknowledged claims of fraud himself. That would change six months later.

In the December 2015 by-election, Farage’s evidence of fraud would progress beyond ‘I know it’ to claiming to have received “evidence from an impeccable source”.⁷ Unfortunately Farage did not publicly disclose this ‘impeccable source’ and UKIP’s formal request for a police investigation failed.

Farage would use this template again in June 2019 when the Brexit party failed to achieve its first MP despite finishing first in the EU parliamentary election a month earlier and widespread media prediction. Farage called Peterborough a “rotten borough”. A Brexit Party spokesperson was more explicit as to his concerns with the “Pakistani vote”.⁸

Columnist Rod Liddle summed up the sentiment of those in the Brexit party ecosystem well in an editorial for the Sunday Times:

“My suspicion is that quite a few those who voted in Peterborough, with help from community leaders, may have been people who do not speak English and may well have thought they were ticking a box to choose their favourite vegetable side dish – tarka dal, brinjal bhaji or Bombay aloo.”

“I suppose this last comment will be considered a racist aside.” he perceptively noted.⁹

It is maybe worth noting that every claim of voter fraud was eventually thrown out for lack of evidence. More broadly, despite Farage’s long time obsession with Mail-in-voting (a transatlantic trait), instances of fraud through this method have been repeatedly shown to be negligible.¹⁰

In the 2024 election campaign, Farage toned down his rhetoric from 2019, but still claimed that there was “corruption in our postal vote system and many other things”.¹¹ In the same interview he echoed allegations that Biden had won the 2020 election due to “vote harvesting”.

Tweet following 2016 meeting

America’s Playbook

Until recently Trump’s so-called ‘election denial’ did not seem to be working.

His legal challenges to the 2020 election all failed. Republican governors were unwilling to fabricate results¹² and his Vice President was unwilling (and incapable)¹³ of overriding them.

Despite its violence, January 6 itself could hardly be called a success. The general public mostly blamed Trump for inciting is supporters to violence. As he left office, he held the highest final disapproval rating since Nixon.¹⁴ Voters seemed to punish those who latched on to claims of 2020 victory in the 2022 midterms.

However, ‘Trump 2’ has utilised election denial in a more effective manner than zip-tying legislators until they make you president. Trump has repeatedly called for Republicans to “take over” voting, calling for the 2026 election to be “nationalised”.¹⁵

This violation of the Constitution’s election clause is (officially) a product of the President’s concern for voter fraud committed by immigrants. As Trump ally Steve Bannon put it when calling on the President to deploy the US military and ICE to polling stations in Democratic states, “We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again [...] We will never again allow an election to be stolen.”¹⁶

Unlike his American counterpart, Nigel Farage doesn’t wear authoritarianism on his sleeve. Whilst sometimes praising authoritarian regimes, Farage has not promised to be a ‘dictator on day one’.

Maybe Farage is different from Trump. It’s hard to know for certain how someone will govern before they do. But there are quite strong similarities on claims of fraud.

A British Trump?

For three hundred years, the British people have taken great pride in being too cynical to fall for wannabe authoritarians compared to our neighbours.

“Why is the Goose-step not used in England?” George Orwell once wrote, “It is not used because the people in the street would laugh.”¹⁷

But if the British naturally people recoil from bombastic despots, we would expect authoritarianism to come in a more respectable package.

Reform has embraced a fairly useful line for any future election loss. Any future loss can be pinned on fraud by immigrants.

Does Farage genuinely believe this? Does he believe that his popularity is so great that whenever he loses an election it’s because of voter fraud by immigrants? Maybe. But maybe Trump genuinely believed that the dead former president of Venezuela headed an international communist plot to rig the election in favour of Joe Biden. ¹⁸

Fundamentally it doesn’t matter if Farage genuinely believes all of his claims of rigged elections over the last decade or not. We have seen in America what happens if politicians can convince their supporters to believe them and over the next nine months we will see how far it can go.

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1Farage: ‘Electoral process dead’. (n.d.). BBC News. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-35004692.. ‌

2Tait, A. (2015). escenic. [online] The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/parliamentary-constituencies/oldham-west-and-royton/12031040/oldham-west-royton-by-election-results.html [Accessed 2 Mar. 2026]. ‌

3Addison, I. (2026). Reform UK unveils proposals for electoral reform after by-election result. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-uk-farage-postal-votes-b2929654.html [Accessed 2 Mar. 2026]. ‌

4LBC (2014). Farage: Postal Vote Fraud Going On On A Third World Scale. [online] YouTube. Available at:

[Accessed 2 Mar. 2026]. ‌

5‘No electoral fraud’ in Nigel Farage-contested Thanet South seat. (2015). BBC News. [online] 13 May. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32725167.

6Ramzy Alwakeel (2015). South Thanet: ‘No evidence’ of electoral fraud in seat Nigel Farage lost | London Evening Standard. [online] The Standard. Available at: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/south-thanet-police-find-no-evidence-of-electoral-fraud-in-seat-nigel-farage-lost-10248354.html? [Accessed 2 Mar. 2026]. ‌

7Jahangir, R. (2015). Oldham Asians dismiss UKIP’s claim of election fraud. BBC News. [online] 4 Dec. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-35011954. ‌

8Wright, J. (2019). Brexit Party insiders let the mask slip, blaming an ethnic group for their election loss. [online] Canary. Available at: https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2019/06/07/brexit-party-insiders-let-the-mask-slip-blaming-an-ethnic-group-for-their-election-loss/ [Accessed 2 Mar. 2026]. ‌

9Bright, S. (2020). The UK’s Not Immune to Trumpian Mail Ballot Antics. [online] Byline Times. Available at: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/11/06/uk-nigel-farage-donald-trump-mail-in-postal-ballots/ [Accessed 2 Mar. 2026]. ‌

10Securing the ballot Report of Sir Eric Pickles’ review into electoral fraud. (n.d.). Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/545416/eric_pickles_report_electoral_fraud.pdf. ‌

11BBC. (2024). Nigel Farage calls for ‘zero net migration’. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0j22lyt [Accessed 1 Mar. 2026]. ‌

12US election: Trump tells Georgia election official to ‘find’ votes to overturn Biden win. (2021). BBC News. [online] 4 Jan. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-55524838. ‌

13Trump wrong to say I could overturn Biden win - Pence. (2022). BBC News. [online] 4 Feb. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60266121. ‌

14Peters, G. (2017). Final Presidential Job Approval Ratings | The American Presidency Project. [online] Ucsb.edu. Available at: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/final-presidential-job-approval-ratings. ‌

15Faguy, A. (2026). Trump says Republicans ‘should take over the voting’ and ‘nationalise’ US elections. BBC News. [online] 3 Feb. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mke841zj0o. ‌

16Wendler, J. (2026). Steve Bannon calls for Trump to deploy ICE and military troops to polling sites. [online] POLITICO. Available at: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/04/steve-bannon-ice-military-polling-sites-00765331. ‌

17Orwell, G. (1982). The Lion and the Unicorn. Penguin UK. ‌p43

18Peters, J.W. and Feuer, A. (2025). What We Know About Sidney Powell. The New York Times. [online] 30 Apr. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/article/who-is-sidney-powell.html. ‌

The old adage holds that truth is the first casualty of war. Certainly, there has been no war in my lifetime where it has felt more apt. Iran, Israel and the US governments are all wholly untrustworthy narrators. AI video generation and Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter have eliminated other avenues of information we would have previously relied upon.

While in the past, truth has been obscured in war for security concerns, tactical advantage and to cover up crimes, under this President it may be an explicit target. Trump has a singular genius for turning our information space into a foggy warzone and he’s betting that while his opponents struggle to find which way is up, he can gain political advantage.

What we don’t know

In his usual style, Trump’s announcement of the military action was a diatribe of historic grievance and unclear thinking. Apparently, the US is acting against “imminent threats from the Iranian regime”,¹ he singled out long range missile production and nuclear proliferation as targets but failed to answer the critical question of why now?

This is par for the course, realistic objectives can be measured, explicit goals, litigated. The UN charter gives only two circumstances where the use of force is permitted: Self defence or where authorised by the Security Council. In theory a US President is also answerable to Congress, which must authorise use of force or declare war. Needless to say, there has been no security council resolution, even Trump didn’t claim that Iran could currently hit the US with their missiles or that they planned to and Congress has not been consulted.

Any compromise with any of these institutions, or even reality itself, would imply that Trump was in some way accountable. This way whatever happens in Iran can be hailed as a victory and exactly what the President intended all along.

Getting away with it

Even Trump knows that while his aura of unaccountability has limited. In the last year he has hit up against NATO allies,² the Supreme Court³ and most important of all, bond markets,⁴ each reigning in his ability to exercise his will.

To get away with it, he has two primary tactics.

The first is creating confusion and fatigue in his opponents. Trump creates an avalanche of news, constantly.

• Bombing Venezuelan “drug boats”

• Deposing Maduro

• The killing of Renée Good

• Threats to Greenland

• Accepting the “gift” of María Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize

• De-escalating threats to Greenland

• The killing of Alex Pretti

• The partial release of the Epstein files

• Trump’s post of a video of the Obamas as apes

• The State of the Union

• The attack on Iran

These all happened this year. It’s been two months!

The second is to attack weak targets that no one wants to defend. Domestically he attacks foreigners and immigrants, externally he threatens military Greenland and Venezuela while meekly accepting Russian talking points.⁵

Iran fits this pattern. The Mullah’s regime is odious. A genuine threat to the region. A human rights abusing,⁶ terrorist supporting,⁷ theocracy, bent on creating a nuclear deterrent.⁸ Trump knows that any condemnation of his military aggression, trampling of the UN charter, Congress or civilian death in Iran will be preceded by a few sentences of throat clearing about how the Iranian regime was bad. Mark Carney, perhaps the most effective opponent of Trump so far, has come out in support⁹ of this action. British planes¹⁰ have been operating in the Middle East to swat down Iran’s retaliation and British bases¹¹ are now facilitating American strikes as of last evening. His opponents literally make his arguments for him.

Us or Them

Faced with no concrete way to measure success, a clear set of enemies, and a barrage of news leaving no time for nuanced decision making, Americans are funneled into a false binary. Support Trump, or support his enemies.

The United States is currently in a state of hyper politicisation. The second Trump administration is constantly picking fights, flouting laws and enriching itself. Each outrage is blown up by conflict seeking algorithms¹² but the outrage cycle is also a normalisation cycle. Every aspect of American life from the superbowl halftime¹³ show to the ballet¹⁴ sparks a political power struggle.

It’s exhausting to keep up, difficult to find reliable information and increasingly dangerous to speak out when you are sure.¹⁵ As more institutions fall under Trump’s influence¹⁶ or bend the knee,¹⁷ it will be less and less advantageous to be seen to oppose his regime.

The Last Casualty

There is another old adage on the effect of war, the one coined by Cicero. Silent enim leges inter arma. In times of war, the law falls silent. These adages are obviously related. The law requires demonstrable truth to be enforced. Indeed, the practice of law is in many ways a search for truth.

The last American forever-war brought us Abu Ghraib, kill lists, drone strikes and indefinite detention in Guantanamo bay. All under administrations led by men committed to democracy and the peaceful transfer of power.

If you believe that Trump is a threat to American democracy and the stability of the world order, the risk of escalation during the conduct of war, the necessary lowering of the cost of human life, the brutalisation of armed representatives of the state should worry you.

The truth may have been the first casualty. It won’t be the last.

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1Truth Social. (2026). Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump). [online] Available at: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116147082884192486.

2Haynes, Deborah. 2026. “Trump’s Greenland Climbdown: Don’t Let It Fool You, This Crisis Is far from over for NATO.” Sky News. Sky. January 22, 2026. https://news.sky.com/story/trumps-greenland-climbdown-dont-let-it-fool-you-this-crisis-is-far-from-over-for-nato-13497397.

3Sherman, Natalie. 2026. “Trump Brings in New 10% Tariff as Supreme Court Rejects His Global Import Taxes.” BBC News, February 20, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8146l0n55o.

4Davide Barbuscia. 2025. “The Tenuous Peace between Trump and the $30 Trillion US Bond Market.” Reuters, December 29, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/tenuous-peace-between-trump-30-trillion-us-bond-market-2025-12-29/. ‌

5Edwards, Christian. 2025. “US Envoy Says ‘Elephant in the Room’ in Peace Talks Is Whether Ukraine Will Cede Occupied Regions.” CNN. March 22, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/22/europe/witkoff-carlson-trump-russia-ukraine-talks-intl/index.html.

6Nimoni, Fiona, and Parham Ghobadi. 2026. “Hundreds of Thousands Join Iran Protests around the World.” BBC News, February 15, 2026. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czr0lykl4g4o.

7Conley, J. (2026). US strikes in Iran could see oil prices jump $10 to $20 or more with no deescalation, OPEC+ raises barrel-per-day production quota. [online] Yahoo News. Available at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/finance/news/us-strikes-in-iran-could-see-oil-prices-jump-10-to-20-or-more-with-no-deescalation-opec-raises-barrel-per-day-production-quota-143847339.html [Accessed 2 Mar. 2026]. ‌

8https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran

9Carney, M. (2026). Mark Carney (@mark-carney.bsky.social). [online] Bluesky Social. Available at: https://bsky.app/profile/mark-carney.bsky.social/post/3mfwa6er2ik2r.

10Phillips, A. and Nimoni, F. (2026). Starmer speaks to Trump after UK joins defensive operation in Middle East. BBC News. [online] 28 Feb. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20l1v0ldqzo. ‌

11Mason, R. and Smith, H. (2026). UK to allow US to use British bases for defensive strikes against Iran. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/01/uk-to-allow-us-to-use-british-bases-for-defensive-strikes-against-iran. ‌

12Bennington, M. (2025). Democracy Is in Crisis and It Won’t Heal on Its Own. [online] Substack.com. Available at: https://milesbennington.substack.com/p/democracy-is-in-crisis-and-it-wont [Accessed 2 Mar. 2026]. ‌

13Murray, C. (2025). ‘No Songs In English’: The Far Right Slams Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Gig Over Anti-Trump Stances. Forbes. [online] 29 Sep. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/09/29/bad-bunnys-super-bowl-halftime-sparks-right-wing-backlash-over-rappers-anti-ice-activism/. ‌

14Jacobs, J. (2026). This Year, It Will Be the ‘Trump Kennedy Center Honors’. [online] The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/arts/trump-kennedy-center-honors.html. ‌

15Chia, O. (2025). US judge blocks detention of British social media campaigner. BBC News. [online] 26 Dec. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c33mx6j5jrvo. ‌

16Badohal, K., Varghese, H.M. and Singh, J. (2026). Paramount to buy Warner Bros Discovery in $110 billion deal as Netflix bows out of race. Reuters. [online] 27 Feb. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/warner-bros-signs-110-billion-deal-with-paramount-ends-bidding-war-with-netflix-2026-02-27/. ‌

17Cai, S. and Stokols, E. (2025). NATO chief calls Trump ‘Daddy’. [online] POLITICO. Available at: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/25/nato-chief-calls-trump-daddy-00423485. ‌

Awoken by (and I can’t believe I have to type this), Elon “pedo guy is not defamation” Musk’s new AI tool, that creates synthetic child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and Australia’s newly enacted social media ban for under 16s, the British media and policy making establishment have leapt at the chance to consider tightening restrictions1.

Lord Nash introduced an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill2 that would ban under 16s from becoming users of social media. Then Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Opposition, followed by 60 Labour MPs3 chimed in with their support. This sparked further reaction from the policy community as 42 organisations including the Molly Rose Foundation (MRF) and NSPCC signed a joint letter stating that social media bans are the wrong solution4.

Finally Keir Starmer stepped in and pledged to act in a matter of months, indicating a possible minimum age limit for social media, restricting addictive functions like endless scroll or autoplay and limiting VPN access for children5.

In a few weeks, regulation of social media has gone from looking hazy and impossibly distant to urgent and concrete. While there is an element of “Won’t somebody please think of the children!” to the reaction, the comparison between the nimble House of Lords, grappling with the newest of technologies and the utterly sclerotic US legislature must leave Americans pining for ermine.

Perfect World

Of course, ideally, policy making would not take place in long overdue spasms of reaction.

Our Government, being informed by their constituents and lobbied by knowing experts, would make time in the Parliamentary calendar to debate a proposed solution to an upcoming problem. Parliamentarians would begin the debate with arguments that fit their existing world views and as the debate deepened they would demand more evidence as opposing viewpoints chipped away at their certainties.

The issue of a social media ban for under 16s would pivot on harm. Evidence on the harm social media causes children would be weighed against the potential harm a ban would have. Eventually, most reasonable parliamentarians would be able to agree a compromise ensuring that children gain access to the maximum benefits of this technology with the minimum of risks.

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Is this really about the children?

Of course, political debate is to policy what physics is to engineering. As Elon would tell you, any idiot can calculate the thrust to weight ratio for a rocket to reach orbit. Not many can actually get one there.

I must admit, my first instinct when presented with the possibility of a social media ban for the under 16s was “Thank you sir! May I have another?”. So I was confused that so many well respected child-protection organisations came out against a ban. These organisations are both acquainted with the dangers of the social internet and the havoc it has wreaked on children so how could they not be in favour of a ban?

I am no expert, but the reason seems to be that these organisations are further ahead than the country at large on the policy, and have travelled farther down the road of understanding the costs as well as the benefits of a social media ban for under 16s. The MRF points to children finding their way to less regulated sites, being cut off from support networks and failing to develop an understanding of the algorithm-dominated internet that they will inhabit as adults.

And yet, I find myself reluctant to give up this opportunity for a ban. Despite, reasonable calls for evidence-based nuanced policy making from the likes of Ian Russell, who’s daughter, Molly, committed suicide after exposure to negaive online content, I still find myself gravitating to a ban.

This suggests my motives may not be confined to child safety.

Status Quo Bias

Since their inception social media companies along with all internet content delivery systems have benefitted from being regulated more like The Beano than a pack of Marlboro lights. For 20 years however their products and business models have changed to be less and less like the former and increasingly like the latter.

Like the tobacco industry before them, social media platforms are now powerful vested interests with connections and free cash to influence politics. We have let them grow into potent actors in our public sphere so that any debate about their products or business models is muddied by the money and influence they bring to bear.Any politician or parent of a toddler knows it is easier to deny something than to take it away.

Justifying the regulation of tobacco was a challenge for liberals. After all, what consenting adults do to their own bodies is their own business. Yet, in a free society we have still managed to regulate, and drastically reduce tobacco consumption.

We did this in three main ways. The first is that we identified harms that personal tobacco use inflicted on others. Banning smoking in public places and places of work was largely justified by the presence of staff who had to in places where smokers would light up and therefore could not escape the effects of second hand smoke.

The second was a requirement that the adult consent to harm was informed. In this way off-putting packaging that warned of the dangers of smoking were justified. Finally, externalities were considered. Especially in the UK, smoking costs the state and taxpayers money via increased medical costs. It is therefore justified in increasing the tax on tobacco to defray these costs.

We could regulate social media and justify that regulation in similar ways. Limiting the reach of proven harmful content, requiring irritating popups that inform users of the dangers of scrolling and taxing social media companies in a way that reduces harms the state has to remedy.

The Larger Threat

Social media also poses additional threats. It is my opinion that the creation of the Attention Economy Mediated by Smartphones (™) has imperilled democracy to a much greater extent than people realise. Short formats, attention maximising algorithms and frictionless delivery have primed the electorate with simple, compelling, nonsense solutions to our real problems, leading to the rise of populist parties and the end of effective government.

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If we take this threat seriously, we are in danger of surrendering our liberty permanently. Perhaps this feels like hyperbole in the UK, but a quick glance across the pond will confirm that when the information system no longer serves truth, the electorate can endanger their future freedom of choice. It is therefore justified to preserve our freedom, pending evidence that these platforms can be regulated safely.

In the same way we could regulate algorithmically curated content delivery on the basis of addiction. Content delivery platforms, by and large, are habit forming and worse, network effects make them painful to leave as you will lose the connections you have built. Collating the evidence of addiction, or abuse of market power, and requiring mitigation are reasonable responses to defend individual freedom.

Power Struggle

So, the social media platforms are addictive monopolies that spread harmful content to an uninformed population increasing the cost of mental health treatment across society. Their core products were a threat to democracy even before their owners were co-opted or willingly joined an authoritarian project.

The opportunity to cut the pipeline of new, inexperienced users to these services is not just a child protection issue. It’s a contest of power. Without their users, these services and the companies they pay for will lose their potency and may fall within the grasp of lowly regulators.

Another path

Imagine a world in which the Government was forward thinking enough to see the potential harm of social media to children. They would have reversed the burden of proof as we do with medicines. Social media would have needed to prove it was safe before children gained access.

In 1908, The Children Act prevented the sale of tobacco to children under the age of 16. There was no scientific consensus on harm at the time and I’m sure that many children (my parents among them) smoked before the legal age. But the government saw the potential risk and acted, saving perhaps millions of children from smoking tobacco during their formative years.

If we’re lucky, social media isn’t as addictive or harmful as tobacco. Just to be sure though, maybe we should ban under 16s from engaging with it.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing if that went some way to neutering the power of this technology over the whole of society too. Indeed, maybe we could consider this a first step.

5

Starmer, K. (2026). Giving children the space to grow – an update. Substack.

Keir Starmer

Giving children the space to grow – an update

Hello, Last month I wrote to you about the steps we are taking to give children the space to grow up without the online world getting in the way…

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2 months ago · 1 comment · Keir Starmer