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SNP blocks new nuclear power

 SNP blocks new nuclear power despite ‘high-potential’ sites. A
Westminster-backed study identified places capable of hosting future
reactors, but the Scottish government’s longstanding opposition remains
unchanged. The SNP has shut down any hope for new nuclear power in Scotland
after a Westminster-backed report that highlighted the “high potential”
for projects. “The Scottish government is focused on supporting the
development of Scotland’s renewable energy potential, which provides
jobs, are safer and doesn’t leave a legacy of nuclear waste.

Times 30th June 2026, https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/snp-blocks-new-nuclear-power-high-potential-sites-vfrcjx5ns

July 4, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Polish tycoon backs Britain’s £35bn mini nuclear reactors plan.

Michal Solowow’s Synthos Green Energy is seeking approval for 14 small modular
reactors at three sites including Oldbury in Gloucestershire.

SGE would not
disclose the location of the sites, two of which are privately owned, but
one of those that it has submitted an application to use is understood to
be the state-owned Oldbury nuclear site in Gloucestershire. Oldbury is one
of eight sites that has been designated for new nuclear power stations in
the UK.

The SMRs will deploy designs developed by GE Vernova Hitachi, a
joint venture between GE Vernova, the American energy equipment
manufacturer, and Hitachi, the Japanese conglomerate. It was one of four
technology providers that had been in the running to build the UK’s first
SMRs under a selection process led by Great British Nuclear, an
arm’s-length, state-backed body set up by the previous government, now
renamed Great British Energy — Nuclear.

It is hoped that the first unit
will start generating power by 2034, about the same time as the first
Rolls-Royce SMR, and will be funded by SGE through a mixture of debt and
equity. It is understood to be in discussions with the taxpayer-backed
National Wealth Fund over an investment and is aiming to apply for support
under the contracts-for-difference framework, which guarantees developers a
minimum that they will be paid for the power they generate. If future
wholesale prices are lower than this guaranteed price, developers will
receive a top-up payment, but if they are higher, they will repay the
excess as a saving to consumers.

 Times 2nd July 2026, https://www.thetimes.com/business/companies-markets/article/polish-tycoon-britains-35bn-mini-nuclear-reactor-dsj5kc7s9

July 4, 2026 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK | Leave a comment

Revealed: Illegal West Bank settlements advertised at Israeli event in London

Despite denials from organisers, evidence gathered inside the event shows occupied Palestinian land was being marketed

DANIA AKKAD, 15 June 2026, https://www.declassifieduk.org/revealed-illegal-west-bank-settlements-advertised-at-israeli-event-in-london/

Properties from seven illegal settlements were advertised at the Great Israeli Real Estate Event on Sunday in London, days after more than 100 MPs and groups urged the UK government to ban it.

Organisers had told journalists last week that all exhibitors at the event “without exception” would only provide information about properties for sale within the Green Line – the internationally recognised border between Israel and Palestine.

But brochures circulated at the event which Jewish Anti-Zionist Action (JAZA) shared with Declassified and others posted online show companies touting properties for sale in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In one pamphlet, Harry Zahev Developers advertises apartments and private homes in Kfar Eldad and Teneh Omarim, illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank near Palestinian towns and communities.

“Bringing gardens and spaces where nature is your closest neighbour,” the pamphlet reads.

In another brochure, the Jerusalem Real Estate company offers the city’s “most sought-after Anglo neighborhoods” including French Hill and Ramat Eshkol, two settlement neighbourhoods in occupied east Jerusalem. 

Neither company responded immediately to requests for comment on Monday. Declassified attempted to reach the event organisers, but could not find any contact details.

Other illegal Israel settlements featured in the promotional materials which JAZA collected include the West Bank settlements of Ma’ale Adumim and Givat Ze’ev, and Givat Hamatos, a settlement currently under construction in East Jerusalem.

“Through these pamphlets and information we collected on the inside, we can prove that this event was selling properties in the occupied West Bank,” said Guy Zilberman, a JAZA activist who gained entry to the exhibition.

‘Crazy times’

Zilberman described his experience at the real estate show. “After passing through security, I was given a free tote bag and a booklet advertising the different real estate companies present at the fair that day,” he said.

At the stall for one developer, he said he was told the company had “properties they were selling in ‘Judea and Samaria’ that he thought would be perfect for me”.

The company representative “had all the booklets and papers for it but couldn’t get them out because the police had said in order for the event to go ahead they couldn’t advertise properties illegal under international law,” Zilberman said.

The man then told him these were “crazy times we live in” and asked for Zilberman’s contact details so he could follow up after the event. 

He visited another stall and said he was given a leaflet advertising properties in Ma’ale Adumim, which is an illegal West Bank settlement. 

After about an hour inside, Zilberman disrupted the event, calling for “sanctions now” and saying “don’t steal” in Hebrew.

“After disrupting the event, I was pulled out by my neck by security,” Zilberman said.

He noted that the Board of Deputies had said that the event was “an excuse to harass and intimidate members of the Jewish community”. 

“I would invite the Board of Deputies to look at the documents here that clearly depict in writing that these properties in illegally occupied territories…have been advertised at this event,” he said.

The Board of Deputies did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

July 4, 2026 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

What’s in Keir Starmer’s defence investment plan? Key points.

The ten-year military blueprint outlines billions in spending on special forces and hypersonic weaponry but leaves some major equipment programmes uncosted


 More than £63 billion will be spent on the nuclear deterrent over four
years, including new warheads for the future Dreadnought-class submarines,
as well as 12 new F-35A aircraft that will be able to carry tactical
nuclear weapons, American B61-12 gravity bombs. The nuclear investment will
also include £26 billion over the next decade in Project Royal Oak, the
largest naval base upgrade for over 45 years. This will see
multi-billion-pound upgrades at Faslane, Portsmouth and Devonport.


 Times 30th June 2026 https://www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/article/defence-investment-plan-keir-starmer-key-points-cgxtn69qf

July 4, 2026 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UK: Inside Labour Together’s secret war against Jeremy Corbyn

Documents disclosed to Corbyn expose covert efforts by Starmer’s former chief of staff to combat the British left

DECLASSIFIED UK, PAUL HOLDEN, Jessica Murray and JOHN McEVOY, 24 June 2026

  • Labour Together monitored views on antisemitism in Labour while stoking that crisis
  • Media outlet The Canary was targeted amid concerns it was trusted among Labour members 
  • John McDonnell says new information about Labour Together “makes a call for a public inquiry overwhelming”

Newly released documents reveal the inner workings of Labour Together and its role in covertly undermining Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party.

The documents were disclosed to Corbyn in response to a subject access request. They contain emails from Labour Together’s two key figures Morgan McSweeney and Josh Simons.

McSweeney went on to be Keir Starmer’s chief of staff while Simons became a cabinet minister until he resigned following revelations that he had hired a reputation management firm to “proactively undermine” journalistic investigations into Labour Together, McSweeney and Sir Keir Starmer. 

Simons subsequently vacated his Makerfield constituency seat for Andy Burnham.

Internal documents detail how Labour Together under McSweeney’s watch (2017-20) conducted polling of the Labour membership to monitor its views on the incidence of antisemitism in the party.

This polling allowed McSweeney and his allies to track responses to the antisemitism narrative that they were simultaneously helping to sustain by placing arguably alarmist stories in the media.

The documents further detail how The Canary media outlet was highly trusted among Labour members and identified as a political challenge because it defended Corbyn amid antisemitism accusations.

The Canary was subsequently targeted by the McSweeney-linked Stop Funding Fake News campaign with an advertiser boycott, which helped to diminish its revenue.

Weaponising antisemitism

McSweeney quietly inflamed the “antisemitism crisis” that would dog Corbyn’s leadership from at least 2018.

He did so by seeding and placing stories into the press that helped to build the narrative that Corbyn’s Labour had become riddled with antisemitism and that this flowed inexorably from a resurgent left-wing anti-imperialism. 

At the same time, the new documents show, Labour Together was paying YouGov to repeatedly poll Labour members on whether they agreed with the framing of the party as a hotbed of antisemitism.

The goal was apparently to gain a detailed guide to the opinions of the party’s membership as McSweeney sought to detach it from Corbyn’s leadership.

Although the precise cost is unknown, polling of this kind was likely to be expensive. 

It was also at this time that Labour Together unlawfully failed to declare most of its donations, amounting to over £700,000, with key funders of the organisation including hedge fund manager Martin Taylor and pro-Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn.

‘Deliberately exaggerated’…………………………………………………..

‘Dreadful performance’…………………………………………………..

The Canary……………………………….

Stop Funding Fake News

When read against other emails and Labour Together’s polling, the briefing note points to concerns about how The Canary was undermining the antisemitism narrative that McSweeney and his allies were covertly helping to inflame in this period.

In March 2019, McSweeney and his ally Imran Ahmed would launch the Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN) campaign, which sought to demonetise The Canary by pressuring companies to withdraw advertising from its website. 

While being led by factional Labour insiders, the SFFN campaign presented itself as a project run by committed grassroots activists who were concerned with the proliferation of “fake news”.

Interestingly, the internal briefing note, which appears to have been a precursor to the SFFN campaign, made no mention of the accuracy of The Canary’s reporting.

The emphasis was on its political influence, strongly suggesting the subsequent campaign was initiated in response to The Canary’s challenge to the political ambitions of Labour Together, onto which claims of “disinformation” were grafted.

Indeed, McSweeney reportedly told Labour Together colleagues: “Destroy the Canary or the Canary destroys us”.

That campaign, alongside changes to social media algorithms, played a powerful role in circumscribing the impact and reach of The Canary by late 2019. 

By then, Labour Together’s plan to install Sir Keir Starmer as the leader of the Labour Party was well-advanced.

McSweeney and Labour Together’s fixation on polling would carry over the organisation while led by Josh Simons (2022 – 2024).

These intense polling efforts apparently also helped the organisation to create caricatures of target voters for the Labour party which were at once crude, bizarre, and insulting.

A version of the “Workington Man” curated by Labour Together was 62 years old, white, “absolutely despised Jeremy Corbyn”, “hates Europe and European culture”, drives an “Audi A4”, and “thinks South Asians who live nearby are terrible drivers”…………………………………………..

Labour Together is now called ThinkLabour. Think Labour, Josh Simons, Imran Ahmed and Morgan McSweeney were asked to comment.


Paul Holden is a journalist for Shadow World Investigations and author of the book The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy. Between 2020 and 2021, Holden worked directly with the Zondo Commission to assist its investigations into complex money laundering schemes used to hide and dissipate state capture loot in South Africa.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/inside-labour-togethers-secret-battle-against-jeremy-corbyn/

July 3, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

More issues reported during manufacture of Sizewell C’s reactor vessels than Hinkley Point C’s

01 Jul, 2026 By Tom Pashby, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/more-issues-reported-during-manufacture-of-sizewell-cs-reactor-vessels-than-hinkley-point-cs-01-07-2026/

“Quality issues” relating to the manufacture of the reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) for Sizewell C have been identified by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) during an inspection by the regulator.

The number of “non-conformance reports” has increased at Framatome St Marcel (FSM) – the French manufacturer of the RPVs – compared to when it was manufacturing the RPVs for Hinkley Point C.

Sizewell C and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) have regularly highlighted how Sizewell C will be delivered more efficiently than Hinkley Point C because of how much design work can be copied over.

The Sizewell C – Inspection ID: 54200 report from the ONR, which was carried out in April 2026 and published on 22 June, reported that “manufacturing quality issues” had been identified at FSM.

The ONR stressed the importance of the RPV in its report. “The reactor pressure vessel (RPV) is manufactured by Framatome (manufacturer of nuclear equipment based in France),” it said.

“The RPV is a nuclear safety class 1 component which forms part of the primary circuit. It has been categorised as a high integrity component (HIC) within the SZC safety case.

“Therefore, the consequences of failure during operation cannot be tolerated and a highest reliability claim is made on the structural integrity of the RPV.”

The aim of the ONR’s inspection was for it to “make an informed judgement on the adequacy of SZC’s specification, control and oversight of RPV manufacture at FSM in compliance with LC12 and LC19.”

LC12 means License Condition 12, and required that “the licensee (meaning Sizewell C) shall make and implement adequate arrangements to ensure that only suitably qualified and experienced persons perform any duties which may affect the safety of operations on the site or any other duties assigned by or under these conditions or any arrangements required under these conditions.”

Meanwhile, LC19 requires that “where the licensee proposes to construct or install any new plant which may affect safety the licensee shall make and implement adequate arrangements to control the construction or installation.”

July 3, 2026 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Regulator says additional scrutiny was not required over Hinkley Point C bullying concerns

26 Jun, 2026 By Tom Pashby

An MP’s claim that the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) increased
scrutiny of Hinkley Point C over bullying allegations has been contested by
the regulator, NCE understands.

Liberal Democrat MP for Tiverton and
Minehead Rachel Gilmour raised concerns about bullying at Hinkley Point C
(HPC) during the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) evidence
session on Sizewell C on 8 June. MPs challenged senior representatives of
Sizewell C on the project’s commitment to transparency around possible
future cost overruns.

Representatives also provided new details on the
infrastructure being built at the site. During the session Gilmour said:
“I want to ask about bullying […] my constituency includes Hinkley A,
Hinkley B and Hinkley C. Once elected, I was inundated with whistleblowers
and people who have great concerns about the bullying culture at Hinkley C,
to such an extent that I had a meeting with Simone Rossi, the chief
executive of EDF Europe, and the ONR.

“The ONR felt that the situation
was so bad that they had to put in extra scrutiny. I was joined by
WhistleblowersUK in that.” However, NCE understands that it is ONR’s
position that no additional regulatory measures or scrutiny have been
required at Hinkley Point C for any bullying or harassment issues.

 New Civil Engineer 26th June 2026,
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/regulator-says-additional-scrutiny-was-not-required-over-hinkley-point-c-bullying-concerns-26-06-2026/

July 3, 2026 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

White Flag Judgments: Palestine Action, Protest and the UK Courts

1 July 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/white-flag-judgments-palestine-action-protest-and-the-uk-courts/

The justice system of the United Kingdom, represented by stout cathedral structures and solemn rituals, tends to resemble a casino rather than a priestly haven of solemn judgment. It’s the justice of the punt, the throw of the dice, not the fairness of judicial deliberation, that prevails. That, at least, has been the prevailing view of Richard Ingrams, a co-founder of Britain’s rapier satirical publication Private Eye.

Since the decision by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to ban Palestine Action in 2025, some 3,000 people have been arrested for doing such unthreatening things as holding placards with the following words: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Over 700 of these, according to Human Rights Watch, “are pending in the courts of England and Wales, with many more at the recharges stage.” This, in a country where free speech is said to be a verdant forest, and the right to protest a sacred right.

In the middle of last month, the Court of Appeal quashed the decision of the High Court regarding the proscription of Palestine Action which had been made under section 3 and schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Palestine Action, described by their founders as “a direct-action protest group aimed at preventing military targets in the UK from facilitating gross abuses of international law,” had made its stock and trade targeting Israeli arms manufacturers such as Elbit Systems and businesses with links to the Israeli arms trade. The proscription followed the group’s break-in at RAF Brize Norton, where two aircraft were spray painted. In the proscribed list, which includes such violent luminaries as Boko Haram and Islamic State, Palestine Action is hysterically assessed as an entity that “prepares for terrorism” and “promotes and encourages terrorism.” Its attacks had included “targets affecting UK national security, and the impact on innocent members of the public.”

Co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, challenged the lawfulness of the proscription in the High Court in November 2025, claiming, along with the intervening parties Liberty and Amnesty International UK, that it had involved a disproportionate use of counter-terrorism powers. Initially, Ammori scored a resounding success, all the more remarkable given the persistent record of courts in Britain to side with the national security apparatus.

The Divisional Court held in February 2026 in R (Ammori)v Secretary of State for the Home Department that the Home Secretary’s approach on proscription had failed to follow her own long-standing proscription policy. These involved five factors intended to constrain the office holder’s discretion. The resort to “other factors” would have to be read with that constraining purpose in mind.

The Court also found that a fair balance between the rights of individuals to free speech (Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights) and freedom of assembly under Article 11 of the ECHR as against the national security and protection of the rights of others (Articles 10.2 and 11.2 of the ECHR) had not been struck. In applying the test of proportionality to the decision the Court held that “the nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities, so far as they [comprised] acts of terrorism, [had] not yet reached the level, scale and persistence that would justify the application of the criminal law measures that are a consequence of proscription, and the very significant interference with Convention rights consequent on those measures.”

The government of Sir Keir “Human Rights” Starmer was never going to let things stand, nor should not be forgotten that the High Court decision was hardly brimming with praise for the actions of Palestine Action. The definition of terrorism in UK counter-terrorism legislation is intentionally outrageous in its broadness, encompassing causing or threatening “serious damage to property” that would suggest an intention to influence government policy and advance a political case. The High Court did, at least, note that the act of proscription was based on 385 actions committed over 5 years, of which only three were deemed “terrorist incidents.”

Back to the casino of justice the case went. On June 15, the Court of Appeal handed down its quashing judgment. The national security state could again rejoice at this grand exhibition of judicial abdication before the alleged, and unfounded wisdom, of executive power. The judges found, for instance, that the Home Secretary had, in fact, conducted a proper evaluation of the rights issue in considering the banning of Palestine Action. This analysis was shallow at best, given the Home Secretary’s continual insistence that neither Article 10 nor 11 off the ECHR applied in the case. Article 17 of the Convention – the prohibition of an abuse of rights – was what counted in her mind.

The Court of Appeal went so far as to admit that the rights of those holding placards opposing genocide and supporting the Palestinian cause “may be affected by proscription, because they may be dissuaded by it from exercising their lawful individual rights to free speech and freedom of assembly.” The Home Secretary had been wrong to assume that Article 10 and 11 rights were not engaged, or that no test of proportionality was required. The court even conceded that the ban was “highly controversial” and possibly even “borderline.” But in their own assessment on proportionality, the judges felt reluctant to challenge the vast, self-evident wisdom of the executive, given that the Home Secretary was “invested with the statutory and constitutional authority to make proscription decisions to protect the public where national security is at stake.” It was not for the court to “take over the function of the primary decision-maker, least of all in a case such as this.” Such proscription decisions were part of national security, an area that no UK judges would have thought inappropriate to scrutinise before the Human Rights Act 1998. (How mothballed can judges be?)

The logic of this abysmal abdication before power was guided by the views of Lord Robert Reed made in the UK Supreme Court decision of ABJ, which was decided in February this year: “Although a strict approach is generally taken to restrictions on political speech, the European Court has recognised that states must enjoy a wider margin of appreciation when countering terrorism.” In a rather conflating, muddled manner, Lord Reed thought judicial supervision, be it by UK courts applying the Human Rights Act or the European court applying the ECHR, had “to respect the institutional expertise and constitutional legitimacy underlying the judgment made by those authorities by according them a correspondingly wide margin of appreciation.” This is what surrender by the wigged classes looks like.


The Court of Appeal also decided to make much of the fact that Palestine Action had committed three deemed “terrorist incidents” over three years, a mere 0.78% of its list of actions. With disapproval, they noted the organisation had not “disowned or condemned” such actions. It was therefore “permissible for the Home Secretary (and, therefore, is permissible for us), in considering Palestine Action’s characteristics and activities, not just its activities classified as terrorist.” The rationale for this bumbling reasoning was that proscription was preventative: the Home Secretary had to “assess the risk of future acts of terrorism. All of an organisation’s activities, such as recruitment, fundraising, radicalisation and all terrorist and non-terrorist activities may be relevant to that assessment.”

Veering off into the feral undergrowth of the bizarre, the appeals court also  considered the allegedly more sinister nature of the group, mangling the history of British protest along the way. Its activities had been “planned and undertaken secretly with the objective of avoiding detection.” Its members had not shown “sincerity by accepting” the imposed penalties. But most of all, “on a fair analysis, Palestine Action has little or nothing in common with the suffragettes or the anti-apartheid or Iraq War protest groups.”

With this sort of fair analysis, one rooted in a distorted reading of history, a horrendous refusal to consider a flawed, executive assessment of protest activities, and a general concession to an anti-democratic temper, the only thing left to do is exactly what the suffragettes, anti-apartheid activists, and previous anti-war activists did: break the law with courage and clog the prisons with effect.

July 2, 2026 Posted by | Legal, UK | Leave a comment

All of our submarines are missing

 Five nuclear-powered hunter-killers are
out of action leaving the Arctic front door wide open to Russia. None of
the Royal Navy’s attack submarines are currently at sea. A fleet of
nuclear-powered hunter-killers all tied up alongside or in dock, every one
of them, is a serious matter.

This is not the first time it’s happened
and last time it did, the Ministry of Defence trotted out the tired mantra
“we continue to meet all our operational tasks”. We do not. The
excellent Navy Lookout website has set out the position boat-by-boat. HMS
Audacious is only now leaving dry dock in Devonport in Plymouth; HMS Anson,
the only attack boat to have been to sea recently, is alongside after a
curtailed deployment to Australia; HMS Astute is undergoing a multi-year
refit; and Ambush and Artful have not sailed in years. The site described
the overall posture as “a disaster”.

 Telegraph 27th June 2026, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/27/royal-navy-attack-submarines-absent-harbour-nuclear-missing/

July 2, 2026 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Extreme’ weather having ‘significant impact’ on Kent’s nuclear power stations

Mary Harris Senior Reporter, Kent Live, 26 Jun 2026

“Extreme” weather is hitting Kent’s two nuclear power stations, but the Government said it was “not an issue for nuclear safety”. Dungeness has two power stations, next to the coast on Romney Marsh, and the committee on radioactive waste management spent a day there.

The visit was part of the committee’s scrutiny of such facilities across the UK. After its visit, the committee has said today (June 26): “Both reactor facilities are highly exposed to weather conditions, and it is an area where these conditions can be extreme.”

Dungeness, Romney Marsh and Rye Bay have the designation of a special protection area, and the area is of international importance, for its topography, i.e. the area’s physical features, along with its plant and invertebrates, the latter being animals without a backbone or skeleton, such as spiders, worms, snails, lobsters, crabs and insects like butterflies.

The power stations here are rather unimaginatively called Dungeness A and Dungeness B, with A connected to the grid in 1965. It had two reactors which stopped operation on December 31, 2006.

The reactors were designed to operate for 25 years but lasted far beyond this. For those after more detail, it was a “legacy Magnox” power station.

And B also had two reactors which started operating in 1983 and 1985. They were closed for maintenance in 2018, with an announcement three years later they would be moved to their “defueling phase”.

This one was an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR), operated by EDF Energy. But their coastal location is having an effect on the structures, said the committee following its tour.

In feedback just published today, it said: “Both reactor facilities are highly exposed to weather conditions, and it is an area where these conditions can be extreme. Whilst it is not an issue for nuclear safety and security, during the tour, it was clear that the combination of high winds and its coastal location meant that salt-water was a particular challenge, with corrosion having a significant impact on infrastructure.”…………………………………..https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/extreme-weather-having-significant-impact-11032284

June 30, 2026 Posted by | climate change, UK | Leave a comment

UK Tests Long-Range Missile for Ukraine

by Kyle Anzalone | Jun 22, 2026, https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/uk-tests-long-range-missile-for-ukraine/

The UK tested a missile with a range of 300 miles, with plans to send the munitions to Ukraine. The platform will allow Ukraine to deliver 500-pound warheads to Moscow. 

The missiles tested by the UK military last week were developed under Project Brakestop. The goal of the project is to design a long-range weapon that can be produced for under half a million dollars and within 20 months. 

UK Armed Forces Minister Louise Sandher-Jones said the new missiles will “complement” the Storm Shadow cruise missiles London sends to Kiev. “The UK stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine, and we will continue to provide the support it needs to defend itself against Russian aggression,” she added. “Project Brakestop shows what happens when we combine that commitment with the talent and ingenuity of British industry.”

Ukraine has increased the large-scale drone strikes targeting Moscow and other Russian cities in recent months. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would respond by “massive group strikes” against Ukrainian targets on a “on a regular basis.”

Russia reported downing over 300 Ukrainian drones overnight Sunday, including 80 in the Moscow region. While Moscow often does not discuss strikes that cause damage in Moscow, videos on social media appear. to show damage caused by Ukrainian attacks.

June 29, 2026 Posted by | UK, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

CORWM visits Sizewell A and Sizewell B, -92% of pond low level waste is diverted to landfill

 Members of CoRWM visited Sizewell A and Sizewell B to examine interim
storage arrangements for intermediate level waste and spent nuclear fuel.


The visit, held on Thursday 26 February, was arranged to inform a study on
interim storage being undertaken by CoRWM Sub-Group 6 (Waste, Spent Fuel
and Nuclear Materials Inventory Management).

Sub-Group 6 members Pete
Bryant, Derek Lacey, Barry Lennox, and Simon Webb were joined by CoRWM
member Mark Kirkbride. The study will report on current and future interim
storage requirements for spent nuclear fuel and intermediate level waste
(ILW), considering the UK nuclear legacy, the existing operational fleet
and new build.

At Sizewell A, now in the early stages of decommissioning
following de-fuelling between 2006 and 2014, members reviewed progress in
the retrieval and conditioning of ILW, including material from the ponds.
They discussed arrangements for transferring ILW, including by rail, to the
Bradwell Interim Store, which is designed to accommodate waste from
Bradwell, Sizewell A and Dungeness until reactor dismantling begins.

CoRWM 26th June 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/corwm-visits-sizewell-a-and-sizewell-b

June 29, 2026 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

The hidden reality behind Britain’s homegrown nuclear age

Rolls-Royce’s contract to build small modular reactors may not always mean manufacturing jobs in the UKThe hidden reality behind Britain’s homegrown nuclear age

Matt Oliver, Industry Editor

When Rolls-Royce was chosen to build the country’s first mini nuclear power plants, Labour ministers promised the scheme would help to “revive Britain’s industrial heartlands”.

Three small modular reactors (SMRs) are expected to be built in Anglesey, Wales, by
the mid-2030s – proving the concept and triggering what could become a massive
global industry.

But a year later, exactly just how British those SMRs will
be is turning into a thorny subject. Senior backbench MPs have claimed
there were “serious questions” for Rolls-Royce to answer after the
company began a process to buy “key nuclear island components” –
including reactor pressure vessels – from either South Korea or the Czech
Republic last month.

Nuclear plants are usually divided into two parts: a
reactor “island” housing the most sensitive nuclear equipment and a
separate site where the conventional turbine sits. The companies in the
running for the nuclear island contracts are Korea’s Doosan and CEZ, the
Czech state energy giant that has its own nuclear programme and is an
investor in Rolls-Royce SMR.

Insiders say the lack of a British bidder was
inevitable, because only a handful of businesses in the world can make the
specialist equipment and because of a need to begin construction within the
next five years.

Lord Vallance, the minister for nuclear, said: “Great
British Energy-Nuclear is making excellent progress against its ambition
for 70pc of British built content across the small modular reactor fleet,
and we fully support their work with Rolls Royce to unlock UK supply chain
benefits providing thousands of jobs in our community. “This is part of
our commitment to delivering a golden age of nuclear and developing world
leading-nuclear expertise and UK supply chains, supporting thousands of
jobs in our community.”

Telegraph 21st June 2026, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/21/the-hidden-reality-behind-britains-homegrown-nuclear-age/

June 26, 2026 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

If Russia retaliated…

Third World War would be nuclear and the scale of destruction and killing could be orders of magnitude greater. This is the danger that today’s “loud little handful” could lead us toward, for their own narrow, selfish reasons. To date, we should be grateful that we’ve been spared these horrors thanks to President Putin’s restraint. Even though he’s been aware of Western involvement in attacks on Russia, he has steered clear from escalating to the point where the psychological phase transition in the West could take hold.


Before leaving 10 Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer authorized another large-scale attack on Russia. If we’re not already in a nuclear war, we only have Vladimir Putin’s restraint to thank.

Alex Krainer, Jun 23, 2026, https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/if-russia-retaliated?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1063805&post_id=203233722&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer resigned yesterday. Before he departed 10 Downing Street the last time, he authorized another strike against Russia. Ukraine, UK’s “one hundred year” ally, conducted one of the largest attacks on Russian territory to date, using air-launched cruise missiles to hit military-related facilities in Voronezh city. The facilities in question produce components for Russian Kh-101 cruse missiles, Iskander-K missiles and Pantsir-S1 air defenses.

The Ukrainians allegedly used a version of UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles and/or AGM-188A, “Rusty Dagger” cruise missile, developed under the U.S. Air Force’s Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) program to provide affordable, mass-produced long-range strike weapons for Ukraine.

Other missiles and drones were aimed at targets in the Moscow Oblast but apparently without any major damage reported. Today, President Putin gave a statement accusing the United States and Europe of directly enabling the strikes by providing satellite intelligence, targeting data, and navigation support for the long range attack and warning that such involvement signifies NATO’s direct entry into the war. Putin was telling the truth, as we know from a leaked 38-min. WebEx conversation of a group of German Generals.


Britain fully involved since (at least) 2024

Two of the four participants were top-level German military brass: commander of the German Air Force, Lieutenant General (Generalleutnant) Ingo Gerhartz; head of Air Force Operations and Training, Brigadier General (Brigadegeneral) Frank Gräfe (also spelled Graefe) — Head of Air Force Operations and Training. They discussed providing Ukraine with the German Taurus cruise missiles in order to provide a briefing on the initiative for German Defense Minister Boris, “Slava Ukraini” Pistorius.

The other two, lower-ranked participants were Oberstleutnant Florstedt and Oberstleutnant Fenske, both from German Air Operations Center. The call, which took place more than two years ago, on 19 February 2024, revealed that Great Britain was already directly involved in conducting strikes against Russia with military personnel who did the mission planning for the Storm Shadow missile strikes and helped loading Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles onto aircraft. And the British definitely want the world to know of their involvement. This article was published on Saturday, 20 June 2026:

Yesterday’s attacks were part of the same operation. Their significance, which is not lost on the Russian people, is that they were almost certainly a calculated provocation. They were conducted on the 85th anniversary of the launch of Operation Barbarossa when Nazi Germany assembled the largest ever invasion force. Defeating that force ultimately claimed the lives of 16 millions Russians.

All this is increasing the pressure on the President Putin to take the gloves off and strike at NATO targets. He has been careful not to escalate the war in this way. If such an escalation came to pass for whatever reason the world would find itself in a completely unpredictable and extremely dangerous new territory.


One of the most striking experiences in my life was the breakout of war in former Yugoslavia in 1991, and the reason was the almost instant change in collective psychology that took place as soon as the first artillery shells started landing in Croatia. Up until that moment, the vast majority of people – I’d venture to say, well north of 90% – believed that war was unthinkable; that it would never happen. Who could possibly want to fight a war? It seemed impossible; only a small handful of hotheads were advocating for war.

The stories circulating in Western media about the eruption of bottled-up centuries-old hatreds were utter nonsense. The peoples of former Yugoslavia were socially, economically and culturally deeply intertwined. In most cases we didn’t even know who, among our neighbors was a Serb, Croat or a Muslim and many families were mixed. However, once the war actually broke out, it took a life of its own wreaking death and destruction on large scale.

The collective psychology abruptly changed and a war psychology galvanized. It became fashionable to look at events in black and white and to wholly denounce the other side as enemies. Giving the enemy any benefit of the doubt and expressing empathy toward them suddenly became unpatriotic and suspicious.

The loud little handful

I still find it amazing that the war happened. It was clear that some people were pushing for it and that the media gave them disproportionate attention. Long ago, Mark Twain warned us about such people and about the way war psychology could creep into people’s hearts. His his words should haunt us today:

“The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for the war. The pulpit will–warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, ‘It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.’Then the handful will shout louder.

A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as earlier–but do not dare say so.

And now the whole nation–pulpit and all–will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”


If Russia retaliated, if it responded to British or US-orchestrated attacks and struck at a NATO target, we would see this process erupt on short order. The loud little handful in our midst will be shouting for war until they managed to generate the mass-formation psychosis that would make the war not only possible, but probably inevitable and Europe would fully share Ukraine’s tragic fate. Last two World Wars resulted in large-scale devastation and tens of millions of casualties. In today’s terminology, however, they were conventional wars.

Third World War would be nuclear and the scale of destruction and killing could be orders of magnitude greater. This is the danger that today’s “loud little handful” could lead us toward, for their own narrow, selfish reasons. To date, we should be grateful that we’ve been spared these horrors thanks to President Putin’s restraint. Even though he’s been aware of Western involvement in attacks on Russia, he has steered clear from escalating to the point where the psychological phase transition in the West could take hold.

Grand Deception

In 2017 I published my second book, titled Grand Deception. I felt compelled to write it because I realized that a very powerful network in Western financial centers were busy laying the groundwork for a future great war against Russia, and I felt that their agenda needed to be exposed to the public. Of course, they felt otherwise, so my book was banned after only five weeks. It was republished a few months later by Red Pill Press under a different title, but it only survived for six weeks.

Nevertheless, the cause of defending peace must never be neglected. Making sure that such a war never comes to pass should be the top priority for any thinking person. If we sleepwalk into the third great war on European continent, most of our endeavors in life, our dreams and hopes might not matter much. The way to resist the march to war is, first and foremost, to seek the truth and dare to speak it freely and courageously. We must reject the warmongers among our leaders and call them out on the lies they use to contrive consent for war. Wars are always started with lies.

Our opposition must not be shy or deferential: it must be bold, determined and relentless. We would also do well to turn toward our Russian fellow men and women and tell them loud and clear that we want peace, not war. The German people have done so even though their own leaders are among the most aggressive warmongers of all. On Saturday, 20 June 2026, hundreds of them gathered at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to assert, “Russia is NOT our enemy,” and laid flowers at the Soviet war memorial. We need millions of people following suit.

We must start without delay to build the foundations for peace in our hearts and minds. There can be no justification for us to sleepwalk into another war. In addition to unprecedented scale of destruction and death, the economic, social and psychological damage from such a conflict would be such that it might take many generations to repair.

June 25, 2026 Posted by | Russia, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Rachel Gilmour MP accuses Hinkley Point C of “bullying”


By Alex Parnham-Cope, 17 June 26, https://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/news/26203304.rachel-gilmour-mp-accuses-hinkley-point-c-bullying/

A Somerset MP has accused Hinkley Point C of having a “bullying culture”, a lack of community engagement and “naïve” financial planning while questioning other nuclear industry leaders in parliament this month.

Tiverton and Minehead MP Rachel Gilmour made the comments as part of the Public Accounts Committee’s oral evidence session with industry leaders and government officials bosses on June 8.

The Liberal Democrat representative has since reshared video on social media of her comments in the committee earlier this week, June 15, and said that she’s met with EDF Europe’s chief executive and the nuclear regulator to raise her concerns.

In the oral evidence session, Rachel Gilmour MP claimed she was “inundated with whistleblowers and people who have great concerns about the bullying culture at Hinkley C, to such an extent that I had a meeting with Simone Rossi, the chief executive of EDF Europe, and the ONR [Office for Nuclear Regulation].”

She added: “The ONR felt that the situation was so bad that they had to put in extra scrutiny. I was joined by Whistleblowers UK in that.”

June 22, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment