US President Donald Trump has expressed his opposition to the Chagos deal
The British government has not given permission for the US to use UK military bases to support potential US strikes on Iran, the BBC understands.
The US has in the past used RAF Fairford, in Gloucestershire, and the UK overseas territory of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, to carry out strikes in the Middle East region.
A UK government spokesperson said: “As routine, we do not comment on operational matters.”
The US has been pressuring Iran to agree to curb its nuclear programme.
It has threatened possible strikes if it fails to do so and has moved warships, aircraft and other military assets to the region in preparation for a possible strike.
At the same time, some progress has been reported at talks between American and Iranian negotiators in Switzerland.
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Insiders believe the Pentagon’s preparations for possible strikes on Iran – which could potentially be launched from Diego Garcia – may have shifted the president’s understanding of the significance of the island, the largest in the Chagos archipelago.
Tomer Bar (left) with Israel’s prime minister. (Photo: Tsafrir Abayov / Alamy)
Exclusive: Israeli air force commander Tomer Bar received a “special mission” certificate for his secret trip to the UK, protecting him from arrest for war crimes.
The UK government has admitted that Israel’s air force chief Tomer Bar was given special diplomatic immunity to visit Britain earlier this summer.
The revelation comes as Israeli president Isaac Herzog is about to visit Britain, with campaigners planning protests to greet him.
Major General Bar travelled to Oxfordshire in July to attend the Royal International Air Tattoo event at RAF Fairford.
The trip was organised in secrecy, but news of Bar’s arrival in Britain was reported in the Israeli press shortly before his arrival.
When asked if Bar was attending the airshow, Britain’s Ministry of Defence initially told Declassified: “Israel remains a key partner”.
The spokesperson added: “The Royal International Air Tattoo is a world-leading airshow and we routinely host a large number of dignitaries from across the globe”.
The Foreign Office has now confirmed that Bar visited Britain and was given “special mission” diplomatic immunity for the duration of his trip.
Special mission certificates are used to protect foreign officials from arrest under universal jurisdiction legislation, which allows for the most serious crimes to be prosecuted regardless of where they are committed.
The Foreign Office said Bar “would have had bilateral engagements with UK ministers and officials during [his] visit, pertinent to the individual bilateral relationship”.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Zarah Sultana speaking after a march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, from Russell Square to Whitehall in central London, June 21, 2025
This week, MPs shamefully approved the proscription of Palestine Action. Several challenged the move in the Commons. Zarah Sultana, Independent MP for Coventry South, gave an outstanding speech in condemnation. Because of the exceptional gravity of the issue, we reproduce her speech, lightly edited, here.
TWENTY-ONE years ago, a human rights barrister … defended an activist who broke into RAF Fairford trying to disable a bomber to prevent war crimes in Iraq. That became a landmark case in lawful, non-violent direct action against an illegal war. That barrister is now our Prime Minister, Keir Starmer KC. He argued that it was not terrorism, but conscience.
Fast-forward to June 20 2025: two Palestine Action activists entered RAF Brize Norton and sprayed red paint — red paint, not fire — on aircraft linked to surveillance flights over Gaza. Instead of prosecuting them for criminal damage, the Home Secretary is using the Terrorism Act 2000 to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group.
This is an unprecedented and dangerous overreach of the state. Never before in Britain has it been a crime to simply support a group.
Palestine Action’s real crime is shutting down Elbit Systems sites that arm the Israeli military; its true offence is being audacious enough to expose the blood-soaked ties between this government and the genocidal Israeli apartheid state and its war machine.
Let us be clear: to equate a spray can of paint with a suicide bomb is not just absurd; it is grotesque. It is a deliberate distortion of the law to chill dissent, criminalise solidarity and suppress the truth.
Amnesty International, Liberty, over 266 senior lawyers and UN special rapporteurs have all opposed these draconian measures. Under this order, anyone expressing moral support for a proscribed group could face 14 years in prison. That includes wearing a badge, wearing a T-shirt, sharing a post or calling for de-proscription.
And journalists have no exemption either: there is no legal protection for reporting favourably, even factually, about Palestine Action.
Let us not forget what is happening in Gaza, where the real crimes are being ignored: hospitals bombed, children starved, and tens of thousands of people killed. Palestinian children now suffer more amputations per capita than children anywhere else on Earth.
Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice, and the Israeli Prime Minister faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, yet the government’s response is to criminalise solidarity and to continue exporting lethal F-35 jets that are decimating Gaza.
We also have to understand the history of this country and what built our democracy: the tradition of civil disobedience that includes the suffragettes, without whom I would not have the vote, let alone the privilege of being here as an MP.
Even those who oppose Palestine Action’s tactics must recognise the vast gulf between criminal damage and terrorism. If this order passes, what and who is next — climate protesters, striking workers, feminists in the street?
Already we have seen a wider crackdown on our civil liberties — musicians censored, journalists arrested, and demonstrators, including MPs sitting here, harassed — and now this government want to use anti-terror laws to make peaceful protest itself a crime. If our democratic institutions functioned as they should, none of this would be necessary.
If this proscription passes, we have to understand that no campaign will be safe tomorrow. We have to recognise that this will go down as a dark day in our country’s history … People will ask, “Which side were you on?” and I stand with the millions of people who oppose genocide, because I am one of them. I oppose the blood-soaked hands of this government trying to silence us. So I say this loudly and proudly: we are all Palestine…
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Keir “I support Zionism without Qualification” Starmer supporting genocide.
RAF fighter jets have taken part in joint bombing exercises over western Asia with the US Central Command (CENTCOM) and F-15 and F-35 fighters of the Israeli air force, believed to be preparation for attacks on Iran.
The 4 March exercise – the third in two weeks – involved giant US B-52H ‘Stratofortress’ bombers that took off from Fairford RAF base in England and conducted the exercise in CENTCOM’s ‘area of responsibility’, which comprises the ‘Middle East’ and parts of southern Asia.
The latest exercise follows a live-weapon drop on 20 February that the US military said involved B-52s conducting “multiple missions over the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea”. With typically Orwellian language, the Pentagon said that these missions ‘promote security and stability’ in the region. In the past twelve months the US has used the B-52s, along with B-1 and B-2 bombers, to bomb Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Zarah Sultana speaking after a march organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, from Russell Square to Whitehall in central London, June 21, 2025
