标签： Europe

In a landmark annual address delivered at MI5’s London headquarters, domestic intelligence service director general Sir Ken McCallum has laid out a stark assessment of the UK’s evolving national security landscape, revealing that the agency now allocates more resources to countering state-sponsored threats than it did at the height of the Cold War.

Sir Ken opened his speech by naming Russia the UK’s top aggressor, noting that overall foreign state threats have grown fourfold over the past 10 years. This dramatic surge has left MI5 balancing counterterrorism and state threat operations at roughly equal scale, a shift unseen in modern UK intelligence history.

Turning to Moscow’s ongoing global activities, Sir Ken outlined that Russia is waging a deliberate campaign of hybrid warfare designed to avoid triggering a collective NATO response, a red line the Kremlin would be strategically foolish to cross. With its full-scale invasion of Ukraine yielding minimal territorial gains at horrific human and military cost, Russia has instead focused on destabilizing European democratic societies. Thanks to coordinated global action that has seen nearly 1,000 Russian intelligence operatives expelled from countries worldwide since the invasion began, the Kremlin’s traditional covert network in the UK has been gutted. This has forced Moscow to rely on hiring criminal proxies to carry out attack plots on its behalf, a shift Sir Ken described as a clear sign of Russian strategic weakness, not strength. “These are not the actions of a great power with the strategic upper hand,” he emphasized.

Beyond Russia, Sir Ken warned that Iran is rapidly expanding its own hybrid campaign of aggression within UK borders. Over the past 12 months alone, UK authorities have made 50 arrests linked to Iranian state-backed activities, which have disproportionately targeted British Jewish communities while also plotting attacks against harder military infrastructure targets. While he declined to comment directly on the recent alleged plot at RAF Fairford – which Prime Minister Keir Starmer linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Sir Ken stressed that any actors seeking to sow chaos on UK soil, whether local hired attackers or their overseas paymasters, will face an unyielding law enforcement response. He added that the 2023 National Security Act, a landmark piece of legislation designed to counter foreign interference, is already being heavily deployed to address threats from Russia, Iran, and China alike.

A core focus of the address was the emerging, rapidly evolving risk of bad actors exploiting artificial intelligence for malicious purposes. Sir Ken confirmed that MI5 has already intercepted terror groups attempting to integrate AI into their attack planning, including pairing AI-enhanced autonomous drones with new reconnaissance methodologies that lower the barrier for successful attacks. AI is also being used to generate hyper-personalized propaganda and radicalization content, supercharging the ongoing cybersecurity arms race between attackers and defenders.

Most concerning, Sir Ken argued, is the risk of extremist groups leveraging AI to develop novel or more dangerous bioweapons. While this threat has not yet been fully realized, he warned that AI has the potential to fundamentally reshape the risks posed by both existing and emerging bioweapons. “Human history has given us no experience of facing an actor which is smarter than we are,” he noted, referencing the unprecedented uncertainty surrounding advanced AI development. To address this gap, Sir Ken announced the launch of MI5’s new AI Threat Assessment Centre, tasked with separating exaggerated speculation from tangible risks and coordinating national responses to AI-enabled threats. The agency is already collaborating closely with GCHQ, MI6, and the UK’s world-leading AI Security Institute to mitigate these emerging hazards.

On the topic of domestic terrorism, Sir Ken contextualized the April 2024 decision to raise the UK’s terror threat level to “severe” – the first such increase in five years, meaning an attack is deemed highly likely. While long-standing threats from Islamist groups including Al Qaeda and the Islamic State continue to motivate and direct attacks, Sir Ken highlighted extreme right-wing terrorism as a key driver of the elevated risk. Over the past year, the service has recorded a sharp rise in cases where extremist anti-immigration and anti-Muslim narratives have escalated into concrete terror planning. Unlike many other terror threats, extreme right-wing radicalization disproportionately skews young, fueled by unregulated online extremist spaces. Sir Ken revealed that MI5 had recently investigated a radicalized 13-year-old extreme right-wing extremist in the UK, and intelligence from that investigation allowed an international partner to stop a lethal attack on their territory.

In closing, Sir Ken reaffirmed MI5’s commitment to adapting to the changing threat landscape, noting that the service’s expanded resourcing and new initiatives like the AI Threat Assessment Centre position it to meet the challenges of an increasingly volatile global security environment.

Nearly 20 years after the last royal visit to the Spanish North African exclave of Ceuta, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia touched down on Tuesday to a warm welcome from local crowds, launching a visit that arrives at a critical moment for the territory. The trip comes as Ceuta continues to recover from a mass influx of roughly 70,000 migrants that crossed over from Morocco in July, an event that sparked a major humanitarian and political crisis for Spain.

Humanitarian organizations have confirmed that at least 141 migrants lost their lives during the dangerous border crossings that month. While most of the new arrivals have moved on from Ceuta in the months since the surge, thousands remain. Until recently, the majority of these remaining migrants were forced to sleep in unregulated open-air sites, with no access to basic shelter or services.

On the first day of their visit, the royal couple is scheduled to hold meetings with Ceuta’s local governing body, tour a local public school, and take part in an interfaith commemoration at the Sidi Embarek Muslim cemetery, where many of the migrants who died during the July crossings were laid to rest. On Tuesday evening, King Felipe is set to deliver a public address at Ceuta’s Parador hotel, before traveling to Melilla on Wednesday – Spain’s second exclave on the North African coast, which is also claimed by Morocco.

Juan Jesús Vivas, Ceuta’s conservative regional president, framed the royal visit as a much-needed boost for the beleaguered territory. “This visit will bring hope to a place that needs a lot of hope,” Vivas told Spanish radio earlier this week. He has repeatedly described the July migrant surge as “the most serious national security crisis of the democratic era” for Spain, and estimates that around 15,000 migrants still remain in Ceuta. That figure is sharply contested by Spain’s central government, which puts the number far lower and notes that it has made 7,400 shelter spaces available to accommodate migrants staying in the territory.

The sudden mass arrival in July placed unprecedented strain on Ceuta’s local infrastructure, stoking fears over public safety and resource scarcity among long-term residents. In a small number of isolated but high-profile incidents, some local residents have attempted to block the distribution of humanitarian aid to the newly arrived migrants. It was not until last month that the central government completed construction of temporary makeshift shelters, bringing an end to the period where most migrants were sleeping rough. The shelters are being used to house migrants while Spanish authorities carry out immigration legal screenings to determine whether each individual will be allowed to remain in Ceuta or deported back to Morocco or another country.

The crisis has pushed Ceuta’s situation and the broader issue of immigration to the top of Spain’s national political agenda, just weeks ahead of upcoming national elections. Immigration has already emerged as one of the most contentious key issues in the campaign, with opposition parties heavily criticizing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist-led government for its handling of the crisis. Large demonstrations in support of Ceuta’s local population have been held across mainland Spain, putting additional pressure on Sánchez’s administration.

The crisis has also dramatically inflamed longstanding tensions between Spain and Morocco, which has maintained a formal sovereignty claim over both Ceuta and Melilla for decades. Many Spanish political observers and officials initially pointed the finger at Morocco, accusing the North African kingdom of deliberately allowing or even orchestrating the mass crossing in July. Prime Minister Sánchez, however, has stated that there is no concrete evidence to support the claim that Morocco knowingly facilitated the surge.

Earlier this week, Sánchez confirmed a media report that Moroccan military vessels had entered Spanish territorial waters off the coast of Ceuta on July 31, during the peak of the migrant crossing, but he downplayed the incident, framing it as a minor, isolated occurrence that does not represent a broader escalation. Morocco, for its part, has doubled down on its longstanding sovereignty claims to both Ceuta and Melilla in the wake of the crisis. Back in August, Moroccan Justice Minister Abdellatif Ouahbi reiterated his country’s “historical and geographical right” to the two exclaves and called for bilateral negotiations with Spain to resolve the sovereignty dispute – a call that the Spanish government immediately rejected.

Opposition leaders have accused Sánchez of failing to take a firm stance against Morocco amid the crisis. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the conservative opposition People’s Party (PP), has accused Sánchez of misleading the Spanish public about the root causes of the July migrant surge and committing “frivolity” in his handling of the issue. “To Morocco, [we should offer] loyalty and good neighbourliness, but also firmness,” Feijóo stated, outlining the opposition’s approach to the ongoing diplomatic tensions.

In his first public interview since his abrupt removal from office earlier this summer, former Ukraine Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi has laid out his assessment of the ongoing war with Russia, addressed longstanding criticisms of his leadership, and pushed back against narratives that led to his dismissal in an exclusive conversation with the BBC.

Syrskyi, who rose to national prominence in 2022 for his successful defense of Kyiv and leadership of the breakthrough Kharkiv counteroffensive before being appointed top commander in 2024, claims Ukraine has now effectively stabilized the entire front line and broken Russia’s capacity to make large-scale territorial advances, largely thanks to the massive casualties Ukrainian forces have inflicted on invading troops. According to Syrskyi’s calculations, Russia’s total war deaths are up to 11 times higher than Ukraine’s, with overall Russian casualties across killed and wounded outpacing Ukraine’s by a factor of six. While neither warring party publishes official verified casualty figures, UK intelligence estimates put Russian killed-in-action deaths at roughly 500,000 since the 2022 full-scale invasion, with US think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies projecting Ukrainian troop deaths will reach up to 150,000 by 2026. The general notes that this lopsided casualty ratio, paired with Ukraine’s evolving tactical approach of targeting Russian weak points while containing advances elsewhere, has created the current frontline stalemate. He added that Russia only managed to seize 61 square kilometers of territory in the first half of 2026 — a rate of advance so slow it confirms the front has effectively held, a trend independently echoed by the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War, which recently reported Russia lost more territory than it gained in September 2026.

Syrskyi’s removal from office this summer capped a very public, high-stakes disagreement with then-Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, a popular young leader known for his push to modernize Ukraine’s military with digital and drone technology. The dispute erupted into public view when Fedorov accused Syrskyi’s army command of blocking his reform initiatives, refusing to adapt to the changing nature of modern war. After the disagreement went public, President Volodymyr Zelensky initially removed Fedorov, but widespread public protests forced Zelensky to also dismiss Syrskyi, replacing the veteran commander with 43-year-old Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi.

In the interview, Syrskyi pushed back hard against the two most common criticisms leveled against him: that he was an outdated “old school” commander unfit to lead Ukraine’s increasingly technology-driven military, and that his order to hold frontline positions at all costs led to unnecessary heavy Ukrainian casualties in multiple engagements, including the withdrawals from Avdiivka, Vuhledar, and Pokrovsk, as well as the 2025 retreat from the August 2024 Kursk incursion into Russian territory.

Addressing claims he was a technologically out-of-touch commander, Syrskyi argued it was under his leadership that Ukraine expanded drone use to unprecedented levels, including launching deep strike operations more than 2,000 kilometers behind Russian lines. It was also during his tenure that Ukraine became the first country in the world to stand up a separate branch of the armed forces dedicated entirely to unmanned systems. He noted that drones are currently responsible for 80% of Russia’s combat losses, contradicting claims that he resisted technological innovation. Syrskyi also explained the root of his dispute with Fedorov: the former defense minister created dangerous supply imbalances by prioritizing drones over critical frontline equipment including unmanned ground vehicles, pickup trucks, and motorbikes, leaving frontline units receiving only half the drone supplies they required even as other essential gear was sidelined, he said.

Responding to allegations that his hold-at-all-costs orders trapped Ukrainian troops and led to unnecessary deaths, Syrskyi acknowledged chaotic frontline situations occur but framed them as an unavoidable consequence of fighting a materially superior adversary. As of 2025, he said Russia held an 18-to-1 advantage in combat aircraft and aerial bombs, a two-and-a-half-to-one advantage in artillery and artillery shells, and access to a reserve pool of four million militarily trained personnel to mobilize for frontline operations. Against that disparity, hard choices about holding positions are unavoidable, he argued.

On the controversial 2024 Kursk incursion, which critics described as ending in a catastrophic retreat, Syrskyi defended the operation as a strategic necessity. In summer 2024, he explained, Russian forces were pushing along every major frontline axis with up to six times the troop strength of Ukrainian defenders. The incursion into Kursk disrupted Moscow’s planned offensive and forced Russian command to redirect thousands of troops away from Ukraine’s eastern and southern front lines, giving Ukraine’s overstretched brigades critical time to regroup and reposition.

Looking ahead, Syrskyi warned European allies against clinging to illusions that Russia’s territorial ambitions end at Ukraine’s borders, urging them to begin immediate preparations for potential future conflict. He also laid out his vision for the future of the war, predicting it will become even more technology-reliant, with growing integration of robotics, automated systems, and artificial intelligence that can upgrade the capabilities of even conventional weapons such as main battle tanks. Even so, he stressed that the role of human soldiers will remain decisive on future battlefields, as people will always be required to command and control automated systems.

Almost a decade after the 2016 Brexit referendum and five years since the United Kingdom formally exited the European Union, one of the most divisive issues in modern British political history has burst back into the national spotlight.

It is easy to forget how all-consuming this debate was for years at Westminster. The saga stretches all the way back to the 2015 Conservative general election victory, when the party’s manifesto made a binding promise to hold a public in-out referendum on EU membership by the end of 2017. Then-prime minister David Cameron pursued a renegotiation of the UK’s membership terms to secure what he framed as a better deal for Britain, before the historic public vote was held on 23 June 2016.

The 2016 result did not end the debate – it only opened the door to years of bitter, protracted wrangling. Two general elections came and went in 2017 and 2019, and two successive prime ministers, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, grappled with the withdrawal process before the UK finally completed its exit at 11pm on 31 January 2020. By that point, voters on both sides of the debate were exhausted: regardless of whether they supported Leave or Remain, there was widespread hunger to move on to other policy priorities. Mainstream political parties picked up on this public fatigue, keeping their long-held positions on the EU out of the public spotlight and avoiding extended discussion of the issue.

That political truce is now over, following the arrival of Andy Burnham in Downing Street – a shift that comes despite Burnham’s previous pledges to keep Brexit off the top of the political agenda. The new prime minister has repeatedly leaned into the argument that it is long past time to “face up to the reality that Brexit has done more harm than good” and that “the status quo is not good enough for Britain.” He first laid out this case at the annual Labour Party Conference last month, and doubled down on the position during a recent address to the House of Commons.

Burnham is advancing a two-part strategy for reorienting Britain’s relationship with Brussels. In the short term, he aims to “deepen” bilateral ties at a upcoming UK-EU summit in Brussels scheduled for 20 November, insisting that any planned expansion of cooperation will stick to Labour’s last general election pledge of rejecting membership of the EU customs union, single market, and the free movement of people. For the medium term, however, Burnham has left the door open to a new public vote: he confirmed recently that Labour’s next general election manifesto could include a promise for a second in-out referendum on Britain’s EU relationship. Addressing MPs, he sought to reassure voters of all positions, noting: “This country in the next decade needs to know where it is going. There are no assumptions here, and as I said, the British public will be the boss of whatever is decided.”

Critics have pushed back hard on the prime minister’s move, arguing that the issue was already settled by voters a decade ago. Lord Frost, a former Brexit minister and chief UK Brexit negotiator, wrote in the Telegraph that “[voters] weighed the arguments and made a decision. The least they are owed is politicians willing to defend it.”

In the five-week lead-up to the Brussels summit, Downing Street is focused on securing what it frames as tangible, short-term gains in three key areas: youth mobility, food and drink trade, and cross-border energy cooperation. Burnham argues that a pragmatic deepening of ties with the EU will cut levels of illegal immigration and drive national economic growth – a framing that has put him at odds with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who has condemned the plan as a reckless rehash of old debates with little chance of meaningful progress.

The most explosive new element of the revived debate came when Burnham made unsubstantiated claims about Russian interference in the 2016 referendum. Appearing on The Rest Is Politics podcast, he said that upon entering Downing Street, he had asked officials whether Russia interfered in the 2016 vote, claiming: “I’ve had a clear answer that, yes, there was.” He offered no details on who provided this confirmation or what evidence supported the claim. In the House of Commons, he softened his language, using a double negative to say it was “inconceivable” that Russia did not attempt to interfere.

Political opponents immediately seized on the controversial claim. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called the prime minister “a liar” in blunt terms. Former prime minister Boris Johnson added that he had asked the same question when he served as Foreign Secretary, and “they replied that there was no evidence of any successful interference in the 2016 referendum, by Russia or any other power.” The exchange has sparked a new row over the difference between attempted interference, confirmed interference, and successful interference that changed the outcome of the vote.

The re-emergence of the Brexit debate marks a historic shift: this is the first time since formal exit in 2020 that a sitting UK prime minister has openly and unflinchingly reopened discussion of whether Brexit is working, how it can be improved, and whether it has ultimately been a failure for Britain. Politically, the strategy is rooted in two key calculations. First, opinion polling consistently shows a majority of British voters now believe Brexit has not delivered on the promises its backers made ahead of 2016. Second, Burnham hopes to draw pro-European voters across the left of British politics – from the Liberal Democrats and Greens to the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru – into the Labour coalition ahead of the next election.

For now, the political landscape is set for a return to a familiar debate. As the conversation over Britain’s relationship with its closest neighbors resumes, British politics may be about to get a heavy dose of that old, divisive, all-consuming Brexit energy once again – with no clear end to the new round of wrangling in sight.