Andrew Fox’s Substack

The pictures from Ceuta might have been crafted for populism. Thousands of young Moroccans poured across the frontier into Spain’s North African enclave, some swimming around the breakwater, others running through the streets. People died. Soldiers were deployed. Within hours, a Reform MP had declared the episode a problem for “the Anglosphere”, while Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman projected the column north towards Calais as official Reform channels urged “time to wake up”.

Online, events in Ceuta have already become the opening shot in the invasion of Europe: according to populist politicians and the terminally Online Right, tens of thousands pouring through a breached NATO frontier, Russian hands in the shadows, and a human wave supposedly heading straight for the heart of Schengen. The videos looked extraordinary. The story attached to them was largely fantasy. The breach was real and appalling.

Sometimes I think I am not angry enough, but the scale of the problem is almost too huge to be angry at, collectively. Towering rage must be split into smaller rages at each of the component parts of the blood libel machine. The fantastical Lancet “studies” salivating over hundreds of thousands of imaginary dead Gazans. AirWars’ pearl-clutching reports, drawing conclusions of civilian targeting in Gaza without a tenth of the evidence needed to draw said conclusions.

Reports of another diplomatic opening mask the trap. Mediators have proposed a ten-day ceasefire to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and salvage June’s memorandum. Tehran disputes the rejection outright, although Trump concedes Iran is “not yet ready” for a deal. After thirteen nights of strikes, he paused bombing to pursue diplomacy. It looks like freedom of manoeuvre, but the walls are closing in on him.

Over Iran on Sunday night, the Americans returned to work. The latest three-hour operation marked the ninth consecutive night of strikes, spanning Iran’s industrial interior and much of its southern coastline. Confirmed impacts were reported at Tabriz, Bandar Imam Khomeini, Bandar-e Mahshahr, Khormoj, Sirik, Bandar-e Jask, Chabahar and Konarak. Reports from Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Abadan and Khorramabad remained unconfirmed, as did suggestions of Kuwaiti participation at Bandar Imam Khomeini.

There is too much breathless commentary about the resumption of the war between the US, Israel and Iran. It is worth pausing to assess what we actually know. The latest American strikes can no longer be considered a single retaliatory raid. CENTCOM says its 12th July wave hit dozens of targets using fighter aircraft, naval vessels, one-way attack aerial drones, and, for the first time, one-way attack sea drones.

Here we go. The plaster Keir Starmer spent years sticking over the unhealed, gaping wound of Labour’s antisemitism has finally been ripped off by Andy Burnham.

On the Fourth of July, Washington staged a show. Freedom 250 saw 850,000 fireworks launched from ten sites around the National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, West Potomac Park, and barges on the Potomac. It was designed as a spectacle, and on those terms it worked. The capital looked upwards. The sky detonated. The USA celebrated itself, staged in colour and noise. Five days later, Washington was watching a different kind of fireworks.

Britain has managed a piece of foreign policy incoherence so neat it almost deserves study. In September 2025, the UK formally recognised the State of Palestine as part of its declared commitment to a two-state solution. At a time when the UK is facing a £15 billion black hole in Defence funding, the government has now announced another £23 million for UNRWA, the separate UN agency built around the category of “Palestine refugees”, which includes millions across the region and civilians in Gaza.

Both my regular podcasts in one place! Here you can find my weekly chat with Shana Meyerson, A Paratrooper and a Yogi Walk Into A Bar, and special live editions of The Brink, with Jake Wallis Simons. Both my regular podcasts in one place! Here you can find my weekly chat with Shana Meyerson, A Paratrooper and a Yogi Walk Into A Bar, and special live editions of The Brink, with Jake Wallis Simons.