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Earlier this week, as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran intensified, U.K. Reform Party leader Nigel Farage doubled down on his anti-immigrant and anti-refugee stances. If, he declared, refugees start leaving Iran in large numbers, they will have to be housed in the Middle East; Britain simply can’t take in any more.

Farage spoke about the U.S.-Israeli operation in Iran in glowing terms. One outcome his country should celebrate, he argued, was that if the theocratic regime falls, large numbers of Iranians currently living in the U.K. will likely return home. Consider it a twofer, he was basically saying: a bad regime falls, and the U.K. may also rid itself of some of its Muslim immigrants.

Anti-immigrant tirades could well become official British policy in the not-too-distant future. The Starmer-led Labour government has disappointed the British public since coming to power in a landslide victory in the summer of 2024, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer himself is toxic with the electorate: Latest YouGov numbers show that 69 percent of the public views him unfavorably. (Amazingly, that’s an improvement on his January numbers, when fully 75 percent viewed him negatively.) Farage’s Reform U.K., a right-wing party backed by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, now has a good chance of being the largest grouping in Parliament come the next general election, currently scheduled for 2029.

Amid outbreaks of violence aimed at asylum seekers housed in hotels around the country, the U.K.’s Labour government is pushing through legislation that would require refugees and asylum seekers to wait 20 years before they could gain permanent residency rights. Their ability to work would also be restricted, and they would be subject to fast-track deportation proceedings should their refugee status — which will now be reviewed every 30 months — be revoked.

The U.K.’s Labour government is pushing through legislation that would require refugees and asylum seekers to wait 20 years before they could gain permanent residency rights.

The U.K.’s Labour government is pushing through legislation that would require refugees and asylum seekers to wait 20 years before they could gain permanent residency rights.

Now, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that the U.S. could rain down “death and destruction from the sky all day long” on the Iranian regime (and by extension the 90 million residents of Iran) — European governments are caught in a vise. The Spanish government has explicitly decried the war as being illegal; the U.K. government initially refused the U.S. the right to use Diego Garcia and other bases in the region — though subsequently backpedaled on this; and even hard-right governments........

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