Conflict between Israel and Iran could escalate to ‘very dark place'
Scotland's First Minister has called for de-escalation in the Middle East as he warned the conflict between Israel and Iran could escalate to 'a very dark place'.
Attacks from both sides have ramped up since Friday, with Iran's health ministry claiming 224 people have been killed, while Israel has killed three of Tehran's top generals.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has warned Britons against travelling to Israel, amid ongoing operations in Gaza.
Speaking to journalists in Glasgow, John Swinney urged world leaders to calm tensions.
'The conflict with Iran has the potential to escalate to a very dark place,' he said.
'So I think all of that says to me that the international community and the United Kingdom Government particularly have got to marshal their efforts to constrain Israel and to de-escalate this conflict, both in Gaza and between Israel and Iran.
'The sooner that happens, the better.'
The UK Government, according to Mr Swinney, has to step up diplomatic efforts.
'I think the UK Government has got to put more emphasis and weight into the de-escalation and the resolution of this conflict, because I think – you don't need me to tell you – this has got catastrophic implications written all over it.'
The ongoing conflicts in the region 'could not be more concerning', the First Minister said, adding: 'The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has been unconscionable.
'Amongst the main discussions I had at the British-Irish Council at the end of last week were discussions about the importance of humanitarian aid, which is sitting on the border in Jordan.
'It's all sitting there, able to go in, being stopped.
'So it's unconscionable that is happening just now.'
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Telegraph
15 minutes ago
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Asylum seekers behind new grooming gang cases
Asylum seekers and foreign nationals are involved in a 'significant proportion' of live police investigations into child sex grooming gangs, an official report has warned. On Monday, the Government released a report by Baroness Casey which was ordered after renewed outrage over the scandal at the start of this year. In her 200-page audit, the peer accused officials of being in 'denial' about the scale of the problem and said that lessons had not been learnt from crimes committed in Rotherham a decade ago. It found that police and council leaders covered up the scale of Asian grooming gangs since concerns were first raised in 2009 because they feared being branded racist. Ahead of the release of the report, Sir Keir Starmer was forced to announce a national inquiry into the scandal in an embarrassing policy reversal. He has also ordered the National Crime Agency to carry out a nationwide investigation. Despite reviews, reports and inquiries raising questions about Asian or Pakistani suspects grooming young white girls, Lady Casey's review found police, local authorities and other agencies 'consistently failed' to fully acknowledge the fact or collect data so that the theory could be tested. She also warned that when she had reviewed about a dozen live police cases, 'a significant proportion of these cases appear to involve suspects who are non-UK nationals and/or who are claiming asylum in the UK'. Neither the Office for National Statistics nor the Ministry of Justice records data on the number of crimes committed by asylum seekers or foreign nationals. On Monday night, the Conservatives warned that the involvement of asylum seekers in grooming gangs must be taken seriously. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: 'I am deeply troubled to read that a significant proportion of these cases involve non-UK nationals and asylum seekers. 'This underlines the importance of securing our borders, which the Government has completely failed to do. I also call on the Government to prevent perpetrators from using human rights laws – not just asylum laws – to avoid deportation.' A record 84,200 applications for asylum were made in the UK in 2024. At the end of May, more than 14,600 migrants had crossed the Channel in small boats – up more than 30 per cent on the same point last year and the highest numbers for the first five months of a year since small boats started crossing in 2018. Unveiling the Casey report to the House of Commons, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, said any asylum seekers found guilty of grooming children or committing sexual offences would have their applications rejected. The Home Secretary said she would accept Lady Casey's recommendations in full, including the mandatory collection of ethnicity and nationality data for all suspects in child sex abuse and criminal exploitation cases, as well as improvements to the ethnicity data collected for victims. She also said sorry for two decades of failure. Announcing the full national inquiry, she said: 'Those vile perpetrators who have grown used to the authorities looking the other way must have no place to hide.' The about-turn on a national inquiry is an embarrassment to Sir Keir, who in January accused those demanding one of jumping on a 'far-Right bandwagon'. The inquiry will last about three years, although this is much shorter than other probes such as that into Covid lockdowns. It comes 10 years after Lady Casey wrote a damning report into the culture of denial at Rotherham, South Yorkshire, where at least 1,400 children were sexually abused by grooming gangs between 1997 and 2013. In her latest audit, she accused public bodies of having used flawed data to dismiss claims about Asian grooming gangs as 'sensationalised, biased or untrue'. 'Instead of examination, we have seen obfuscation,' she wrote. 'In a vacuum, incomplete and unreliable data is used to suit the ends of those presenting it. 'The system claims there is an overwhelming problem with white perpetrators when that can't be proved.' Lady Casey also referred to 'examples of organisations avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist or raising community tension'. 'Flawed data is used repeatedly to dismiss claims about 'Asian grooming gangs' as sensationalised, biased or untrue,' she said. 'This does a disservice to victims and indeed all law-abiding people in Asian communities.' Lady Casey found that information on the ethnicity of abusers was not recorded in two thirds of cases. 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The Independent
18 minutes ago
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Why does Britain have a role in the Israel-Iran conflict?
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