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Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Britain now has more illegal Channel arrivals under the Labour government, which has been in power two years, than it has soldiers in the British Army.

Home Office figures put small-boat arrivals since Labour took office on 4 July 2024 at 83,279. The regular Army stands at 83,000.

On Wednesday alone, 781 people came ashore - the worst single day since Andy Burnham replaced Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister in July. The first three days of the week delivered 1,085 arrivals. Across 809 days of Labour government, that works out at roughly 103 people a day.

'It has been a very bad week for Shabana Mahmood...'

GB News Political Editor @ChristopherHope discusses the latest illegal migration milestone after it was revealed that the number of small boat migrants now exceeds the size of the British Army. pic.twitter.com/crGvJwxl5L

— GB News (@GBNEWS) September 25, 2026

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the milestone speaks for itself. "Labour has let an entire army-sized population cross the Channel illegally," he said. "More people have arrived in small boats than we have soldiers defending Britain. That is completely bonkers. Labour has lost control of our borders and seems utterly incapable of getting it back."

Former Royal Navy officer Chris Parry went further. Labour's intake, he said, amounts to six-and-a-half divisions of fighting-age men. "That's more divisions than were in the Allied assault wave on D-Day," he added, calling the crossings "amphibious operations against our coast."

The comparison is worse when the rest of the services are brought in. Labour's small-boat total already sits 15,429 ahead of the Royal Navy and RAF combined, which together field 67,850 full-time personnel. And this is only the post-election slice. Under the Conservatives, around 128,000 people arrived by dinghy. Since records began in December 2018 the running total has blown past 200,000 - higher than the combined strength of the Army, Navy and RAF.

Writing in the Mail after more than 1,200 people crossed from Monday, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: "It is utterly insane. And if it wasn't clear before, the events of the past few days have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that both Border Force and the Home Office have completely lost control."

He added: "Years ago, I warned the small boats crisis would define this era of British politics. Predictably, the chin-stroking commentariat declared I was exaggerating. Well, look where we are now."

"Ordinary Britons rightly ask if successive governments cannot stop people from arriving illegally in broad daylight, let alone under cover of darkness without detection, then what exactly is the point of having a border?" Farage asked. His party wants the largest military operation in the Channel since the Second World War and a return of every illegal arrival to France.

'It is not right!'

Senior Researcher at the Prosperity Institute, Guy Dampier, reacts as the number of small boat migrants now outnumber the British Army.

? Freeview 236, Sky 512, Virgin 604 pic.twitter.com/e1vy4dBcUW

— GB News (@GBNEWS) September 25, 2026

Two boats this week reached British beaches without Border Force interception - one at Samphire Hoe between Dover and Folkestone, another near Folkestone the day before. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood ordered an "urgent review" and said even one uncontrolled landing is "one too many." Education Secretary Lucy Powell then told GB News that "you can't stop everything all of the time," while insisting Mahmood was taking "swift action to find out what's gone wrong here and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Border Force union official Lucy Moreton was less diplomatic. Undetected landings are "absolutely, definitely happening," she said, with abandoned vessels and reports "all the way down to Falmouth." "If we don't look for it, we don't know it's happening. We don't know it's happening, we don't have to deal with it."

'We've got a government that is oblivious to the scale of the problem we face in the Channel.'

Shadow Secretary for Energy Security and Net Zero Andrew Bowie MP reacts as the number of small boat migrants who have reached the UK under Labour exceeds the size of the British Army. pic.twitter.com/PvXnKE2Q3U

— GB News (@GBNEWS) September 25, 2026

Labour's first act in 2024 was to scrap the Rwanda deterrent. Shadow energy secretary Andrew Bowie said the latest numbers follow from that choice. "We've got a government that is oblivious to the scale of the problem we face in the Channel," he said. "It's not a surprise, frankly, because the very first thing this Labour government did was get rid of any sort of deterrent to prevent illegal migrants coming into this country."

Former Home Office borders director Glyn Williams told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that "the consequences of a failing policy... are becoming more and more extreme," and that "more extreme measures" may now have to be considered.

"The consequences of a failing policy...are becoming more and more extreme."

Small boats containing 781 migrants arrived in the UK yesterday, the highest number in one day this year.

Former Director General for Borders & Immigration at the Home Office, Glyn Williams, says 'more... pic.twitter.com/c01qWFrncc

— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) September 25, 2026

The official line is that crossings are down 42 percent this year and that summer 2026 was the quietest since 2020. That is the defence ministers reach for while dinghies still beach in Kent and Britain discusses paying France another billion pounds for the next small-boats deal. GB News presenter Patrick Christys called the week "full-on illegal migrant carnage."

'Full-on illegal migrant carnage.'

GB News Presenter @PatrickChristys reacts to at least 1,000 illegal migrants having crossed the Channel since Monday, as it's revealed Britain might have to pay France another £1bn for the next small boat deal. pic.twitter.com/TtDoUa3kOj

— GB News (@GBNEWS) September 23, 2026

The people coming off those boats do not vanish. They are processed, housed and parked on the public. We have already covered what that looks like on the ground. In Piddington, Oxfordshire - 350 residents, 46 children, no shop, no pub - a Home Office paper for the old MoD depot discussed 3,510 "service users" against an official planning figure of 1,256 single adult males. Ten migrants for every local.

Similar dumps are lined up at Linton-on-Ouse, Barnham and Crowborough as hotels are emptied into former barracks.

The legal machine that then keeps them here is not a refugee system. It is a production line. A Home Office official who has handled thousands of cases put the genuine share at "at best 1 per cent." Package stories, recycled police letters, staged nightclub photos, modern-slavery claims that cannot be disproved. Grant rates still run in the tens of thousands. Removals do not.

Who helps keep the Channel route open is another story again. NGO networks on the French coast have spent years treating the crossing as a humanitarian project rather than a breach of an island nation's border.

Migration Watch chairman Alp Mehmet urged "Military-age men are pouring into Britain across the Channel. Illegal Channel crossings are now a major political crisis, and pose a real and present threat to our national security."

Almost 90 percent of those intercepted since 2018 have been male; two-thirds are aged 18 to 39. People-smuggling gangs have told reporters that Iran has used the route to move operatives in return for a "favour" once on British soil. In 2023, nineteen suspected terrorists linked to Islamic State and al-Shabaab were reported to have arrived the same way.

A country that cannot stop a dinghy in daylight does not have a border policy. It has a ferry service run by criminal gangs, underwritten by hotels, lawyers and a claims system that treats refusal as the hard option.

Labour inherited a failure and then dismantled the one deterrent it had. Burnham now inherits the same beaches, the same numbers, and an actual Army smaller than the cohort that has already washed up on his party's watch.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The Netherlands considers that the current EU system of gas storage targets ahead of winter is inadequate and burdens governments that have to pay for meeting the EU-wide obligations.

The Dutch government has already spent almost $1.14 billion (1 billion euros) this summer season alone on building up inventories, while this task should fall mostly on the gas market participants, Climate Minister Stientje van Veldhoven said in a letter to Parliament cited by Bloomberg.

The Netherlands is a relatively small EU gas consumer, but it is a major natural gas hub and home to the EU's benchmark gas trading futures market, the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF).

The current EU rules on mandatory gas storage levels consider storage capacity rather than consumption, the Netherlands argues.

Moreover, this spring-summer filling season has been particularly difficult and very expensive for the EU member states as natural gas prices soared in the wake of the Iran war and the very few LNG cargoes that make it through the Strait of Hormuz.

The price spike and the concern about near-term supply have deepened the backwardation structure of European gas prices, discouraging holding supply for later deliveries. Backwardation is the market structure in which prompt contracts trade higher than those further out in time, signaling concerns about immediate supply.

Weeks ago, the Dutch gas network operator said the Netherlands would miss its target to fill natural gas storage sites ahead of the winter, in one of the first evidence-based signs that Europe may be struggling to have sufficient supply for a harsh winter.

Germany, the EU's biggest economy, is considering expanding a key market incentive to encourage traders to raise gas storage levels ahead of the winter. The government is looking to use the existing market tool, the autumn tender for Long Term Options, or LTOs, on a larger scale.

Germany has the world's fourth-largest natural gas storage capacity, but this capacity was only 57% full as of September 24, according to data by Gas Infrastructure Europe. That's a historically low level, and Germany risks gas shortages this winter if it turns out to be colder than previous years, the country's gas storage association, INES, warned earlier this month.

Authored by Alastair Crooke (former British diplomat, founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum) via LewRockwell.com,

Outline of a talk given at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, 7 Sept 2026

Can civilizations pull together the fragments of older insights and knowing to give the context by which to make moral discourse intelligible again?

The global future is often framed as being that of a multi-polar or multi-nodal world, with the implicit assumption that states would get along better - and would resolve their differences more easily through discussion than through war.

This was a meme that was in wide circulation in the Pre-WW1 years. Books were written to suggest that war could not happen: The definitive text on this concept, originally published in 1910 as The Great Illusion, became an international bestseller.

Its author, Norman Angell, argued that because nations relied heavily on a highly intertwined global trading system, the economic cost of war would drastically outweigh any potential gains. He asserted that a victorious nation would suffer just as much economic ruin as the vanquished - making the traditional concept of military conquest obsolete. His argument was popularly interpreted as making war "impossible".

His argument proved fallacious; the Great War duly erupted.

Today, the idea of some multi-polarity interplay persists, but the threat of war remains and is heightened by the West's refusal to hear - or understand - what civilisational sovereign states are saying. This inability to listen with empathetic engagement lies at the root of the catastrophic western Intelligence misreadings of Iran and Russia. And the casting of China as so 'other' to make it a closed-book to western ears.

In his influential 1981 book, After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre argued that the Enlightenment project cut Western man off from his roots in tradition, but had failed to produce a binding morality based on Reason alone. Consequently, many of those who live in the West live a world of "moral chaos and fragmentation, in which 'chaotic', disintegrative forces have very nearly obliterated true moral inquiry from European culture".

What is important to understand is that MacIntyre's "moral chaos and fragmentation" is deliberately fostered to weaken national, community and religious attachment - precisely in order to target and weaken national cohesion and civilisational sovereignty.

MacIntyre's argument is that it is cultural tradition alone, and its moral tales, that provide context to terms such as good, justice and telos:

"In the absence of traditions, moral debate is out of joint and becomes a theatre of illusions in which simple indignation and mere protest occupy centre stage".

"Lines are drawn early, and participants rush to take sides. But in taking sides they appear to render themselves incapable of hearing the other ... Everyone feels the heat, but no one sees the light", MacIntyre underlines.

What we possess today, MacIntyre suggests, are nothing more than mere fragments of an older tradition (Heroic Society). These fragments simply are too sparse, since our moral discourse, which uses terms like good and justice and duty, has been robbed of the context that would make it intelligible. In other words, it places the virtue of the heroic, Homeric world beyond western reach.

Lines are drawn. There is a rush to take sides. The 'chaotic', disintegrative forces of today have very nearly obliterated moral inquiry from European culture. The more striking feature of moral debates is their tendency never to reach resolution.

When all moral judgments - stripped of context - become little more than expressions of preference, of attitude or feeling - emotivism, in other words - debate is out of joint; it is transformed into a theatre of narratives in which indignation and polarity take centre stage.

But, in taking such emotive partisan sides, actors render themselves incapable of hearing The Other. 'Others', then, whether Russia, Iran or China, simply become invisible by the norms of this approach - as their ways of orienting human attention to the world are quite distinct.

Thus, we can (and are) being led to war by narrative messaging specifically intended to compel humans to spatialise the world in a certain way, without our being aware of it. We are being led to an Enlightenment-driven 'one world' in which all 'Otherness' - whether Russian, Iranian or Chinese - becomes invisible by the norms, the mode of presence, by which we approach 'things'.

In this 'war', the world is turned 'upside down'. Most people are not actively spatialising the world around them, but seemingly have become content to have it spatialised for them. Narratives are kneaded and rolled out before our eyes. This is how the machine works. Most people in the West believe themselves to have a firm handle on reality - facts, evidence, and conclusions. But effectively, we face a structure that purposefully turns that imagined grasp on reality inside out.

In the machine, the 'spatialisation' is backwards: First, they receive the messaging, then they knead and roll out a narrative of 'reality' like dough, until it fits the design. And if required, they put the Media machine into reverse and knead that same reality in the opposite direction.

So how can sovereign civilisations escape the 'MacIntyre trap'? Can civilisations pull together the fragments of older insights and knowing to give the context by which to make moral discourse intelligible again?

To climb out of the Fustian space of mechanistic thinking and manipulated narrative is not easy or simple. Quite the contrary.

But notice what it requires - a change in our mode of presence; how we dispose our attention toward the world.

How you dispose of consciousness towards the world, neurologist Iain McGilchrist tells us, is crucial: For, the way that you do it, alters and determines what you will find and understand. And as we spatialise the world around us differently, perception widens and the (until then hidden) spaciousness of what lies beyond comes into view.

A recovery of older ways of thinking - the 'all-at-once, all together' way of thinking (thinking through image) and other sources of cognition - can open a path to mediation between the seemingly oppositional polarities of the subjective and the objective which mechanical rationality so often leaves hardened into unresolvable impedimenta. The apophatic approach too can blunt the sharp edges of conceptual thought by introducing 'betweenness' finding its space between sharp angular argument. These modes of thought possess logic of their own that stands apart from the Enlightenment rigidities.

This is the lesson that Iran and its re-discovery of ancient thought is providing to the world today.

Albert Einstein once noted that "the rational mind is a servant; but the intuitive mind is a precious gift. Our world, however, honours the servant - but forgets [ignores] the gift".

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

Italian energy major Eni will cap fuel prices at its Enilive service stations beginning September 28 as tighter refined-product supplies and reduced European refining capacity continue to put upward pressure on pump prices.

The company said diesel sold through Enilive will be capped at €2.19 per liter, while petrol will be limited to €1.99 per liter. Eni said the caps are roughly €0.17 per liter below current average price levels.

The measure will initially remain in place for 30 days and could be extended through the end of 2026 depending on fuel-market conditions and supply trends.

Eni said the initiative is linked to excise-tax relief currently in force in Italy and is intended to reduce the impact of elevated fuel prices on households and businesses.

European fuel markets have faced renewed pressure from geopolitical disruptions, constrained refined-product availability and a long-term decline in regional refining capacity. Eni said nearly 30 European refineries have closed over the past 15 years, leaving the market more exposed when supplies tighten or imports are disrupted.

The Italian major said it has already been absorbing part of the increase in international fuel prices since March rather than fully passing higher wholesale costs through to recommended pump prices.

The latest intervention comes as European countries continue to grapple with the consequences of shrinking conventional refining capacity while attempting to transition toward lower-carbon fuels.

Eni is maintaining refining-related investments in Italy through its Enilive business, including its biorefineries in Venice and Gela. The company is also transforming its Livorno industrial site and other domestic facilities as part of a strategy focused increasingly on biofuels and lower-carbon products.

Those projects allow Eni to retain domestic processing capacity while shifting part of its downstream portfolio away from traditional petroleum refining.

[ZH: Last week saw US diesel prices decouple (lower) from EU prices amid chatter of a US export ban...]

The price cap also illustrates the increasing pressure on European refiners and fuel retailers to balance volatile international product prices with government efforts to limit the impact of energy costs on consumers.

Rapper Nicki Minaj urged young Americans to vote Republican in the upcoming midterm elections during an appearance on Fox's My View with Lara Trump, according to comments Fox News reported Sunday. Minaj, a supporter of President Donald Trump, also accused the Democratic Party of discouraging black voters from breaking with the party.

She kicked things off with a blunt call to "vote red."

"You know how much you want a say in what happens and realize that the only way to have that is by voting, not just voting for the president, but just voting and, you know, all of the local elections. Right?" she said. "But I want you guys to do your research, see what candidates are in your area, you know, and just give it a couple, you know, a few minutes or an hour. Research them and then make a decision. You guys are so blessed to be able to vote. And you have to, more than ever now, you have to take advantage of that ability that you guys have to be able to vote, please. And vote red."

Nicki Minaj message to Young Voters on Midterms: Vote Red. pic.twitter.com/9IALL9eoXy

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 27, 2026

Then Lara Trump asked whether she thought that "there are more people out there who vote for Democrats not because they like their policies and the politics themselves, but because they feel like they're supposed to vote for Democrats?"

"I think it's changing now, but obviously, for a very long time, black people specifically feel that they should just vote blue," Minaj said. "I would say the entire country, there's been a major shift where people are starting to wake up and see what's going on and choose differently."

The Grammy-nominee first came out in support of Trump in November 2025, after Trump spoke out about violence against Christians in Nigeria. She publicly thanked Trump for taking the issue seriously, marking a sharp change from her earlier criticism of his immigration policies. By December, she was openly praising Trump and JD Vance at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest, calling them "role models" and saying she had "utmost respect and admiration" for Trump.

"Black people are not allowed, according to the Democrats, for the most part, to make a different decision," she told Lara Trump. "We're not allowed to think, we're not allowed to voice concerns, to make an argument as to why we don't like a particular candidate."

Plenty of evidence backs this up. Joe Biden infamously told radio host Charlamagne tha God in 2020 that "you ain't black" if he had trouble picking between him and Trump.

Six years ago today, Joe Biden told Black Americans they “ain't Black" if they don’t vote for him.pic.twitter.com/GaHmmgFtLP

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 22, 2026

In 2021, "Uncle Tim" trended on Twitter after Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) delivered the Republican response to Joe Biden's 2021 joint address to Congress. Justice Clarence Thomas has received similar attacks for decades.

Minaj noted that black voters who aren't in line with the Democrats face "smear campaigns and just outright nasty behavior from these adults."

"It just doesn't look good," she added. "And so the Democrats kind of have been just digging their own grave in that way and they're not understanding that people can see them."

And, according to Minaj, black voters are catching on. "And now they feel, 'Oh, okay. So you only love me and respect me when I do as you say and don't ask any questions,'" she said. "And no one wants to be treated that way."

Minaj: Black people are not allowed to think according to Democrats. We are not allowed to voice concerns, to make an argument as to why we don't like a particular candidate. And they are seeing in real time if they do, what happens to them. Smear campaigns pic.twitter.com/NQg0qy5i9m

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 27, 2026

Asked by Lara Trump what she saw in Democrats that "led you to believe that perhaps they did not have the best interest of the country or for you in mind," Minaj accused the party of becoming "way too caught up in pop culture," arguing it has let its romance with the entertainment industry spiral out of control. "I think that they've allowed their relationships with artists to cause them to act like children and to be so petty and childish. But that's what I think they do. They allow people in the music industry to influence them. And these people clearly don't have their best interests at heart. These people have their egos at heart."

Nicki Minaj: Well, I think the Democrats have gotten way too caught up in pop culture, for lack of a better term. I think they have allowed their relationships with artists to cause them to act like children and to be so petty, but that’s what I think they do. They allow people… pic.twitter.com/wj0GhMYKiE

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 27, 2026