Black labs matter.

In a normal UK case that starts as suspicious activity near a sensitive site, Counter Terrorism Policing usually does three things in public. They confirm they are assessing whether there is a terrorism connection. They ask the public not to speculate. And if the forensics do not support a terror offense, they step off, say they do not believe there is a terrorism link, and hand the rest to a routine criminal inquiry. The heavy statute stays in the building until they are prepared to defend it. Fairford did the opposite. The first public language was already the top of the ladder. Explosives Act. Then Section 5 of the Terrorism Act, on suspicion. Then the head of national CT standing outside Scotland Yard. Taylor did not say they were checking whether this was terrorism. He kept the terror arrest live. The Explosives Act and Section 5 were in both the 12:30 and 16:00 updates. He bailed the men the next day, and added the line that doesn’t belong in a boilerplate. He again said they were keeping an open mind on proxies, and on people “knowingly or unknowingly” working for a foreign state. That second phrase is telling. It lets the state theory survive even if the men in the vans thought they were doing a paid job. That is why the diesel whisper and the geopolitics can sit in the same 36 hours without the command killing either one. PA has reported, without naming a police source, that viable explosives were not found. That is still a media claim, not a Taylor correction. He hasn’t withdrawn Section 5. He hasn’t said this is now a theft file. Overnight the US Secretary of State went further than London and said the incident “clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor.” So the British official record is still a terror preparation arrest, a next-day bail, and an open foreign-state line, while the press is already shrinking the payload. You don’t need a conspiracy to see the break in procedure. A 999 call about vans does not require a national CT press conference on proxies. Finding nothing viable in the vehicles, if that is true which I can’t rule out either way, is exactly when the usual script would have been that no terrorism connection had been established and a criminal inquiry would continue. They didn’t use that script. They used the script that keeps Washington, a Foreign State actor, and the public inside the same sentence. If the siphon version is true, the embarrassment is not the farmer who rang. It’s the chain that chose the heaviest statute in public and the lightest story in private. Allies won’t ask whether the vans were white. They’ll ask whether the next warning from London is a file or a performance.

As the Fairford case develops, remember Reform supporters were demanding Andy Burnham carpet bomb Iran before any of the facts were actually established...

JUST IN: Marco Rubio confirms Fairford incident involved “foreign actor” and thanks UK spooks for help… Glossed over the bail… Curiouser and curiouser…

Tens of thousands of people on the streets of London baying for Jewish blood. That is the meaning of “Intifada! Intifada!” They want to burn, behead, bomb, and butcher us.

“Everyone looks a bit depressed” says Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell at the Jewish Labour Movement’s reception.

A Possible Explanation: The US knew there was a threat to RAF Fairford - that's not in dispute here. The FPCON changes, armed patrol vehicles inside the base and concrete barricades all show that. It seems possible to me that perhaps these 5 lads (or 8-10 if the eyewitness farmer is correct) were not actually there to attack the base - perhaps (given the fake fuel vans) they were actually in the area trying to steal fuel from local vehicles. The farmer sees it, calls police. Police (who likely were aware of the USAF concerns) swarm into the area having perhaps not expected the "attackers" so soon. They manage to arrest 5 suspects and treat the 3 vans with every necessary precaution (as they should) - evacuating the neighbourhood, bringing Army EOD in, etc. The males are initially arrested for Explosives Act offences (pending a safe way to check inside the vans) & go to custody. In the circumstances, further arrested for the Terrorism Act offence. However, after seizing whatever evidence they could (and examining the vans), it looks like police may have determined these aren't the attackers - as I say, potentially fuel thieves in the wrong place at the wrong time? It's worth noting that if the terrorism act offences were looking likely, police could keep them detained for 48hrs initially before requiring a court to approve a longer period of time. Alternatively under normal arrest powers contained within the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, they can be held for 24hrs initially (extended to 36hrs under authority of a Police Superintendent if specific requirements are met), and up to 72hrs if a further extension is authorised by a court. Now clearly if they were arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning and conveyed either to a local custody, or a dedicated counter-terrorism custody (likely closest in London), the fact they've been bailed today suggests they've spent at most 24-30hrs in custody before evidential review officers and the Crown Prosecution Service have determined there is insufficient evidence to charge them with an offence right now. So they bail them with conditions not to contact each other as is normal procedure for vehicle interference/theft offences like that. But police need to download and analyse phones, and anything potentially seized from home addresses in order to ensure no link to the Iranian government or IRGC. Meanwhile, did the actual planned attack get foiled inadvertently? Perhaps? Trump told the world that the US had been monitoring the "attackers" for some time - I'd suggest that if these lads genuinely were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, the actual suspects are now staying hidden until this all blows over a bit. Either way, we don't have all the facts and that's part of any criminal or CT investigation - so yes, it sounds bad and arguably CTP could have done a better job of explaining it to the public, but they have to play their cards close to their chest right now in case my guesswork here is right and the suspects are still out there somewhere.

🚨 EXCL: Labour minister claims that visions of Britain based on warm ale, pubs, and black labradors are a 'far-Right' fantasy that 'never really existed’ dailymail.com/news/article-1…

And the clip

Was Fairford attack thwarted by a farmer's tip-off or were intelligence agencies already aware? Residents say security had been far tighter in the days before. That suggests agencies had credible intel (chatter) Fairford was being targeted - but perhaps they didn't know exactly how it would happen, when it would take place or what it would involve. That's why the farmer's intervention sparked a response from local police, Gloucestershire. If the suspects were under surveillance you'd expect CT Police to be first on scene & for them to take the lead from the off. They didn't. Trump's assertion the suspects had been "under view for a long time" may not be entirely at odds with the late tip-off, but that the suspects and the 3 vans got so close is a real concern - and indicates that the situation was not really under control, though I expect there may be some shaping of the narrative going on.

🚨NEW: The Telegraph reports a local farmer near RAF Fairford, driving home from a party in the early hours, came across three seemingly abandoned white vans blocking a quiet country road. Confused, she turned her car around. As she did so, she saw a group of masked men in balaclavas scattering into the trees and across the fields towards RAF Fairford. She then accelerated away and called the police

🚨 BREAKING: Sec. Marco Rubio's State Department just fired off a SECURITY ALERT from the US Embassy in London, UK after multiple Middle Eastern men were arrested for likely planning to bomb or blow up the RAF Fairford base, which is also used by American troops MASS MIGRATION IS A THREAT. "U.S. citizens are encouraged to exercise caution and be mindful of personal security. U.S. citizens are advised to follow instructions of local authorities for their personal safety and security." "We remind U.S. citizens that UK authorities rate the threat of terrorism in the UK as severe." Importing this ideology is now having DIRECT impacts on AMERICAN INTERESTS in our allies' countries... This is part of what Rubio meant when he previously said that mass migration into allied nations impact AMERICA — incidents like this can happen 😡