Politics: “invasion” warning

By Richard North - June 7, 2026

In the wake of JD Vance’s comments about the “invasion of migrants” in Europe, we now have the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth likening recent sea arrivals in Europe to an “invasion”, warning that freedoms won in 1944 remain under threat.

Hegseth’s remarks were delivered at the American Colleville-sur-Mer cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach, during commemorations of the 82nd anniversary of the D-day landings, when he said that “different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies”.

“Beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive”, he said, asking: “When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late?”. With that, he added. “I pray not, and I believe not”.

The remarks have received extensive coverage in the British media – as one might expect – with the BBC reporting that Hegseth “attacks Europe over ‘invasion’ of migrants on its beaches in D-Day speech”.

The broadcaster quotes more of Hegseth’s speech, having him say that in the years since D-Day some European capitals had grown “too comfortable” with their hard-fought freedoms, forgetting that “freedom is not free”.

According to the BBC, he went on to add that: “The men who fought and died here restored freedom to Europe”, before concluding: “That freedom must be maintained by this generation of leaders and war fighters or what they fought for was merely temporary”.

If anyone had an absolute right to make such comments, in that place at that time, it was Hegseth, representing the US armed forces and the American nation.

Omaha Beach (pictured) was by far the costliest and deadliest of the five Allied landing zones on D-Day. It suffered roughly double the total casualties of the next highest beach, Juno, and roughly four times the deaths of the lowest, Utah.

Across all beaches on 6 June 1944, total Allied casualties (killed, wounded, and missing) reached roughly 10,000 to 10,500. Of that total, nearly 25-35 percent occurred solely on Omaha Beach.

America paid in blood for the freedom of Europe on that day – and on many days thereafter, the entire European campaign costing roughly 250,000 American lives. The campaign to liberate Europe was significantly deadlier for American forces than the Pacific Theatre, accounting for nearly 60 percent of all US military fatalities in the entire war.

But not for the first time is an American politician saying that which European mainstream politicians are either too cowardly to say or are contributing to the problem. Many have observed that, if the troops who stormed the beaches on 6 June could see what has become of their bravery and effort, they would be appalled.

The Telegraph, however, suggests that Hesgeth’s comments will probably spark backlash from the UK and other European allies, after Downing Street appeared to hit back at Mr Vance’s remarks on Friday.

The immediate effect, though, is to prolong the controversy which has been building up over the police treatment of Henry Nowak, broadening the scope to bring in the ongoing concerns about immigration.

If the spark that ignited the current conflagration hadn’t been Henry Novak, there are plenty more to set fire to what amounts to a tinder-dry forest floor. One such is a “special report” in the Independent headed: “Free to murder: How violent teenager on police bail stabbed an innocent grandfather to death days after release”.

The exclusive report recounts details which, in their own way, are as much an indictment of police performance as the Hampshire Police treatment of Henry Novak. It tells of Rasheed Rahman, a “violent teenager” who stabbed a beloved grandfather to death in an unprovoked attack after he had been released on police bail – twice – in the days before the murder.

Rahman plunged a five-inch kitchen knife that he had signed out from his supported living accommodation into the back of Mark Carroll, 55 – described as a “kind and generous” grandfather – as he walked in a small London park with a friend, in an entirely unprovoked attack.

The attacker, then aged 19, who was not known to Carroll, fled the scene still armed with the murder weapon, sparking an hour-long manhunt. He threatened two other people with the blade before he was caught.

Three days before the killing, on 7 April 2024, Rahman had been arrested after he allegedly lashed out at members of the public. He was said to have punched at least two people on a canal towpath in Camden Town, north London, while waving a boat hook.

Just a day earlier, he had been arrested after allegedly using a brick to smash a window to break into an office in a church. Despite his spiralling behaviour, Rahman was released on police bail – leaving him free to kill.

What firmly puts this into Hesgeth territory is that Rahman – a Sudanese national – is an illegal immigrant. It is unclear when he first entered the UK, but he told officials he had come to Britain in a lorry through Calais.

He lived undocumented in the UK before being picked up by immigration officers while working at a restaurant in Essex in 2021. On discovery, he claimed asylum as a child from Sudan and was granted temporary leave to remain in the UK until March 2028.

It is very much a sign of the times that such attacks are now so frequent that it is difficult to keep track of them, especially as the media tend to give them limited coverage, except where there are exceptional circumstances, such as in the Henry Nowak case.

An example of this is the murder of Katie Fox, a 34-year-old woman who was fatally stabbed in an unprovoked attack while waiting at a bus stop in Birmingham city centre on 7 November 2025 – a month before the Nowak murder.

The incident occurred at approximately 9:00 pm along Smallbrook Queensway, outside the Bullring shopping centre and near Birmingham New Street station, when she suffered a severe knife wound to her neck and was rushed to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where she died from her injuries three days later on 10 November 2025.

The “suspect” a 21-year-old man, Djeison Rafael – described as “Black British” with no further details given – was arrested near the scene and officially charged by West Midlands Police with the murder of Fox, alongside possession of a Stanley blade and counts of actual bodily harm. His trial at Birmingham Crown Court has been scheduled for 6 October 2026 – another “slow burn” that may erupt into media consciousness after the trial.

Then there was the murder of 15-year-old Harvey Willgoose, attacked at school by Pakistani-heritage Mohammed Umar Khan who pulled out a 13cm serrated hunting knife and stabbed him twice (in the chest and abdomen), piercing his heart.

In February 2026, an independent safeguarding review uncovered massive institutional failures, revealing that Khan had over 130 recorded “red flag” incidents of anger, gang association, and weapon possession flagged at his prior school before transferring to Willgoose’s school.

Safeguarding and behaviour records were not requested or reviewed before Khan’s move to the school was agreed. When he did transfer, the records were not read due to unclear responsibility.

There was a flurry of media attention at the time, but it soon subsided. Yet, when I was a young boy in London, knife murders were so rare that, on the occasion of a stabbing death being reported, I recall seeing the headlines on the newspaper vendors’ stands, and my parents’ palpable sense of shock that such a crime should have occurred.

If the modern-day media gave each of the contemporary murders the same treatment – or as much coverage as they have not given Henry Nowak – the impact of these crimes would be devasting, and the role of third-world imports would doubtless be harder to ignore or gloss over.

As it is, we need a US defence secretary and the vice-president to warn us of how much our society has deteriorated, while our home-grown politicians do their best to suppress discussion and demonise (or jail) those who refuse to be cowed.

People may object to US politicians “interfering” in UK domestic affairs – as does Starmer – but if they (and Elon Musk) don’t shine a light on this political darkness, who will?