David Cameron warns of ‘danger and instability’ in the world as he defends UK strikes on Houthi targets
Not taking military action against the Houthis would have led to “more attacks” in the Red Sea, according to Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron.
The British military took part in a joint operation in Yemen alongside the US this week in retaliation for the targeting of international trade in the key shipping lane – followed up by a fresh attack by the US on Friday night.
Lord Cameron said the action by the Houthis was “effectively terrorist attacks”, adding: “If you don’t act against the Houthis in the Red Sea, you are going to see more attacks.”
And he hinted the government would be willing to join in further military action, telling Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Philips the UK had “demonstrated that we are prepared to follow words and warning with action”.
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RAF Typhoons strike military targets in Yemen
Lord Cameron also warned: “It is hard to think of a time when there has been so much danger and insecurity and instability in the world.
“The lights are absolutely flashing red on the global dashboard and what we need at that time is strong leadership and a plan and that is what we have with the prime minister and the team in place.”
The foreign secretary further defended the initial response to the attacks on ships in the Red Sea, saying there had been 26 incidents since November – including an attack on HMS Diamond, that saw over 20 drones and missiles used by the Houthis.
Asked about concerns that the military operation could lead to an escalation in tensions in the Middle East, the foreign secretary said: “What are the consequences of not acting?
“We have endured almost two months of continual attacks and we gave warning after warning and frankly, ultimately that wasn’t working and the number of attacks was going up, the severity of those attacks was going up.
“So not acting is also a policy, and it was a policy that wasn’t working.”
A spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces in the Houthi-controlled north of the country said in a televised statement that the bombardment “will not go unanswered and unpunished” – saying it would not deter their support for Palestinians amid Israel’s war in Gaza.
Lord Cameron denied any link between the Red Sea attacks, saying the action was “completely separate”.
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Houthis vow ‘punishment’ for attacks
However, also speaking to Trevor Philips, the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, said the strikes had “inevitable” connections to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“If one’s being rational in analysis, I agree with David Cameron that freedom of navigation is a different issue from Gaza, but the Arab street doesn’t think that,” he said.
“Inevitably there’s a connection. They’re going to have an impact across the whole area.”
Cameron may need to keep unintended consequences in mind
If there’s a foreign policy mantra to be extracted from David Cameron’s time as prime minister, it is likely around the cost of doing nothing.
As he wrote in his memoir about the 2011 intervention in Libya to stop a massacre in Benghazi, “to do nothing in these circumstances was not a neutral act – it was to facilitate murder”.
Two years after the Libya strikes and Cameron made a similar argument to persuade MPs to back bombing in Syria. It didn’t work.
He was defeated in a Commons vote and ruled out any intervention.
The now Lord Cameron says he still believes that was a mistake, but denies he is “over-correcting” by taking a firm line against the Houthis.
It is worth looking at how events in Libya and Syria ultimately played out though.
After initial claims of a new era of freedom, Libya eventually descended into violence, with the UK intervention criticised as ill-informed and lacking in strategy.
In Syria, President Assad remains in power, while Russian involvement there has increased Moscow’s influence in the region.
Two countries. Two different approaches. One similarly undesirable outcome for the UK.
A related danger hangs over military involvement against the Houthis. Set against the wider turbulence in the Middle East, any direct Western involvement must present a risk of triggering uncontrolled escalation.
Far from the cost of doing nothing, it may be the rule of unintended consequences that the foreign secretary should keep in mind.
The government has got the support of Labour in the action, with shadow health secretary Wes Streeting telling Sky News it was an “open and shut case”.
He also said his party understood the need to act “swiftly and decisively” without recalling parliament to debate the issue.
“These strikes were targeted and focussed and absolutely necessary in Britain’s self-defence and national interest,” Mr Streeting told Trevor Philips.
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How UK jets struck the Houthis
But the Liberal Democrats have attacked the government for “bypassing” parliament, and called for a retrospective vote on the action in the Commons when the prime minister makes a statement on Monday.
The party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Layla Moran, said: “We remain very concerned about the Houthi’s attacks.
“But that makes it all the more important to ensure that MPs are not silenced on the important issue of military action.”
German law enforcement seized 34 million euros ($38 million) in cryptocurrency from eXch, a cryptocurrency platform allegedly used to launder funds stolen after Bybit’s record-breaking $1.4 billion hack.
The seizure, announced on May 9 by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and Frankfurt’s main prosecutor’s office, involved multiple crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH). The move marks the third-largest crypto confiscation in the BKA’s history.
The authorities also seized eXch’s German server infrastructure with over eight terabytes of data and shut down the platform, the announcement added.
eXch exchanged crypto without AML
In the statement, the BKA described eXch as a “swapping” service that allowed users to exchange various crypto assets without implementing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures.
The platform had operated since 2014 and reportedly facilitated about $1.9 billion in crypto transfers, some of which were believed to be of “criminal origin,” including assets laundered during the Bybit hack.
“Among other things, a portion of the $1.5 billion stolen from the Bybit crypto exchange, which was hacked on Feb. 21, 2025, is said to have been exchanged via eXch,” the authorities wrote.
Multisig, FixedFloat among laundering cases
According to a post by crypto sleuth ZachXBT, eXch was also involved in laundering millions of funds from other crypto thefts and exploits, including Multisig, FixedFloat and the $243 million Genesis creditor theft.
Those were in addition to “countless phishing drainer services over the past few years with refusal to block addresses and freeze orders,” ZachXBT said.
ZachXBT was among the first security analysts to report on eXch’s links to laundering $35 million of crypto assets stolen from Bybit soon after the hack was confirmed.
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“Lazarus Group transferred 5K ETH from the Bybit Hack to a new address and began laundering funds via eXch (a centralized mixer) and bridging funds to Bitcoin via Chainflip,” ZachXBT wrote in a Telegram post on Feb. 22.
eXch announced termination of services by May 1
After initially denying involvement in laundering funds from the Bybit hack, eXch eventually announced it would cease operations by May 1 in a Bitcoin Talk post published in mid-April.
“Even though we have been able to operate despite some failed attempts to shut down our infrastructure […], we don’t see any point in operating in a hostile environment where we are the target of SIGINT [Signals Intelligence] simply because some people misinterpret our goals,” it wrote.
Addressing the seizure, senior public prosecutor Benjamin Krause stressed the importance of action against “quick and anonymous opportunities for money laundering for any amount.”
“Crypto swapping is an essential component of the underground economy, used to conceal incriminated funds from illegal activities such as hacking or trading in stolen payment card data, thus making them available to perpetrators,” he said.
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Politics
Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel, Harriet Harman says
Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.
Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a “progressive win” rather than simply “protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer” over winter fuel.
Earlier this week, a number of MPs in the Red Wall – Labour’s traditional heartlands in the north of England – reposted a statement on social media in which they said the leadership’s response to the local elections had “fallen on deaf ears”.
They singled out the cut to the winter fuel allowance as an issue that was raised on the doorstep and urged the government to rethink the policy, arguing doing so “isn’t weak, it takes us to a position of strength”.
Labour’s decision to means test the policy has snatched the benefit away from millions of pensioners.
But Baroness Harman said a better target for the group could be an overhaul of George Osborne’s two-child benefit cap.
The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron’s austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can’t make claims for any further children they have.
Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit.
Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target.
She said: “It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty.
“Let’s see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies.”
Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party’s “connection” to a core group of voters “died” with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners.
“We need to reset the government,” she told Electoral Dysfunction. “The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments.
“I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it.”
Pic: AP
A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, met on Tuesday night following the fallout of local election results in England, which saw Labour lose the Runcorn by-election and control of Doncaster Council to Reform UK.
Following the results, Sir Keir said “we must deliver that change even more quickly – we must go even further”.
Some Labour MPs believe it amounted to ignoring voters’ concerns.
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One of the MPs who was present at the meeting told Sky News there was “lots of anger at the government’s response to the results”.
“People acknowledged the winter fuel allowance was the main issue for us on the doorstep,” they said.
“There is a lack of vision from this government.”
Another added: “Everyone was furious.”
Downing Street has ruled out a U-turn on means testing the winter fuel payment, following newspaper reports earlier this week that one might be on the cards.
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