Keir Starmer has blamed the small boats crisis on Brexit, dubbing migrant dinghies “Farage boats”. The PM says he will look at how British courts are interpreting the European Convention on Human Rights to tackle the issue. It follows an unusually impassioned speech from the PM at the Labour conference yesterday, says Politico, which has put him back on more “stable footing” with his party. The US government has shut down for the first time in nearly seven years after Republicans and Democrats failed to strike an agreement on funding it into the new fiscal year. The closure is expected to result in the furlough of around 750,000 workers, while essential employees, such as active-duty military personnel, will continue working without pay until a deal is reached. Biologists have used human skin cells to create eggs capable of being fertilised by sperm. The breakthrough, which builds on the technique used to clone Dolly the sheep, could one day allow infertile women or two gay men to have children to whom they are genetically related.

Why this Gaza deal offers hope

Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan is, of course, “a long shot at best”, says Thomas Friedman in The New York Times. This isn’t a “border dispute between Swedes and Norwegians”; it’s the “most vicious and deadly two years of fighting” between Jews and Palestinians in the entire history of their conflict. But there are reasons to be hopeful. War is changing: Israelis, Arabs and Iranians alike are terrified of a future in which killer robots can be cheaply shipped anywhere in the world and remotely activated, as the Ukrainians have done in Russia. Also, for all Benjamin Netanyahu’s bluster about “finishing the job”, if Hamas don’t accept the deal, what does that look like? Permanent IDF occupation of Gaza and permanent insurgency is no solution. Now Trump’s deal is on the table, it’s hard for Netanyahu or Hamas to reject it.

Perhaps most importantly, although there will be malevolents on all sides trying to derail peace, those now in power across the region stand to benefit. The reason for this is Israel’s bombing of Iran and defeat of Hezbollah. These two acts have allowed a new government to begin rebuilding Syria; empowered Lebanon’s most effective rulers in decades; made space for Iraq’s democratically elected government; and begun new conversations in Tehran about the wisdom of spending billions supporting losers like Hamas and remaining global pariahs. If you’re a betting person, history suggests the smart money is on haters ruining peace. If you’re a hoping person, “hope this time will be different”.

🇮🇱🤨 Netanyahu told Trump he agrees to this plan, but I’ll believe it when I hear him “saying it in Hebrew to his own people”. It’s the first rule of Middle East reporting: what people tell you in private is irrelevant. All that matters is what they say in public to their own people in their own language. “In Washington, officials lie in public and tell the truth in private. In the Middle East, officials lie in private and tell the truth in public.”