5 important things happening in the UK today

Here are 5 important things happening in the UK today – 11 July 2025.

Deal agreed on migrants: People arriving in the UK via small boats will be returned to France as part of what Keir Starmer called a groundbreaking agreement, which the government hopes will make a major dent in the number of people crossing the Channel illegally. Starmer and Emmanuel Macron announced the plan on Thursday at the Northwood military base at the end of the French president’s three-day state visit. [Guardian]
UK faces a rising and unpredictable threat from Iran: The UK faces a “rising” and unpredictable threat from Iran, and the government must do more to counter it, Parliament’s intelligence and security committee has warned. The call comes as it publishes the results of a major inquiry which examined Iranian state assassinations and kidnap, espionage, cyber attacks and its nuclear programme. [BBC]
M&S arrests made: Four people have been arrested in connection with the cyber attacks on British retailers Marks and Spencer, Co-Op and Harrods, UK police said on Thursday. The National Crime Agency said that the four — three men and a woman — were apprehended on suspicion of organising the attacks in April that cost the retailers millions of pounds. [Financial Times]
UK’s heatwave is hurting the economy: England experienced its warmest June on record. Across the UK, temperatures had only once been higher since 1884. The Office for National Statistics estimates that from 1998 to 2021, hot days on average cost the economy £1.2bn a year by lowering productivity relative to if air conditioning and other adaptations were more common. [Telegraph]