Hamish Falconer, the UK Middle East minister, has drawn a clear line between support for Iranians seeking their rights and deposing the regime.
Speaking at an event in the British Parliament, Mr Falconer said the UK government would seek to maintain pressure on the situation through diplomatic and economic pressure.
Following the brutal crackdown on the nationwide protests in January, the US has moved significant military resources into the region to maintain pressure on Iran, but President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he favours a new round of diplomacy.
“It's about the rights of Iranians – who runs Iran is a question for Iranians,” Mr Falconer said in an interview at the Middle East Association’s parliamentary reception sponsored by The National. “The UK is really committed to supporting a diplomatic process to try and resolve some of the facts posed by Iran.”
Protesters took to the streets in Iran spurred by chronic inflation and economic collapse as well as the repressive military-backed regime that has been in power since 1979.
“The true scale and horror of what has taken place is not yet fully known,” Mr Falconer said.
He said Iran’s crisis wasn’t only internal. “I want to see an Iran at peace with itself and at peace with its neighbours,” he added. “What it did in relation to its nuclear programme, and indeed, what it is doing to protesters on its own streets, is giving real doubt to the region and to the whole world that Iran is reliable.”
British diplomats in Baghdad and elsewhere in the region were working to ensure that a new post-elections government in Iraq would insulate the country from the events in Iran, he said. While he argued the “malign” Iranian axis of influence had been degraded, he added: “Iran's decline has not restored an old order”.
Gaza plan
The minister, who has been in office since the Labour government took power in 2024, told The National it was imperative that President Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan was fully implemented.
“The 20-point plan is not only important, it's now enshrined in the Security Council resolution,” he said. “It's absolutely critical that all parties uphold and sustain the ceasefire,” he told the meeting. Far too many have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war, and even after the ceasefire.”
More than 70,000 people lost their lives in Gaza during the fighting, and almost 600 have died since the October ceasefire.
“We must work through all of the steps of the 20-point plan,” he added. “We must address the humanitarian conditions, which months on remain dire, and we must remove the threat from Hamas through a process of weapons decommissioning.”
He welcomed the recent formation of the Palestinian National Committee as an important step forward. It will take up local responsibilities under the ceasefire. President Trump’s Board of Peace is due to meet for the first time next week.
Relations across the region remain unsettled by the conflict and there is a need to find structures that accommodate all states, he said. First and foremost, this means the achievement of a two-state solution, and he said he was proud to have stood as the Palestinian flag was raised in London following the UK's recognition Palestinian statehood.
“I believe Palestinian statehood can be the gateway to transform Israel's relationships with its neighbours through normalisation, regional integration and peaceful coexistence,” he said. He added that it was vital to any model of regional integration.
“The Abraham Accords demonstrates that regional states are willing to move beyond decades of paralysis," he said. “I see the desire to build new economic and security arrangements based on interests rather than ideologies.”
"Many traumatised and angry people must be persuaded by their political leaders to trust the other side, encouraged in that endeavour by their international friends,” he added. “Nobody should underestimate what an act of political bravery that will take.”
Gulf ties
The minister said all parts of the UK government were “committed” to getting a GCC free trade agreement in place and offered a partnership with changing economies of the region.
“Today, the Gulf is positioning itself at the very heart of the global AI revolution,” he said. “The UAE has moved with real purpose as a world-leading adopter of AI and host to a fast-growing start-up ecosystem.”
In a nod to the movement of tens of thousands of businesspeople and entrepreneurs out of the UK to the UAE, he said the government was determined to emulate the emirate’s success.
“I tell the ambassador with some resentment that young people from Lincoln are leaving to go to Dubai,” he said, referring to Mansoor Abulhoul, the UAE's ambassador to the UK, who was in the room.
“I hope to persuade them back. I want to build up our cutting edge, whether in AI clean energy or defence, alongside those who share our determination to build and to own the future. Since this government came to office we have been building exactly those kinds of partnerships.
“I can see a Middle East in which the malign influence of Iran is reduced, the drivers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are addressed, and the scientific, technological and human potential of the region is fully unleashed.”
