Britain to tackle growing Iran danger with new laws on state threats

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announces new legislation to outlaw groups such as IRGC, saying Tehran regime poses 'unacceptable threat' following arrests

Vahid Beheshti holds a placard during his 50th day of a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office in London, calling for the UK government to proscribe the IRGC. EPA

Britain will introduce new laws to allow the security services to proscribe state-based groups such as Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Home Secretary has said.

Following the arrests of eight Iranians allegedly involved in a plot to attack the Israeli embassy, Yvette Cooper told MPs that Britain would “not tolerate growing state-backed threats on UK soil”. In what is a significant diplomatic low between the two countries, the Home Secretary said the new legislation comes against a “backdrop of rising numbers of Iran-linked operations” on UK soil.

“The Iranian regime poses an unacceptable threat to our domestic security which cannot continue,” she told MPs. The new legislation will cover state-based threats rather than terrorist organisations, which would be tougher than the current National Security Act.

UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. PA

The move comes after Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, reported “gaps in a series of areas” including on proscribing legislation where there was “a series of legal difficulties” in using powers that were designed to deal with terrorist groups for state-backed organisations, such as the IRGC.

Ms Cooper said Mr Hall’s recommendations would be followed up with “new powers, modelled on counter-terrorism powers” to tackle the state threats. “We will create a new power of proscription to cover state threats, a power that is stronger than current National Security Act powers in allowing us to restrict the activity and operations of foreign state-backed organisations in the UK.”

She also confirmed that three of the Iranians charged with terror offences came to the UK by lorry and small boat between 2016 and 2022, and that the UK would introduce stronger security measures, with counter-terrorism powers used at the border.

Earlier on Monday the Iranian ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Office and given an official dressing down, it was confirmed. Ms Cooper added that Foreign Secretary David Lammy would tell the Iranian Foreign Minister “in the strongest terms that the UK will not accept any Iranian state threat activity in the UK”.

The British charge d'affaires in Tehran was summoned earlier due to the arrests.

Ms Cooper also said that “MI5 state threats investigations have increased by nearly 50 per cent in a year”. She told MPs: “As well as growing, those threats are becoming more interconnected, and the old boundaries between state threats, terrorists and organised criminals are being eroded.

On Saturday, three Iranian nationals were charged with offences under the National Security Act 2023 of engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service. They were also charged with surveillance, reconnaissance and open research with the intention to commit acts of serious violence against a person in the United Kingdom.

The foreign state to which these charges relate was Iran and those charged are the first Iranian nationals to be charged under the National Security Act. Ms Cooper said Prime Minister Keir Starmer had committed to publishing a new national security strategy.