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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 plotting terrorist attacks in London, Yvette Cooper said that Britain would “not tolerate growing state-backed threats on UK soil”.
The Home Secretary also revealed that MI5 state threat investigations – where countries hostile to the UK might be planning a proxy attack – have increased by 50 per cent in the last year.
In what marks 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, and would be tougher than the current National Security Act.
The move comes after Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, reported “gaps in a series of areas” – including in proscription legislation – where there were “a series of legal difficulties” in using powers designed to deal with terrorist groups against 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 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 – 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 arrived in the UK by lorry and small boat between 2016 and 2022, and that the UK would introduce stronger security measures, with counter-terrorism powers applied at the border.
Earlier this week, 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”.
Ms Cooper also said that “MI5 state threat 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.”
Three Iranian nationals have been charged with offences under the National Security Act 2023 for engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service. They were also charged with surveillance, reconnaissance and open-source research with the intention of committing acts of serious violence against a person in the United Kingdom.
The foreign state to which these charges relate is Iran, and those charged are the first Iranian nationals to face charges under the National Security Act. Ms Cooper said Prime Minister Keir Starmer had committed to publishing a new national security strategy.
