Iran poses an increased threat to British Jews, says intelligence committee

The Homeland Security Group within the Home Office – formerly the Office for Security and Counter-terrorism – warned that Iran is as big a threat as Russia when it comes to the threat of attack on individuals in the UK.

Although the primary targets of the Iranian regime were “dissidents and other opponents of the regime”, the report said there was “an increased threat against Jewish and Israeli interests in the UK.”

It added that Iran did not view the targeting of Jews, Israelis and Iranian dissidents as “as attacks on the UK. It rather sees the UK as collateral in its handling of internal matters – i.e. removing perceived enemies of the regime – on UK soil.”

The committee commended “the efforts of MI5 and the police in response to what is now a serious threat” and urged the government and international partners to “make it clear to Iran – at every opportunity – that such attacks would indeed constitute an attack on the UK and would receive the appropriate response.”

The government was criticised for a lack of a long-term strategy when it comes to Iran.

“‘Fire-fighting’ has prevented the government from carrying out longer-term thinking and developing a real understanding of Iran, and the complexity of the problem. As one of our expert witnesses told the Committee: ‘Strategy is not a word that I think has crossed the lips of policy-makers for a while, certainly with relation to Iran’.”

It went on: “It is important that resourcing on Iran is consistent with the threat; the government should take a longer-term view. Across government, there is a lack of Iran-specific expertise and seemingly no interest in building a future pipeline of specialists, beyond mention in a strategy campaign.”

The committee finished gathering evidence for the report in August 2023, two months before October 7 and it therefore did not “consider the attack, and whether the attack had a connection to Iran, however it does note that Iran has historically provided Hamas with weapons, cyber assistance and financial support.”

However, it claims that although the landscape in the Middle East “has changed significantly since the committee concluded its evidence-taking”, their recommendations “remain relevant”.

Lord Beamish, the committee’s chair, said: “Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK, UK nationals, and UK interests. Iran has a high appetite for risk when conducting offensive activity and its intelligence services are ferociously well-resourced with significant areas of asymmetric strength.”

A government spokesperson told the JC that the report “demonstrates the vital work our security and intelligence agencies do countering threats posed by states such as Iran”.

They added: “This government will take action wherever necessary to protect national security ... We have already placed Iran on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme and introduced further sanctions against individuals and entities linked to Iran, bringing the total number of sanctions to 450.”

However, they would not comment on whether the government was planning to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), something that David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, had pledged to do in opposition.

Earlier this week, Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer was asked by Lib Dem MP Monica Harding whether the government would proscribe the IRGC using “the new power of proscription to cover state threats following Jonathan Hall’s review of terrorism legislation”.

In his review published in May, Hall, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, recommended that the government create the ability to “issue statutory alert and liability threat notices against foreign intelligence services, an equivalent to proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000”, which he said would be “available for use against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”.

Shortly after his report was published, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that the government was “committed to taking forward Mr Hall’s recommendations” and would draw up “new powers modelled on counter terrorism powers in a series of areas to tackle these state threats”.

Falconer responded by saying that the government would not “tolerate any Iran-backed threats on UK soil: not against British Jewry; not against journalists; not against any British national or anyone who is resident here.

“As both the Foreign Secretary and I have made clear to our Iranian counterparts, we know the threat Iran poses to those in the UK, including to dissidents, journalists and the Jewish community. It must cease that behaviour now. We will not hesitate to take the strongest possible action.”

On the question of proscription, the Middle East minister added: “Given that the IRGC is an arm of the state, we have taken the view that it is important to look at where the mechanisms for taking action against other states can be improved. That is why Jonathan Hall did his review and why, in May, the Home Secretary made the announcement that she did.

“I reassure the House that the IRGC is fully sanctioned in the UK. Proscription is a slightly different question. It is for those reasons that Jonathan Hall has done his review.”