What’s happened: The UK’s Security Minister, Dan Jarvis has announced that Iranian state agents and their proxies must register themselves with a new scheme intended to curtail covert foreign influence in the UK, or face up to five years in prison.
- The Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS) will launch in the summer, and is described by the Home Office as a “two-tier scheme which strengthens the resilience of the UK political system against covert foreign influence and provides greater assurance around the activities of certain foreign powers or entities that are a national security risk.”
- While both Russia and China have been mooted as potential FIRS candidates, Iran is the first state to be explicitly named as requiring its agents to register with the Home Office under an “enhanced tier.”
- This tier would “specify a foreign power, part of a foreign power, or an entity subject to foreign power control, where the Secretary of State considers it necessary to protect the safety or interests of the UK”, and intended to promote transparency around those engaging with MPs, ministers, and senior civil servants.
- Under FIRS, all Iranian state agents would be required to register, including members or associates of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
- FIRS does fall short of the long called for IRGC proscription Labour committed to pre-general election, but does match its manifesto pledge to “take the approach used for dealing with non-state terrorism and adapt it to deal with state based domestic security threats.”
- Jonathan Hall KC, the UK’s independent state threat and terrorism legislation reviewer, has also been instructed to review the sections of the UK’s counter-terrorism legislation that could be applied to “modern day state threats, such as those in Iran.”
Context: Iran is now recognised as one of the hostile states posing the greatest threat to UK national security and interests, both abroad and at home.
- In October, MI5 confirmed that Iran was responsible for 20 foiled assassination and abduction plots in the UK since 2022. While announcing FIRS’s focus on Iran, Jarvis also said that Iran’s main targets in the UK were British Jews, Israelis, and anti-regime Farsi-language media outlets.
- During the trial of convicted Iranian spy, Daniel Khalife, last year, it was found that in addition to targeting sensitive military units and attempting to gather intelligence on the identities of special forces operators, Iran was also prioritising targeting Israelis and dissidents.
- Iran and its UK proxies are also recognised as playing a major role in attempts to radicalise local Muslim communities, especially Shiites. In his speech yesterday, Jarvis specifically mentioned both the Islamic Centre of England and the Al-Tawheed Charitable Trust, welcoming the Charity Commission’s statutory enquiry into them.
- The Islamic Centre of England is often referred to as the IRGC’s “London office”, held events commemorating the death of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, and had its trustees stripped of their powers by the Charity Commission.
- In September 2024, GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre issued a joint warning with the FBI and Treasury indicating that “Attackers working on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps use social engineering to gain access to victims’ online accounts,” and that “malicious activity is targeted against individuals with a nexus to Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs, such as current and former senior government officials, senior think tank personnel, journalists, activists and lobbyists.”
- While the Home Office is understood to have consistently recognised the scale of the Iranian threat and supported IRGC proscription, the FCDO is widely reported as having opposed the proposal due to fears of prejudicing Anglo-Iranian relations.
- Unlike the US who proscribed the IRGC in its entirety as a terrorist organisation in 2019, the UK maintains an embassy in and full diplomatic relations with Iran. In the event of IRGC proscription, Tehran may respond by breaking off diplomatic relations which the FCDO believes directly undermine the UK’s interests and priorities.
- Instead of proscription, the UK has instead preferred responding to Iran with a regime of sanctions jointly administer by the FCDO and Treasury. The Iran (Sanctions) Regulations 2023 were intended to “deter the Government of Iran or an armed group backed by the Government of Iran from conducting hostile activity against the United Kingdom or any other country and to encourage the Government of Iran to comply with international human rights law and to respect human rights.”
- In addition to these concerns about Iran’s malicious role in the UK, there are increasing international fears about continued uranium enrichment as part of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear project.
- According to the latest assessment of the IAEA, Iran continues to enrich its stockpiled uranium, and is believed to have done so up to 60% in the past quarter increasing its weight from 182kg to 275kg.
- While Tehran maintains that its conduct is fully compliant with IAEA stipulations, a number of concerns remain outstanding.
- The UK also maintains a separate anti-nuclear sanction regime which “is aimed at encouraging the Iranian Government to comply with relevant UN obligations and abandon nuclear weapons programmes; and at restricting the ability of Iran to develop nuclear weapons delivery systems.”
Looking ahead: FIRS is due to come into effect in the summer of 2025, after which point relevant subjects will be legally required to register with the Home Office. It is likely that early compliance will also be encouraged before it is fully required.
- Less than a week ago, Brigadier General Ali Fazli of the IRGC threatened a third strike against Israel, similar to those which were conducted in April and October 2024. Fazli asserted that Operation True Promise III will be carried out “on schedule” without specifying when that may be, and previous similar threats have been fully acted on.