LONDON: Iran poses a significant and wide-ranging threat to Britain and, while not in the same league as Russia or China, it is one which is rising and for which the UK government is not fully prepared, British lawmakers said in a report released on Thursday (Jul 10).
Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said the Iranian risk varied from physical attacks on and potential assassinations of dissidents and Jewish targets, to espionage, offensive cyber capabilities and its attempt to develop nuclear weapons.
“Iran is there across the full spectrum of all the kinds of threats we have to be concerned with,” the committee chair, Kevan Jones, said in a statement.
“We remain concerned that the government’s policy on Iran has been focused on crisis management and has been primarily driven by concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme – to the exclusion of other issues.”
Iran’s embassy in London said it rejected the “unfounded, politically motivated and hostile allegations”.
“Such accusations are not only defamatory but also dangerous, fuelling unnecessary tensions and undermining diplomatic norms,” it said in a statement.
The committee said the British government should fully examine whether it would be practicable to proscribe Iran’s hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an action that some lawmakers have long called for.
Although the evidence given to the committee concluded in August 2023, the lawmakers said their recommendations about the action the government should take remained relevant.
