Iranian agents are creating unrest in Britain by stoking Gaza protests, senior police have said as they prepared for a fresh round of demonstrations on Saturday.
The Times has learnt that counterterrorism officers have privately said that Tehran is trying to heighten tensions at rallies over Israel’s bombing of Gaza. They have warned of increased hostile-state activity in Britain. It is directly linked to the Iranian regime and includes a campaign of online disinformation and Iranian operatives being physically present at protests.
The revelation came as the Israeli military said ground forces were “expanding operations” in the Gaza Strip before an expected full ground invasion. It was also reported that internet and mobile services in Gaza had been cut off.
• Israel-Hamas war: follow latest
More than 1,000 officers were on duty in London on Saturday to police a third consecutive weekend of pro-Palestinian protests. A rally calling for an immediate ceasefire was expected to attract even more than last Saturday’s 100,000 crowd, a record for a pro-Palestinian demonstration.
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The Metropolitan Police said that officers would intervene if there was a repeat of the “jihad” chants that led to a backlash against the force last weekend, when police decided not to arrest protesters who called for war against Israel.
The Met has also appealed to the public to help counterterrorism police to find three women who wore pictures of Hamas paragliders and a man who held a poster supporting the terrorist group in London.
• How Iran is spreading disinformation in Britain
The revelations about Iranian involvement in protests in Britain follow repeated warnings over Tehran’s activities in the UK. In a speech last week Robin Simcox, the counterextremism commissioner, warned that the “scale of Iranian-backed activity in this country; and the extent to which Iran attempts to stoke extremism here” was underappreciated.
Sources confirmed that senior police have been privately warning that Tehran operatives are linked to Gaza protests. The hostile state activity is complicating the policing of protests, they have said. A security source said it went beyond physical presence at protests of agents linked to the regime. Misinformation stoking tensions is also being spread online, the source said.
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They emphasised that the main groups organising the protests were not linked to Tehran, but that the regime’s activities were more on the fringes.
The source said: “Senior police have said that the policing of protest, disinformation and other linked issues are the most challenging they’ve faced. The Iranian links are a major part of that. Look at the past year where Iran has stepped up its activities in the UK.”
Separately, a Home Office source said: “We are very worried about foreign hostile governments spreading disinformation to try and stoke anti-Israel feelings in the domestic Muslim population for their own purposes.”
Iran has been accused of being complicit in the conflict by funding Hamas and of stoking tensions in the Middle East by celebrating the Hamas atrocities against Israel on October 7. Rishi Sunak has been put under increased pressure to ban the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) amid growing claims that Tehran had prior knowledge of the atrocities.
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has renewed internal efforts to proscribe the organisation. Senior government sources said a ban “remains on the table” but any change is unlikely to happen imminently because of strong opposition from the Foreign Office and MI6. Proscription would be likely to lead to the expulsion of the UK ambassador to Tehran and the loss of intelligence-gathering capabilities.
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The United States and Canada have both banned the IRGC but are said to rely on Britain’s influence in Tehran through the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, which also includes Australia and New Zealand. The different positions of the five countries is seen as a “good cop, bad cop” strategy and reports that the US has privately lobbied Britain to proscribe the IRGC last week were dismissed by the Foreign Office.
Instead, the IRGC and its operatives are being targeted with an increasing volume and severity of sanctions, which James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, believes will have a far greater impact than proscribing the group.
A source close to Cleverly told The Times: “Such decisions are taken through a prism of costs and benefits. Would this action, not designed for state entities, do more, and better than the range of measures already taken including the sanctioning of the IRGC in its entirety and individuals amongst it, and would British interests be negatively affected as a result of the action proposed? At the moment the government’s position remains unchanged.”
In November last year, armed police were sent to the west London offices of Iran International, a UK-Iranian based broadcaster, after police warned journalists were at threat. BBC journalists have also reported being harassed by the Iranian regime.
British-Iranian dissidents are adamant that Tehran has been organising and joining pro-Palestinian protests to fuel unrest in the UK. At a rally in London earlier this month Vahid Beheshti, 46, a longstanding anti-regime activist, was attacked by pro-Palestinian activists carrying images of Iran’s supreme leader and Qasem Soleimani, the IRGC’s assassinated military commander. One allegedly threatened to behead him.
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Commander Kyle Gordon, who is leading the Met’s response team, said he had directed “proactivity” when it came to deciding whether to intervene against protesters if they shouted “jihad” during the protests. He said: “In some cases it may constitute an offence depending on what is said and who it is said to.”
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer is facing a major challenge to his authority after three of the most senior Labour politicians outside of the shadow cabinet defied the party line to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, and Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, have all come out to back a full ceasefire, which is further than Starmer’s team have called for so far.
