LONDON — Nigel Farage wants to use Britain’s next election to hammer the government on law and order. That’s got ministers scrambling to mount a fightback. The Reform UK leader — who has already made a running on the hot-button issue of immigration — has warned that parts of Britain are facing “societal collapse.”  His right-wing populist party has been pushing the slogan “Britain is Lawless” — and now the U.K. government is planning a series of announcements to prove Farage wrong. It’s a tough ask for a government that’s trailing Farage in the polls and is presiding over public services in a state of disarray. In the coming weeks, ministers will pitch a blueprint for a major police reform as one answer to tackling street crime. Labour MPs are already sending out leaflets to constituents highlighting details of their named neighborhood police officer. The government is “making sure our streets are policed, which is something the previous government just failed to do,” Policing Minister Sarah Jones argues on this week’s POLITICO Westminster Insider podcast. Jones said the shake-up will “make sure the police are doing the things that we need them to be doing.” Farage’s claims of lawlessness can prompt an exasperated response from ministers and officials who point to statistics. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Prime Minister Keir Starmer has meanwhile put Shabana Mahmood, who dealt directly with shoplifters while working in her parents’ corner shop, in charge of delivering the message as home secretary. “I think she is absolutely the right person for this job, and I hope she’s really, really tough on it, because of her own background with her mum and dad running a shop,” said Labour peer and former political adviser Ayesha Hazarika. PERCEPTIONS MATTER Farage’s claims of lawlessness can prompt an exasperated response from ministers and officials who point to statistics, such as the Crime Survey of England and Wales, which suggest crime has broadly been falling for decades. In September, London Mayor Sadiq Khan hit back at politicians “spreading misinformation” about safety in London, highlighting data showing a fall in violent crime in the capital. That came after U.S. President Donald Trump, an ally of Farage, said “crime in London is through the roof.” But MPs — and ministers too — caution against being dismissive of voters’ lived experience. The narrative that crime is going down in London “infuriates my constituents,” said Margaret Mullane, the Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham, part of Greater London.  “It’s the personal experience, isn’t it? So if you hear that, you’ll think: Well that’s not my experience when I’m going in and out of work, or I’m popping up to Tesco, not that late in the evening, and I don’t feel safe.” Hazarika, who has spoken about the issue in the House of Lords, said: “I think it is a real issue, and I do think it’s contributing to people really feeling like the country is broken when they see so much antisocial behavior.” Hazarika’s parliamentary interventions have been informed by her own experience in Brixton, where she is part of a community group called Action on Anti-Social Behavior. The group was set up because of local concerns that included rife drug-taking, people defecating in public, violence against shopworkers and brazen shoplifting.  While rejecting Farage’s “lawless” characterization, Jones accepts there is work to be done. “It is undoubtedly the case that there is a bit of a mismatch on some of the perceptions versus the reality, but I think if you walk through the streets and you see rubbish in the streets, you can smell cannabis, you talk to a shopkeeper who’s just had somebody steal something, your bike gets stolen and the police don’t come and talk to you about it, of course that’s not right, and we need to fix all of those things,” she said.  DELIVERING ON THE PROMISE “There will be a steady drumbeat of stuff coming up,” said one government official involved in discussions about the strategy, who was not authorized to speak on the record. “We’ve got to make a really persuasive case about the work that is going on to combat [street crime].”  Reform UK can “whinge all they want,” the official said. “We’re focused on governing and getting our heads down and really trying to solve this problem, as opposed to shouting from the sidelines.” The upcoming announcements are likely to be focused on police reform — not on big spending. | George Wood/Getty Images But the upcoming announcements are likely to be focused on police reform — not on big spending. Police chiefs warned in June that their funding settlement from the Treasury would not be enough to fund the government’s ambitions. Instead, there’s been reallocation. The government has already announced plans to ax directly elected police and crime commissioners — who have spent the past decade setting budgets, appointing chief constables and producing policing plans, but with limited democratic take-up. That role will be transferred to existing mayors or council leaders in a bid to “cut the cost of unnecessary bureaucracy” and invest back in the front lines. Alastair Greig, research analyst for the Organised Crime and Policing Team (OCP) at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said it was important to recognize the “prioritization and the policy decisions that are involved if police decide to really meaningfully crack down on this street crime.“ “People that are pushing the narrative of British lawlessness and pointing to these low-level crimes need to be aware that if their proposals are acted on, then we may well see increases in other forms of serious and violent crime,” he warned. Still, ministers believe reordering police priorities can really start to alter public perceptions. “By reforming policing so that our police can focus on those physical crimes, respond to people, not necessarily always solve the crime, but keep people informed, tell them what they’re doing and let them know, then I think people will start to feel safer,” Jones argued. With Farage breathing down their necks, ministers need all the help they can get.

The European Union’s law enforcement agency wants to speed up how it gets its hands on artificial intelligence tools to fight serious crime, a top official said. Criminals are having “the time of their life” with “their malicious deployment of AI,” but police authorities at the bloc’s Europol agency are weighed down by legal checks when trying to use the new technology, Deputy Executive Director Jürgen Ebner told POLITICO. Authorities have to run through data protection and fundamental rights assessments under EU law. Those checks can delay the use of AI by up to eight months, Ebner said. Speeding up the process could make the difference in time sensitive situations where there is a “threat to life,” he added. Europe’s police agency has built out its tech capabilities in past years, ranging from big data crunching to decrypting communication between criminals. Authorities are keen to fight fire with fire in a world where AI is rapidly boosting cybercrime. But academics and activists have repeatedly voiced concerns about giving authorities free rein to use AI tech without guardrails. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to more than double Europol’s staff and turn it into a powerhouse to fight criminal groups “navigating constantly between the physical and digital worlds.” The Commission’s latest work program said this will come in the form of a legislative proposal to strengthen Europol in the second quarter of 2026.  Speaking in Malta at a recent gathering of data protection specialists from across Europe’s police forces, Ebner said it is an “absolute essential” for there to be a fast-tracked procedure to allow law enforcement to deploy AI tools in “emergency” situations without having to follow a “very complex compliance procedure.” Assessing data protection and fundamental rights impacts of an AI tool is required under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and AI Act. Ebner said these processes can take six to eight months.  The top cop clarified that a faster emergency process would not bypass AI tool red lines around profiling or live facial recognition. Law enforcement authorities already have several exemptions under the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act). Under the rules, the use of real-time facial recognition in public spaces is prohibited for law enforcers, but EU countries can still permit exceptions, especially for the most serious crimes. Lawmakers and digital rights groups have expressed concerns about these carve-outs, which were secured by EU countries during the law’s negotiation. DIGITAL POLICING POWERS Ebner, who oversees governance matters at Europol, said “almost all investigations” now have an online dimension.   The investments in tech and innovation to keep pace with criminals is putting a “massive burden on law enforcement agencies,” he said. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to more than double Europol’s staff and turn it into a powerhouse to fight criminal groups. | Wagner Meier/Getty Images The Europol official has been in discussions with Europe’s police chiefs about the EU agency’s upcoming expansion. He said they “would like to see Europol doing more in the innovation field, in technology, in co-operation with private parties.”  “Artificial intelligence is extremely costly. Legal decryption platforms are costly. The same is to be foreseen already for quantum computing,” Ebner said. Europol can help bolster Europe’s digital defenses, for instance by seconding analysts with technological expertise to national police investigations, he said. Europol’s central mission has been to help national police investigate cross-border serious crimes through information sharing. But EU countries have previously been reluctant to cede too much actual policing power to the EU level authority.  Taking control of law enforcement away from EU countries is “out of the scope” of any discussions about strengthening Europol, Ebner said. “We don’t think it’s necessary that Europol should have the power to arrest people and to do house searches. That makes no sense, that [has] no added value,” he said.   Pieter Haeck contributed reporting.

LONDON — The U.K. government will propose a ban on so-called “nudification” apps in its upcoming Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy amid pressure from campaigners to address deepfake-based sexual abuse, according to two people familiar with the plans. Nudification apps use artificial intelligence technology to create fake nude images of people from images.   There is already some nudification legislation in the works in the U.K. The Crime and Policing Bill due to enter committee stage in the Lords next week would make it an offense to either supply or use an app to create deepfaked nude images of children — but it stops short of banning nudification apps wholesale.   Campaigners have long argued that the issue of nudification apps more broadly needs addressing. The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee recommended in a report in March that both the creation and use of nudification apps should be criminalized. The government responded at the time saying it was “actively looking at options” — but said the complexity of the issue warranted “careful consideration.”   The Children’s Commissioner has also called for a total ban, warning such tools disproportionately target girls and young women and contribute “to a culture of misogyny both online and offline” and that the creation of harmful content is “easier than ever” thanks to generative AI.   The Tackling VAWG Strategy was due to be published by the summer but is now not expected until the new year, one of the people cited above — and granted anonymity to discuss sensitive discussions — said. Speaking in the Commons on Wednesday, Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips blamed the delay on needing to make the strategy “as good as it can be.” A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are committed to tackling violence against women and girls in all of its forms.  “We are going further than before to deliver a cross-government transformative approach to halve violence against women and girls. Our new VAWG strategy, which will be published as soon as possible, will set out the strategic direction and concrete actions to deliver on the government’s ambition to halve VAWG in a decade,” they added. 

A Russian fighter jet and a refueling aircraft briefly crossed into Lithuanian airspace from the Kaliningrad region on Thursday evening, the Lithuanian Armed Forces said.  Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda condemned what he described as “a cruel violation of international law and territorial sovereignty of Lithuania.”  “We have to react to this,” he said on X, posting from Brussels. The intrusion came as EU leaders in Brussels were discussing ways to strengthen the bloc’s security at Thursday’s European Council. For Lithuania, which has seen a growing number of airspace violations in recent months — from fighter jets and drones to balloons — air defense remains a top priority. The planes — which were likely conducting mid-air refueling training — penetrated about 700 meters into Lithuanian territory near the south-western town Kybartai and remained there for roughly 18 seconds before turning back. In response, two Spanish Air Force jets deployed under NATO’s Baltic Air policing mission were scrambled to intercept and subsequently began patrolling the area. The situation “is fully under control,” Lithuania’s Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė said in a Facebook post, adding that Lithuania’s response to the threat was appropriate. “This incident once again demonstrates that Russia acts as a terrorist state, disregarding international law and the security of its neighbors,” she said, adding that “together with our allies, we will guard and defend every inch of our country.”

LONDON — Three men were arrested Thursday on suspicion of assisting Russia’s foreign intelligence service. The Metropolitan Police arrested the men — aged 48, 45 and 44 — at addresses in west and central London. Searches are ongoing at those addresses as well as another west London address. The capital’s police force said the alleged offenses related to Russia. Counter Terrorism Policing London Commander Dominic Murphy said: “We’re seeing an increasing number of who we would describe as ‘proxies’ being recruited by foreign intelligence services and these arrests are directly related to our ongoing to efforts to disrupt this type of activity. “Anyone who might be contacted by and tempted into carrying out criminal activity on behalf of a foreign state here in the U.K. should think again.”  Murphy added: “This kind of activity will be investigated and anyone found to be involved can expect to be prosecuted and there are potentially very serious consequences for those who are convicted.”  Moscow was put on the enhanced tier of the U.K.’s Foreign Influence Registration Scheme in July, meaning anyone working for the Russian state needs to declare their activity or risk jail. Three men were convicted earlier this year after an arson attack at a warehouse containing aid for Ukraine.

LONDON — The Scottish government doesn’t want to pay the bill for Donald Trump and JD Vance’s summer trips — and London doesn’t want to stump up the cash either. Scotland’s Finance Secretary Shona Robison, who represents the independence-supporting Scottish National Party, wants to recoup around £20 million in policing and security costs from the London-based Treasury for the U.S. president’s trip to his Scottish golf courses in July, according to the BBC. Robison also wants Whitehall to pay £6 million for policing Vance’s holiday in Ayrshire in August. However, the British government insists Scotland must pick up the tab as they were private visits rather than official government business. In a letter to Chief Secretary to the Treasury James Murray, Robison said: “There is a clear previous precedent, where the U.K. government has supported policing costs for visits to devolved nations by foreign dignitaries.” The Treasury says it will only foot the bill when it has issued a formal invitation to the visiting leaders. Yet Robison insisted Trump’s trip was “diplomatically significant” and not covering the cost would “strain devolved budgets [and] set a troubling precedent for future high-profile visits.” During his July visit, Trump met Prime Minister Keir Starmer, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Scottish First Minister John Swinney. A U.K. government spokesperson said: “These were private visits by the president and vice president to Scotland, not official U.K. government business. The Scottish government are responsible for policing costs in Scotland as per agreed devolved funding arrangements.” Officials in Edinburgh disagree. “The visits imposed substantial operational and financial burdens on Scottish public services,” Scottish Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee said. “These visits were significant in terms of U.K. government international relations, with the prime minister formally meeting the president during his visit in two separate locations in Scotland. The costs cannot be deemed solely a matter for the Scottish government.”

Elon Musk called for the “dissolution of parliament” and change of government in the U.K. during a far-right rally in London on Saturday. The Tesla and X owner issued the rallying cry to an audience of thousands via a video link as part of a “unite the kingdom” demonstration that was organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson — real name, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. “Violence is coming,” Musk said, railing against what he called the woke mindset. “You either fight back or you die,” he told the crowd. Musk’s comments are the latest in a war of words with the British government. He has been a vocal critic of the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, which he says threatens free speech, and has attacked Downing Street’s handling of grooming gangs. “I really think that there’s got to be a change of government in Britain,” Musk said Saturday. “We don’t have another four years, or whenever the next election is — it’s too long. There’s got to be a dissolution of parliament and a new vote held.” This isn’t the first time Musk has talked about violence in Britain. Last year, he said “civil war is inevitable” after riots broke out over claims from far-right groups that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible for the stabbing of three children. The disinformation campaign fueled anger against immigrants living in Britain. Musk has also turned on U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, accusing him of “two-tier policing” that punished right-wing protesters more than those from the left. The claim has been debunked but is still used by conspiracy theorists and populist politicians, such as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. The attacks against Starmer’s government continued during Saturday’s appearance at “unite the kingdom” rally, which drew more than 110,000 people onto London’s streets. The Guardian described the rally as the largest nationalist event in decades.  “Something’s got to be done,” Musk said.

LONDON — “At what point did we become North Korea?” Nigel Farage asked of the U.K. Wednesday as he took to the grand surrounds of Washington’s House Judiciary Committee chamber — more than 3,500 miles from Westminster. “I come from the land of Magna Carta, I come from a land that gave us the mother of parliaments so it doesn’t give me any great joy to be sitting in America and describing the really awful authoritarian situation that we have now sunk into,” the Reform UK leader lamented to the committee of U.S. lawmakers probing “European threats to American free speech and innovation.” Farage — who is surging ahead in opinion polls in the U.K., and making great domestic play of being a champion of free speech — landed in Washington for his big committee moment with apparently perfect timing. Back home, a furore over the arrest of Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, detained by police at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of inciting violence with a series of social media posts about transgender people, is brewing. What happened to Linehan could “happen to any American,” Farage told the U.S. lawmakers. The Reform UK leader also raised the case of Lucy Connolly, a mother jailed after pleading guilty to stirring up racial hatred with a social media post in the wake of a deadly knife attack on young girls in Southport, England last year. The case has similarly animated the right in the U.K. Farage’s appearance will do little to calm a narrative — already being pushed by key allies of U.S. President Donald Trump — that free speech is under threat in Europe, and particularly in the U.K. U.S. Vice President JD Vance stunned European leaders in February when he accused the continent’s governments, and what he called EU “commissars,” of being more interested in stifling free speech than in providing security for their citizens. Vance beefed with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the issue in the Oval Office, earning a rebuke from Starmer in full view of President Trump. Just last month, the U.S. State Department issued an unflattering assessment of the U.K.’s free speech record. But some domestic opponents believe Farage is overplaying his hand — and amping up a complex issue in a bid to earn political capital. Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Starmer accused the Reform UK leader of lobbying Americans to “impose sanctions on this country to harm working people,” adding that it “cannot get more unpatriotic than that.” Ahead of the hearing The Sun newspaper reported Farage would call for the U.S. to punish countries that restrict free speech with diplomatic and trade penalties, though Farage denied suggesting sanctions “at all, in any way.” Conservative Shadow Housing Secretary James Cleverly also refused to row in behind the Reform leader ahead of his evidence session. “I’ve been to parts of the world where freedom of speech really is curtailed,” Cleverly told GB News, the right-wing network whose pin Farage wore in his evidence session, and which is expanding into the United States. “We’ve got to be careful that we don’t add to what I think is fundamentally a political attack from Nigel Farage toward his own country.” Farage also draw criticism from committee member Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, who argued there was “no free speech crisis in Britain,” highlighting Farage’s own show on GB News. Raskin described the Reform UK leader as a “far-right, pro-Putin politician who leads the U.K. Reform party — a party that has four members out of 650 members in the parliament.” But Claire Fox, a libertarian author and member of Britain’s House of Lords, thinks there is a case for British authorities to answer, after a series of high-profile incidents that have blurred the lines between offense and actual risk of harm. There has, she argued, been a “huge shift” in recent years as the definition of harm has become “a very elastic concept.” “People will say that they’re harmed by speech that’s effectively offensive, but which you wouldn’t ever have seen as being on a par with somebody coming up and biffing your head in,” Fox said. Public order legislation — under which Linehan was arrested — is being used “promiscuously in relation to speech,” she argued.  Ken Macdonald, a former director of public prosecutions, is skeptical. “I don’t think we face a crisis of free speech,” the former top prosecutor for England and Wales argued. “The Court of Appeal has been absolutely clear that people must be allowed to express themselves offensively. They must be allowed to ridicule, they must be allowed to say things which are upsetting to other people. All of this is protected. What you can’t do is incite violence. That’s illegal.”  “I think it’s an issue that’s been weaponized by Farage, and it’s been weaponized by American tech titans like [Elon] Musk and [Mark] Zuckerberg, and the rest of them. Farage is doing it for political reasons, and they’re doing it for commercial reasons,” he added.  Indeed, Farage argued that Britain’s new Online Safety Act — a controversial and long-in-the works law that imposes a duty of care on platforms to protect users from harmful content — would “damage trade between our countries.” MARTYRING CONNOLLY Senior lawyers have little time for Farage making Connolly, the jailed mother, a cause célèbre over her 31-month prison sentence for posts on social media platform X, which she admitted had incited racial hate. Farage told the U.S. committee Connolly was “living proof of what can go wrong.” The post was “intemperate” and “wrong,” he said, but it was removed three-and-a-half hours later, he added. Connolly’s sentence was too high, Macdonald acknowledged. But he pointed out: “She pleaded guilty to a very serious offense. The Court of Appeal found that she had admitted inciting racial hatred with the intention that serious violence should result from her tweet. The idea that prosecuting a person in this situation is a curtailment on free speech is just completely ludicrous.” Brits’ views are decidedly mixed on these hot-button issues. Polling from the think tank More in Common last month found a third of those asked thought Connolly’s sentence was too harsh, although that leapt to 70 percent of Reform UK supporters. Yet just one in five of the group polled thought politicians should associate themselves with Connolly. Support for doing so was strongest among supporters of Farage’s Reform UK. There is also strong public support for the Online Safety Act, despite skepticism about how effective age verification measures meant to keep eyes off content deemed harmful will be. A majority of Reform UK voters also support online age verification, according to separate polling from Ipsos, although they are the least likely voting group to say they would comply with age checks. ON HIS LEFT FLANK While the right-leaning Farage is leading the charge on the Connolly case, the left in Britain is waging its own battle over free speech, and the right to protest. Earlier this year, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper moved to proscribe Palestine Action, a pro-Gaza campaign group involved in direct action at a U.K. military site in July, as a terrorist group. That makes membership of, or support, for the group a criminal offense, and it’s a restriction being challenged by high-profile figures on the left, including former Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn. Civil liberties groups have also leapt on the protest curbs. In August, more than 500 people were arrested at a demonstration in London in support of the banned group, many for displaying placards in support. Akiko Hart, director of the campaign group Liberty, said the proscription of Palestine Action is a “disproportionate application of counter-terror laws, and is a worrying escalation of how the government treats protest groups and uses terrorism powers.” She said it was creating “a chilling effect in which many people are now also unable to express their opinions on the proscription of a direct action group because of the risk of arrest.” The Home Office has long insisted the proscription does not affect the freedom to protest on Palestinian rights, and only applies to the “specific and narrow organization.” The decision to proscribe had been based on “strong security advice” following serious attacks, the Home Office said. For the police — tasked with enforcing the controversial law — the proscription of Palestine Action had “clearly been a pressure” over the summer, Gavin Stephens, a senior chief constable who chairs the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said. But they had the “capability to deal with the law where it needs to be enforced.” Stephens is also forthright on the pressures of policing the online world. “If people are committing crimes online and are stirring up hatred, and inciting others to commit crimes, we have to deal with it,” he argued at a briefing with journalists on Tuesday. Police unease about potentially ill-defined laws is, however, apparent. In the wake of the Linehan arrest, Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said Wednesday that officers had been left “between a rock and a hard place” in cases where intent and harm of a post is ambiguous — because successive governments had made confusing hate crime laws. “I don’t believe we should be policing toxic culture wars debates and officers are currently in an impossible position,” he said. On Wednesday, one of Starmer’s most senior allies, Wes Streeting hinted the government could be open to clarifying the law. Cops, the health secretary said, should be “policing streets, not just policing tweets,” he said. For Farage — who thrives on setting the political agenda even without the parliamentary heft he craves — that will feel like a win. Tom Bristow contributed to this report.

LONDON — Britain and the European Union have agreed a new defense and security pact as part of Keir Starmer’s “reset” of relations with Brussels. The two capitals also agreed to extend generous fishing rights in British waters for another 12 years, until 2038. And they agreed to work towards agreements in energy, agrifood rules, climate, migration and policing, and mobility of people. Negotiators worked late into the night on Sunday to strike the accord ahead of a summit in London on Monday. It comes after EU member countries hinted that the reset of relations was dependent on extending EU fishing access in British waters. The security and defense pact formalizes cooperation between the two sides on matters such as hybrid warfare, cybersecurity, resilience of critical infrastructure and maritime safety. On defense, the deal opens the way to the United Kingdom to participate in joint EU procurement programs. Further negotiations will be required for the U.K. to access the EU’s € 150 billion SAFE rearmament programme, however, with budget contributions from London the price of entry. Under the new deal, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and EU High Representative Kaja Kallas will hold a dialogue once per semester, in addition to regular exchanges on Russia-Ukraine, hybrid threats and Western Balkans, according to one of the diplomats. EU and UK leaders are set to finalize the agreement later on Monday during a summit in London.

British police have arrested eight men as part of two separate counterterrorism investigations. Five men, four of whom are Iranian nationals, were arrested in London, Swindon and Greater Manchester on Saturday as part of an investigation into a plot to “target specific premises,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement early Sunday. The site targeted by the plot, which was not named for “operational reasons,” has been made aware and is being supported by police, the Met added. Three other men, all Iranian, were arrested in London on Saturday as part of a separate counterterror police probe. Police said the two cases are unconnected. Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the force’s Counter Terrorism Command, said of the first operation that police are still working to establish a motive “as well as to identify whether there may be any further risk to the public.” U.K. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper praised the police after Saturday’s arrests. “Protecting national security is the first duty of the government and our police and security services have our strong support in their vital work,” she told the PA news agency in a statement. “These are serious events that demonstrate the ongoing requirement to adapt our response to national security threats,” she added. Last year, the head of the U.K’s MI5 security service, Ken McCallum, said that Iran and Russia are behind a “staggering rise” in attempts at assassination, sabotage and other crimes in Britain. He said at the time his agents and police had tackled 20 “potentially lethal” plots backed by Iran since 2022, most aimed at Iranians in Britain. And he added there was a risk “of an increase in, or broadening of, Iranian state aggression in the U.K.” if conflicts in the Middle East deepened.