Pressure on the UK
Iran
More than twenty Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and residents since 2022, run substantially through criminal proxies. Iran sits alongside Russia on the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme. The score is held down by the disruption record: these plots are known because they were stopped.
Enhanced tier, Foreign Influence Registration Scheme
Specified from 1 July 2025, alongside Russia. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not proscribed as a terrorist organisation, which remains a live argument in Parliament.
Plots against people in the United Kingdom
65/100 · 28% weight
MI5 and police have responded to more than twenty Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents since the start of 2022, including assassination and kidnap. This is the single most direct form of state pressure in any assessment on this page: it targets named individuals living here.
Where the UK has formally placed Iran
70/100 · 18% weight
Iran has been a specified foreign power under the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme since 1 July 2025 — one of only two states so specified, alongside Russia. The enhanced tier captures any activity carried out in the UK under an arrangement with the specified power, commercial or otherwise, not merely political influence.
Use of criminal proxies
58/100 · 14% weight
Iranian state actors have made extensive use of criminals as intermediaries — from international drug traffickers to low-level offenders — which widens the pool of people who can be tasked and makes attribution slower.
Spillover from the regional conflict
52/100 · 15% weight
The UK declined to support offensive US and Israeli military action against Iran in late February 2026, then said in early March that it would provide defensive support for UK bases and allies in the region once the conflict began. That posture reduces the UK's exposure relative to the states conducting strikes, without removing it.
Cyber operations
38/100 · 10% weight
Iranian cyber activity against UK targets is documented but sits well below the scale of Russian or Chinese operations against UK critical national infrastructure.
Disruption and prosecution record
35/100 · 15% weight
The plots above are known because they were detected and disrupted, and cases have been brought through the courts. A high rate of successful disruption is evidence of pressure, but it is also evidence that the pressure is being contained — so it is scored low here and pulls the composite down.