As counter-terrorism police arrest four people today on suspicion of spying for Iran on London’s Jewish community, political focus is intensifying on the spread of Tehran’s tentacles of power across the Western world.
A group of Labour MPs have already written to the government asking for a clampdown on charities that could be operating an Iranian “influence network” in the UK. They warned that a web of such organisations appears “to be actively promoting the Iranian regime’s ideology and interests”.
Iran’s nerve centre in the UK
One of the charities cited by the MPs is the Islamic Centre of England. “Based in the affluent north-west London suburb of Maida Vale”, it has been “accused of being an outpost of the Iranian regime” and has been under investigation by the Charity Commission since 2022, said The Telegraph.
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At the centre this week, mourners lit candles in front of photographs of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the former Supreme Leader of Iran who was killed in US-Israeli air strikes on Tehran last weekend. Chants of “We will obey you, Khamenei” were heard, said The Times.
“These are vigils for a man who had British blood on his hands, who ordered terror plots on British soil,” said Kasra Aarabi, of United Against Nuclear Iran, who has been monitoring the activity. “That is deeply concerning.”
The Times revealed last year that the Islamic Centre of England was broadcasting daily religious messages from Khamenei during Ramadan. The paper called it “Iran’s nerve centre” and it was described by the think tank Policy Exchange in 2024 as “sitting at the heart of a network of institutions that project influence”.
The centre has said it does not endorse extremism or unlawful activity and was focused solely on religious, educational and community services. A spokesperson added: “The centre does not represent, promote, or advocate for the political views or agendas of any state, figure or regime. Its religious guidance is confined to matters of faith, ethics, and spirituality. The centre promotes religious peace, and harmony between different faiths.”
‘Seeds of suspicion’
The Tehran regime’s intelligence services “have long targeted Jewish and Israeli people, along with dissidents living in Britain, frequently using criminal proxies as part of their operations”, said The Telegraph.
More than 20 “potentially lethal Iran-backed plots” were identified by MI5 in the year to October 2025, said the intelligence service’s director general Ken McCallum last year.
Research published last June by the National Union for Democracy in Iran, a US-based think tank, found Britain had become a “flashpoint” for Iranian influence. It warned that education was at the “front line” of the Islamic regime’s efforts and it has been “ushering in a generation of radicalised, ideological based zealots”.
The think tank said the regime “has effectively created a life-long, Islamic Republic-centric curriculum for children of all backgrounds in the United Kingdom” and claimed it was “planting seeds of suspicion (against their own British government), and establishing historical falsehoods as reality”.