By Alex Wickham | Updated on Jun 09, 2026 at 03:14 PM
The UK government said criminals who carry out hostile activity on behalf of foreign proxy groups could be sent to prison for 14 years, following a spate of anti-Semitic incidents linked to Iran.
The new laws announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday make it a criminal offense to assist or receive payment from a designated organization. The government said the legislation would target hostile foreign states who outsource the soliciting of so-called hybrid warfare attacks to proxy groups.
“The recent wave of antisemitic attacks has shocked the nation and left British Jews feeling unsafe in their own communities. That cannot stand,” Starmer said. “We will not tolerate hostile actors paying petty criminals to do their dirty work.”
Britain has suffered a series of anti-Semitic incidents since the US-Israeli war in Iran , including arson attacks on synagogues and a Jewish community-funded volunteer ambulance service, as well as the stabbing of two Jewish men in London.
Read More: Anger and Fear Rise in London After Another Antisemitic Attack
The government has yet to attribute the attacks to hostile foreign state activity. Several people accused of carrying out the attacks are awaiting trial.
A group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin has claimed responsibility for some of the incidents. It is believed to be a proxy group working on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to pay local criminals to carry out attacks on Jews.
The new legislation mirrors Britain’s 2023 National Security Act, which imposed heavy sentences on criminals carrying out harmful activity on behalf of foreign intelligence services. It effectively expands it to include those working for proxy groups acting on behalf of foreign states.
Britain’s domestic security service MI5 has warned of a rise in state-backed aggression on its soil, with 20 potentially lethal Iranian-backed plots identified in the last year.