UK to proscribe state-backed groups such as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

Ministers will draw up new laws to ban state-backed groups such as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the face of growing “complex” threats from foreign powers, Yvette Cooper said on Monday. The home secretary made the announcement after three Iranian nationals were charged on Saturday with spying in the UK. State-backed groups are exploiting the activity of criminals and terrorists to undermine the UK and its laws, she said. “As well as growing, those threats are becoming more interconnected, and the old boundaries between state threats, terrorists and organised criminals are being eroded. “We have seen malign foreign state organisations seek to exploit any vulnerability from criminal networks, to our cybersecurity, to our borders to do us harm,” she added.