Britain expects to keep benefiting from Israeli intelligence while treating Israel as a country in need of moral instruction from London. It is an appalling way to treat a security partner. British citizens whose safety also depends on that cooperation deserve an explanation. The Fairford case has reopened a question the British establishment prefers to keep outside public debate: how far can London erode trust with Israel before it damages Britain’s own interests?
On 27 September 2026, five British men were arrested near RAF Fairford, an airbase also used by American bombers. Police examined three suspicious vehicles. Searches found fuel but no explosive devices. The five were released on bail under restrictive conditions, and the investigation remains open. A further suspect holding British and Iranian citizenship was subsequently arrested in London. Investigators are examining possible involvement by a foreign state. Iran denies any connection to the incident.
Against this background, Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had passed Britain information about an attack backed by Iran. He also claimed that London imposed sanctions on Israel shortly afterwards. This is Israel’s publicly stated account. The details of the warning, its timing, and its precise connection to the Fairford incident have not been disclosed. A chronology that remains unclear should not be presented as established fact. Nor does release on bail amount to acquittal or prove that the British government sought to shield Iran.
The measures Britain announced in September concern, among other things, trade with settlements and companies and individuals involved in their expansion. They do not amount to a ban on all trade with Israel. That distinction matters. It does not remove the strategic question. A government may oppose a particular Israeli policy and still recognise that repeatedly weakening relations with an intelligence partner requires an assessment of the consequences, beyond issuing a statement that pleases its political audience at home.
An Israeli warning does not buy immunity from criticism. Relations between states nevertheless depend on trust and an understanding of shared interests. London cannot assume that trust will survive regardless of its public treatment of Israel. Drawing on security cooperation while discounting its importance in foreign policy is dangerous arrogance. The issue goes beyond whether Britain has said thank you. It concerns whether the political leadership understands what it is putting at risk.
The British election of 2024 showed how the Gaza war could change a politician’s calculations in a constituency. Four independent candidates associated with support for Gaza defeated Labour candidates, while Labour lost ground in constituencies with substantial Muslim populations. Against that background, I have a grave suspicion: some politicians give more weight to winning over prospective Muslim voters than to preserving partnerships that contribute to national security. The election result cannot reveal the motives of every minister, but it makes the electoral pressure clear. A seat in Parliament does not justify gambling with public safety.
I believe the same temptation exists elsewhere in Europe. A local politician benefits immediately from a public gesture. Any security damage may emerge only later, leaving others to bear the consequences. When measures against Israel become a means of attracting votes, the government must explain how it assessed their strategic cost.
The meeting between British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly deserves more serious scrutiny than a handshake photograph. According to Britain’s statement, Miliband warned about threats and hostile activity linked to Iran on British soil, including threats to the Jewish community. The meeting itself does not prove weakness. The test is whether those warnings change the regime’s behaviour, and what price it pays when they are ignored.
The scale of the threat is documented by Britain’s own security service. In October 2024, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said that his service and the police had responded to 20 plots backed by Iran since the beginning of 2022, putting the lives of British citizens and residents at risk. The British government repeated the figure in its official response to Parliament in 2025. Anyone presenting Iran chiefly as a convenient diplomatic interlocutor must explain how that approach squares with MI5’s assessment.
A case uncovered in London in 2015 shows the value of cooperation with Israel. According to reports by The Telegraph and Israel’s Kan broadcaster, intelligence from Mossad helped British authorities discover a cache linked to Hezbollah containing about three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a substance that can be used to make explosive devices. The case became public in 2019. For years, British citizens knew nothing of an operation in which Israeli capabilities had helped expose a dangerous network inside their own country.
At the time, Britain still insisted on distinguishing Hezbollah’s military wing from its political wing. Only in 2019 was the entire organisation proscribed. The official explanation was that the two could no longer be distinguished. That admission deserves attention. For years, a divided legal designation had lent legitimacy to part of an organisation whose structures served a single armed force. The episode shows how a distinction convenient to politicians can cause harm when it fails to reflect reality.
In February 2023, Iran International had to close its London studios temporarily and move its broadcasts to Washington after threats against its staff and consultations with the police. The channel resumed broadcasting from London later that year from a new, secure location. Britain should take a hard look at what that episode means. A foreign regime created a threat so serious that a news organisation chose to move its broadcasting operation out of a country that prides itself on protecting press freedom.
These journalists were reporting on Iran. They were not representatives of the Israeli government. The threats against them show what Tehran seeks beyond its borders: to intimidate critics and restrict their freedom to operate. The attempt to portray the Iranian threat as chiefly a problem arising from the conflict with Israel has become untenable. For Britain, this has long been a question of sovereignty and of protecting people living on its territory.
The picture in continental Europe is equally disturbing. In 2021, the Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi was convicted in Belgium of preparing an attack on a gathering of the Iranian opposition in France. In May 2023, he was released under an agreement that brought home Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who had been imprisoned in Iran. Securing Vandecasteele’s freedom was a human and national obligation. Yet the price Belgium paid sent a troubling message about deterrence: even a serious conviction in Europe might not keep an Iranian operative in prison.
The Belgian dilemma requires governments to explain how they will protect citizens from being turned into bargaining chips. Blaming the family of a prisoner would evade that responsibility. Tehran has learnt to exploit the commitment of democracies to their citizens. A deal ending in the release of a man convicted of preparing a terrorist attack requires a policy that raises the cost of the next act of coercion. Otherwise, deterrence is weakened even after the police and courts have done their jobs.
France, too, is confronting serious public disorder. In early October 2026, student protests over conditions in schools deteriorated in some places into arson and clashes with police. Reports describe a dispute over schools and budgets. They do not establish that this is a protest by Muslim immigrants. Criticism of the government’s ability to maintain public order must rest on what actually happened.
France’s own judicial decisions document failures in dealing with radical Islamist networks. In November 2020, the Conseil d’État, the country’s highest administrative court, rejected a request to suspend the closure of the Grand Mosque of Pantin, which had been ordered for six months. The decision referred to a video demanding the dismissal of teacher Samuel Paty and the publication of his identity on the mosque’s Facebook account before he was murdered. The judge found that these publications incited violence and hatred in circumstances involving a risk of terrorist acts. He also noted that the chief imam had trained at a fundamentalist institution in Yemen and was involved in a radical Islamist movement. In the face of such findings, accommodation without supervision or enforcement amounts to an abdication of government responsibility.
Local funding decisions deserve scrutiny as well. In March 2021, Strasbourg’s municipal council approved a grant of about €2.5 million for a mosque project. The then interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, accused the council of helping foreign interference. The funding request was subsequently withdrawn and the grant was not paid. In November 2022, an administrative court annulled the council’s decision because its own funding conditions had not been met and a local public interest had not been demonstrated. A desire to appear welcoming does not excuse a local authority from examining public need, funding sources, and the identity of the recipient. A religious institution receiving public support must face rigorous oversight, like any other organisation.
Europe’s image of pastoral tranquillity can no longer substitute for policy. Years of hesitation in confronting extremism have exacted a heavy price, and the sense of security will not return of its own accord. Radical Islamist networks seek to exploit democratic freedoms in order to restrict the freedoms of others. The training in Yemen and the incitement in Pantin show how extremist influence from outside Europe can find a home within it. Governments that recoil from enforcing the law for fear of a political backlash abandon their sovereignty. Europe has been late to act. It must now protect teachers, journalists, Jews and Muslims threatened by extremists. A generous welcome gives nobody the right to dominate public life through intimidation.
I see this change in the responses to my own articles. In recent years, I have received more and more hostile responses from Muslim extremists, including people living in countries to which they migrated. Some responses convey an aggressive sense of ownership of public life, as though the country that received them should reshape the boundaries of debate to suit their beliefs. I expect anyone given an opportunity to build a life there to show gratitude, respect the law, and respect the freedom of fellow residents. Trying to dictate what others may say is coercion. Tolerance does not require us to accept it.
Most of the critical responses I receive to my articles come from European readers. Many express categorical views without addressing the facts, the reality, or the history I have written about. My impression is that extremist incitement is reaching far beyond fringe groups and shaping readers’ judgements. Europe’s history of antisemitism and persecution should have made it deeply suspicious of incitement and collective vilification. When that lesson is forgotten in relation to Israel, Europe’s claim to moral superiority rings hollow.
Britain does take action against Iran, and its security services foil plots. To my mind, that makes the criticism of the political leadership more serious. Nobody can claim that the threat is unknown. The gap lies between the accumulating intelligence and the weight it carries in decisions on relations with Israel. Foreign policy must take account of the assessments of those charged with preventing the next attack, even when their conclusions are politically inconvenient.
Indian readers have good reason to follow this debate. India knows the cost of terrorism and the difficulty of confronting networks operating across borders. That experience calls for judging partners by their contribution to protecting citizens, rather than their standing in a contest of moral declarations. A leader receiving a credible warning should also value the relationship that made it possible to obtain. Such capabilities take years to build. Once lost, they cannot be repaired by a diplomatic statement.
India has interests and relationships of its own with Iran. It need not automatically adopt the position of either Israel or Britain. That is precisely why strategic autonomy demands sober judgement. India can engage Tehran while recognising the threat posed by its activities. It can disagree with Israeli decisions while recognising Israel’s value as a security partner. Those who presume to tell India and Israel how to protect their citizens should first meet that standard themselves.
There is also a condescension in the British debate that is difficult to ignore. A country that has to protect journalists against Iranian threats, investigate plots against its residents, and seek intelligence cooperation abroad could show a little more humility when lecturing others. Grand language about human rights does not compensate for policies that weaken trust with partners helping to defend those rights in practice.
The British government must stop behaving as though eroding trust with Israel were a political gesture without a cost. It must explain how its decisions strengthen national security and what it is doing to preserve vital intelligence ties alongside its policy disagreements. British citizens may pay the price for a failure of judgement. The responsibility will belong to those making the decisions in London.