Response to the National Security Strategy 2025 and its’ Expansion of Powers

The UK government has committed to adopting the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism and State Threat Legislation, Jonathan Hall’s recommendations to create new state threat powers. These have been outlined in the National Security Strategy 2025: Security for the British People in a Dangerous World (June 2025), raising significant civil liberties concerns.

Under the National Security Act 2023, a state threat refers to activities carried out by or on behalf of foreign states, such as espionage, cyberattacks, or political inference that aim to harm the UK’s national security or democratic institutions. The expansion of powers under the National Security Strategy 2025 can apply to individuals both in the UK and abroad, depending on the nature of the suspected activity.
 
This Strategy will inevitably lead to the suppression of dissent evident under current counterterrorism legislation, creating a parallel regime that will further compromise individual freedoms within the domestic sphere while providing justification for international actions framed as responses to state threats.
 
Under current counterterrorism legislation, Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures include relocation powers permitting authorities to move individuals suspected of terrorism away from their homes, often to unfamiliar areas far from their families, communities, and support systems. Intended to disrupt potential threats by severing local ties, these powers lack the due process of law and leave a deep psychological impact on individuals’ mental health. The proposed expansion in the Strategy mirrors these powers to include individuals suspected of state threat activity in the UK (see below).
 
The Strategy grants police significant powers with serious implications for individual rights, including the ability to make direct applications to the High Court for Serious Crime Prevention Orders in State Threat cases. These measures mean that the usual safeguards afforded to defendants in criminal prosecutions, such as but not limited to the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence, are largely absent, and the evidential threshold for such interventions is very low.
 
The foundations of the Strategy are alarmist, as the strategic environment is framed as a ‘dangerous world’. This supports a narrative of external threats that justify expansive internal security measures, including forced relocation from one’s home and passport seizure, even without charge or criminal conviction. These measures are likely to lead to the surveillance and monitoring of ethnic or religious communities, especially Muslims. This can be discerned from the Strategy’s emphasis on Iran, citing ‘Iranian hostile activity on British soil’ and echoed in media coverage such as The Guardian’s article titled ‘Britain must prepare for the possibility of attack on UK soil,’ both of which contribute to framing Iran as a key threat. There can be little doubt that such language risks stigmatising Iranians living in the UK and reinforcing anti-Middle Eastern sentiments.
 
“We are committed to taking forward the recommendations of the Independent Reviewer of State Threat Legislation, and will draw up new powers - modelled on counter-terrorism - to tackle state threats. Counter Terrorism Policing will continue to investigate terrorist and state threat offences. We have also renewed the mandate of the Defending Democracy Taskforce, which will strengthen safeguards against individuals and companies acting as proxies for foreign donations.” National Security Strategy, 2025.
 
Recommendations outlined under ‘Legislation to Address State-Based Security Threats to the United Kingdom,’ which the Strategy proposes adopting:
 
• Ability to issue Statutory Alert and Liability Threat Notices against Foreign Intelligence Services, an equivalent to proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000. By way of example, this power would be available for use against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
• Creation of additional criminal offences for individuals who invite support for or display the insignia of the Foreign Intelligence Service in question.
• Application of an ‘acts preparatory offence’ to certain State Threat activity conducted in the UK where the intended target is overseas.
• Police to be given power to erect cordons in State Threat investigations.
• Consideration be given to a power to stop and search individuals without suspicion in high threat situations, or locations such as the premises of a known State Threat target.
• Power in limited circumstances to carry out post-charge interviews in State Threat criminal investigations.
• Police to be given the power to seize passports on the basis of suspected foreign power threat activity, as currently exists in terrorism cases.
• The relocation power should be available in a wider range of State Threat Prevention and Investigation Measures under Part 2 of the National Security Act 2023.
• Amendment to the Serious Crime Act 2007 to allow police to apply directly to the High Court for Serious Crime Prevention Orders in State Threat cases.
 
In conclusion, the proposed extensions of powers to cover state threat activities significantly erode the normal protections afforded to individuals in criminal investigations. Like other counterterrorism laws generally, there appears to be little regard for the many existing laws that could already be used to address such crimes. As a result, the proposals represent an attack on basic civil liberties whenever the UK security apparatus deems certain activity to amount to a threat to the state. Based on the experience of counterterrorism laws to date, there is a high risk that minority communities will be disproportionately targeted, reinforcing an already existing two-tier criminal justice system.