by Tom Tughendat, Dispatches
Tonight, Iranians are back on the streets. The scale and spread of the uprisings suggest something more than a passing surge of anger. Across cities and towns, people are challenging a regime that has ruled for more than four decades through fear, patronage, and organised violence. These protests are not an isolated moment. They are part of a long unravelling, one that has accelerated over years and now appears to be entering a more dangerous and decisive phase. Britain cannot determine how this ends, nor should it pretend it can, but what happens next will shape our security, our economy, and the international order we inhabit.
To understand why, we must be clear about what the Islamic Republic is and what it does.
The Iranian regime is not simply an authoritarian government pursuing policies we dislike. It is a system that survives by repression at home and aggression abroad, and it has deliberately targeted Britain and British citizens. Tehran’s agents have plotted assassinations and attacks on British soil, pursued journalists and dissidents living under our protection, organised violence against British forces in the Middle East, and attempted to kill British diplomats. Iranian backed attacks on Israel have killed British citizens, while the regime’s sponsorship of Hamas has contributed to radicalisation within the United Kingdom itself.
Beyond these direct threats, Iran has played a central role in destabilising an arc of states stretching from Afghanistan to Lebanon. That destabilisation has driven refugee flows from Iran itself and from countries whose institutions have been weakened or shattered by Iranian intervention, including Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon. These flows do not stop at the region’s borders. They reach Europe and Britain, placing sustained pressure on public services, social cohesion, and political trust.
Iranian weapons supplied to the Houthis have helped close the Red Sea to commercial shipping, driving up insurance premiums, freight costs, and ultimately prices paid by British consumers. Hezbollah’s growing arsenal has altered the security calculus across the Eastern Mediterranean, increasing risks to British interests in the region, including the sovereign base areas in Cyprus. All of this has unfolded alongside Tehran’s military partnership with Russia, which has helped sustain Moscow’s war in Ukraine through the supply of drones, missiles, and components, raising the cost of food and fuel across Europe. At the same time, sanctions busting Chinese tankers have secured discounted Iranian oil, marginally lowering manufacturing costs in Asia while European industry pays more.
This isn’t abstract geopolitics. The Iranian regime has been an enemy of Britain because it has chosen to act as one, and defending ourselves has already carried a real and growing cost.
Read also: Middle East: revolution in Iran? by Richard North, Turbulent Times
The “Right Side of History” That Shoots Protesters by Jim Chimirie on X