Britain must wake up to Iran’s malign influence

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, likes to present himself as a pious and self-sacrificing servant of the Islamist regime he has suddenly found himself leading. But there are limits to this humility. According to an investigative report by Bloomberg, Khamenei Jr has a property empire worth hundreds of millions of pounds in London alone, including 11 houses in Hampstead and two apartments in Kensington.

London has long had a reputation for being a second home for very rich Middle Eastern princelings. However, the portfolio of Khamenei, who was appointed as his father’s successor over the weekend, appears to be in a different league altogether. His houses in Hampstead are all reportedly on the Bishops Avenue, also known as ‘billionaire’s row’. His two homes in Kensington, as well as reportedly overlooking the Israeli embassy, are a short distance from Kensington Palace, the official home of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Mojtaba Khamenei has done very well for himself indeed.

How this squares with the Islamic Republic’s view of the UK as ‘evil’ – a term used by his father, Ali Khamenei – isn’t immediately obvious. Indeed, despite the republic’s well known antipathy to the West, encapsulated in the regime’s ‘Death to America’ motto, many children of the Iranian leadership seem to prefer life in supposedly corrupt, irreligious societies such as America and the UK. It has been widely reported that the niece of Hassan Rouhani, a former president of Iran, works for Deutsche Bank in London. She is one of apparently 4,000 aghazedehs (Iranian nobles) who have ditched life in the Islamic Republic in favour of life in its supposed existential enemies.

It is further evidence of just how corrupt and hypocritical the Islamic Republic is. Despite extolling simplicity and austerity, and indeed enforcing these ‘ideals’ on its population, the republic’s leaders have enriched themselves at the expense of their long-suffering population. Indeed, before Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed by American and Israeli airstrikes last month, it was reported that he had a business empire worth $95 billion.

For Mojtaba Khamenei to invest in London is comparatively harmless, at least compared with the regime’s other overseas activities. We were reminded of these other activities just last week, when four people were arrested in London on suspicion of spying for Tehran. One man was an Iranian national while the other three were dual Iranian-British citizens.

According to the i paper, Iran has been using the encrypted messaging service, Telegram, to conscript an army of low-level criminals to carry out not only spying and surveillance activities, but also far more serious offences. In February, UK prime minister Keir Starmer stated that the ‘Iranian regime poses a direct threat to dissidents and the Jewish community [in the UK]’. Starmer said that, in the past year alone, UK intelligence services had thwarted 20 ‘potentially lethal’ attacks on British soil.

The Islamic Republic’s sinister reach into British public life is extensive. The Islamic Centre of England (ICE) has been under investigation by the Charity Commission since 2022 for its close ties to the Iranian regime. According to a recent report published by Lord Walney, the government’s former extremism adviser, there are roughly 30 charities and community organisations in the UK maintaining the ‘influence and interests’ of Tehran, of which ICE is allegedly the ‘central node’. The Islamic Republic even has its own school in London – the Islamic Republic of Iran School in Maida Vale, where students were filmed in 2022 singing about the massacre of Jews.

Indeed, Iran has been causing disruption and seeding division in Western countries for some time. In August, Australia told the Iranian ambassador to leave the country after it emerged that the anti-Semitic campaign of terror that has plagued Australia since 7 October 2023 largely bore Tehran’s fingerprints. This included the firebombing of a synagogue in Melbourne as well as repeated attacks on Jewish businesses. According to the head of Australia’s security services, Mike Burgess, Iran had been employing a similar tactic to the one that’s since emerged in the UK: ‘They’re just using cut-outs, including people who are criminals and members of low-level crime gangs to do their bidding.’ Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said the Islamic Republic was attempting ‘to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community’.

There is some consolation in the thought that Mojtaba Khamenei’s London mansions aren’t much use to him now. But the UK should never have allowed the Islamic Republic to gain such a foothold in British society. Iran’s malign influence must be countered, once and for all.

Hugo Timms is a staff writer at spiked.