The new Labour government is supposedly committed to ‘defend[ing] our sovereignty and our democratic values’, as its manifesto put it, but it appears to have stumbled at the first hurdle, delaying a key measure for countering the influence of hostile states, which MI5 has described as essential for Britain’s national security.
The foreign influence registration scheme (FIRS) would for the first time force anyone in the UK acting for a foreign power or entity to declare their activities. It was due to be implemented later this year, part of a new National Security Act that represents the biggest revamp of the UK’s espionage laws in more than a century. FIRS would require those working for a foreign government to declare their activity or face prosecution. It was described by former security minister Tom Tugendhat as a tool to ‘deter foreign powers from pursuing their pernicious aims through the covert use of agents and proxies’.
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