For years, Britain has prided itself on being an open society. Yet openness without vigilance can become a vulnerability — a weakness that hostile states are increasingly learning to exploit.
A new report by U.K. Peer John Woodcock—Lord Walney— describes in detail how the Iranian regime has done precisely that. The report was launched at a discussion at a March 11 panel in London chaired by the British journalist Nicole Lampert.
“We also find rhetoric and activity aligned with the regime’s wider revolutionary worldview...”
The panel also included British-Iranian analyst, Kasra Aarabi, thedirector of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), who contributed to the report.
Titled, “Undue Influence: The Iranian regime’s abuse of the UK Charity System and the Limitations of Oversight,” the 100-page study examines several U.K.-registered charities that maintain links — structural, ideological, or institutional — with state institutions in Tehran. Its conclusion is stark: successive British governments and the Charity Commission for England and Wales have failed to confront Iran’s soft-power infrastructure in the U.K.
This is not merely a question of charity governance. It is a question of national security.
The Islamic Republic has long pursued influence abroad through religious and cultural institutions. In the Middle East, that influence often takes the form of militias and proxy forces. In Europe, it is more subtle: networks of mosques, cultural centres, student groups and charities that promote the ideological worldview of the regime.
Britain’s charity sector, the report argues, has proved particularly vulnerable to this strategy.
Charitable status brings legitimacy. It opens doors to local councils, universities and even parliamentarians. It provides tax advantages, public trust and the presumption of civic good. Yet those same privileges can be used by organisations whose loyalties lie elsewhere.
The report highlights one example that illustrates the problem clearly. Until recently, the constitution of the Islamic Center of England required that one of its trustees be appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. “Although that provision has since been amended, it demonstrates that institutional alignment has, at times, been explicit rather than incidental,” the report states.
Data like this indicates that Islamic Center of England, which did not respond to an email from Focus on Western Islamism, had more than a vague ideological affinity with the regime in Iran, Walney told attendees at the March 11, 2026, gathering, but a formal institutional link.
During his talk, Walney cited links between U.K. charities to organisations such as Al-Mustafa International University, which has been sanctioned by the United States for allegedly acting as a recruitment platform for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
John Zak Woodcock, Lord Walney.
(By © House of Lords / photography by Roger Harris via Wikimedia))
“We also find rhetoric and activity aligned with the regime’s wider revolutionary worldview, support or sympathy towards groups such as Hezbollah or Hamas, the hosting of Quds Day events,” Walney said.
“Associated with the rhetoric widely criticized as antisemitic and implacably hostile to the state of Israel and the presentation of Khomeini’s doctrine not as political ideology but as though it were simply normative religious belief. Disturbingly,” Walney added.
The report documents examples of children attending commemorations for Qassem Soleimani the commander of Iran’s Al Quds Force who was killed by in early 2020 by a U.S. missile strike. The report also documents children being exposed to messaging venerating Ruhollah Khomeini, and to the filming at the Islamic Center of England of an English-language version of “Hello Commander,” showing saluting children pledging themselves to the Supreme Leader of Iran.
Walney said that should concern anyone serious about safeguarding social cohesion and the prevention of radicalisation in the U.K.
Investigations by the Charity Commission for England and Wales can stretch on for years, frequently resulting in minor governance changes while leaving the underlying networks untouched. Walney described this as a “compliance trap”— the result of a system that focuses more on paperwork than the strategic problem.
At the event launching the report at London’s Rennie room, Walney pointed to another factor that he believes has contributed to the lack of action: a political and institutional reluctance to scrutinise organisations connected to Islamic charities or charities linked to the Iranian regime for fear of being accused of Islamophobia.
The strategic problem, however, is clear. Iran is widely regarded by Western intelligence agencies as one of the world’s most active state sponsors of terrorism. The regime has orchestrated assassinations and intimidation campaigns across Europe and beyond.
Britain itself has not been immune. According to officials, numerous Iranian-linked plots have been disrupted in recent years.
Against that backdrop, the existence of institutions tied — even indirectly — to the ideological apparatus of the Iranian state should prompt serious scrutiny. Instead, the issue has often been side stepped by the regulatory body.
Part of the difficulty lies in the nature of the threat. Charity law was designed to prevent financial misconduct, not foreign state influence. Regulators examine governance, compliance and accounting. They are far less equipped and knowledgeable to deal with foreign hostile states operating within civil society. The result is a system that struggles to understand the problem in the first place.
Walney’s report calls for reforms: faster investigations, stronger regulatory powers, greater transparency about trustees and affiliations, and closer coordination between regulators and national security agencies.
But Walney categorically identified the deeper issue as lack of political will by the civil service and the political establishment. Walney’s report argues — persuasively — that the current system is ill-equipped and unwilling to confront hostile states like Iran. In an era of intensifying global tension, that is a dangerous blind spot.
Open societies thrive on trust. But trust, once exploited by hostile actors, can quickly become a security liability.
