Parliament is on the verge of passing the National Security (State Threats) Bill, and I think far too few people understand what it could mean.
The government says this legislation is designed to protect Britain from hostile foreign states. That sounds reasonable. But when you look closely at what the bill actually says, serious questions emerge about its effect on journalism, research, blogging and public debate.
In this video, I explain why.
The bill allows organisations to be designated as state threats. Once that happens, obtaining information from them could itself become a criminal offence carrying a prison sentence of up to 14 years. Independent reviewers have already warned that the legislation is drafted so broadly that journalists may have to rely on prosecutorial discretion rather than clear legal protections.
That matters because reporting conflicts has always depended on speaking to every side. Whether the conflict is in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen or elsewhere, understanding events requires access to information from multiple sources, not just those governments approve of.
This is not simply a legal issue. It is an issue of political economy. Information is a public good. Democracy depends upon informed citizens. If access to information is reduced, rumour, misinformation and distrust are likely to grow.
Is this really the balance Parliament should be striking between national security and democratic accountability? If so, we should all be worried.
This is the audio version:
The Debate Ammunition for this video is available here.
This is the transcript:
Right now Parliament is rushing through a new law, which I think is deeply dangerous to the well-being of this country and to anybody who comments within it.
The law is called the National Security (State Threats) Bill. It's almost reached Royal Assent. The House of Commons has discussed the House of Lords' amendments, and so it is only days away from becoming real law, and the government says it will strengthen national security, but I disagree.
The law is primarily aimed at supposedly hostile state organisations and the Iranian National Guard is its supposed target, but its reach extends far beyond spies and terrorists. It could change how information reaches us all. That matters. We need to understand the world we live in, and this law may prevent those who try to explain what is happening in the world from doing so, and that will penalise us all.
I think this bill does, therefore, matter to everyone. This is not just another national security measure. It changes who may gather and publish information.
It changes how conflicts can be reported: conflicts in places like Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan, in Yemen and beyond. It creates risks for journalists, bloggers, and researchers, and that makes it a political economy issue as much as it is a legal one.
What this bill actually does is give the Home Secretary the power to designate a body as a state threat. The system is modelled on terrorist proscription law, and we know there are difficulties with that. But as a consequence of any organisation being deemed to be a state threat, supporting or benefiting from that designated body then becomes a criminal offence. And the maximum prison sentence is 14 years. And the bill says that securing information from the organisation that has been prescribed is a material benefit.
Now think about what this means. If Hamas is designated to be a state threat, and that is certainly possible, to report figures on casualties in Gaza supplied by Hamas will become an illegal act. But their data is what everybody has relied upon since 2023 to report casualties arising in that territory, because there is no other information. Reporting that data might now result in a 14-year prison sentence. This is the risk we face, and lawyers are worried because the bill contains no general reasonable excuse defence.
Independent reviewers have warned that the drafting is too broad and journalists may have to rely on prosecutorial discretion to prevent them being charged and sent to prison. And protection promised by ministers is not being written into the bill. It's only being written into the support notes, and that means no court needs to rely upon it.
This all creates uncertainty before anyone publishes a word of information about what might be happening in a conflict zone around the world, about which we may need information because decisions by our government will be taken based upon the fact that they have this information, but which will now be denied to us. That is critical.
This matters because journalism always depends on contacts. Reporters must speak to every side in a conflict, and we know they do. They talk about that fact. They always have. Even when the IRA was proscribed in the UK, there were always back channels to ensure that information was available. And that made sure that the conflict in Northern Ireland at that time was understood in the same way that we now need to understand conflicts elsewhere in the world.
And sources rarely come only from friendly governments, let's be clear. Information from one side only can create a deeply misleading, difficult, or dangerous impression of what is going on in a situation, and so sometimes people have to be spoken to who actually work for the other side in the conflict, even if we don't like that other side. Understanding the conflict requires us to see both sides of an issue, and this bill risks blurring that distinction and creating penalties where none need be in place.
This bill makes information itself the issue. And the information is how we understand the world.
Information explains why conflicts happen.
Information helps us judge government policy.
Information allows competing claims to be tested, and restricting information restricts understanding.
And journalists won't be able to test official claims if this bill is put in place. If their contacts become too risky to talk to, fewer facts may emerge. We will be forming our opinions based upon less reliable information, and nobody benefits from that.
Politics will be distorted.
International relations will be distorted.
And risks will be taken by people who want to discover what is really going on in the world.
And in all of this, bloggers face particular risks. Now, I don't think this is particularly a personal issue. I don't tend to report from conflict zones. I can try to avoid issues where this information is of consequence, but other bloggers do investigate and publish. And without them, there will be much less information in the world about what is really going on in those conflict zones. And bloggers don't have large legal departments to advise them. Many rely on open sources and direct contacts, and a mistake could have very serious consequences.
And that mistake may, for example, be secondhand. We don't know as yet if the United Nations reports a figure from one of these proscribed organisations, whether reporting the United Nations figure may in turn then become deemed to be the committing of an offence that carries a penalty of 14 years in prison. No malign intent may exist even where prosecution follows, in other words. And that means this is bad for political economy.
Information is a public good in a democracy. A public good is something provided basically free of charge that improves the quality of decision-making or the information available to the public on which they might wish to form an opinion. Less information leaves space for rumour and speculation, and misinformation grows where reliable information disappears. Society becoming less informed means that society becomes more insecure. That is what worries me.
And as a result of all of this, trust is put at risk. Governments need informed consent to govern well. That's a fact. We know that governments can only rule us if we provide them with the right to do so, and public trust depends upon access to information. Trust fails when information appears to be controlled. Again, we know that. And in most cases, there are questions arising now about why some information is being controlled.
Suspicion grows when reporting is made more difficult without obvious reason, and with undue penalties attached. That weakens confidence in democratic institutions, and rushed legislation of this sort, which has been pushed through Parliament far too quickly for any informed judgement to be made, does create risk.
Fast legislation receives less detailed scrutiny than it requires, and broad wording is harder to improve once enacted, and this bill is incredibly broadly worded. Important safeguards have not been properly debated, and whilst national security still requires careful lawmaking, we're not getting that.
The real choice that Parliament faces is that Britain needs strong protection against genuine state threats. I'm not disputing that. But it also needs free and responsible reporting. Security and informed democracy should reinforce each other. They are not in conflict with each other. This goes back to the question I ask often. When we come to defence, what are we defending? And one of the things we should be defending is the right to information and informed decision-making. But this law seeks to undermine that by criminalising information.
This law does not meet the required standard for producing better outcomes in society, in my opinion, so Parliament should amend this bill before it becomes law to protect us from bad law, from misinformation, and a failure of democracy, which will arise if we do not have the information we need to form proper judgements.
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Thanks to all for a pressingly important article.
Might it be that it is not only autocratic, and so anti-democratic, but also nation weakening because infomation/propaganda etc. from an entity/organisation informs indirectly and directly about that entity/organisation and so keeps the U K better informed and so stronger?
Might this bill be using the deceit of claiming to protect regular citizens from real and projected extenal threats as a cover for (yet more) internal autocracy?
Has this bill been sufficiently publicised/disussed by opposition policians and the main stream media?
This bill is being ignored by too many people, when the threat is very real indeed.
All the things that we need…………..and we get this!
My worry is that it will reduce information flows and affect narratives in the media etc.
What is amazing is that it is the free flow of money that destabilizes states – could this be cack-handed reaction to how Farage is funded? Or being done under the flag of convenience, when in fact is much more restrictive or mal-intended (Neo-libs love a good crisis to take advantage of don’t they? I wonder if the Tech-Bros have ‘advised’ on this too?).
One of the biggest state threats these days has to be private capital for me, and how it undermines our democracy. But whilst we continue to worship wealth, our concerns will go unheeded.
The precedent has already been set. Climate protest cases prevent the climate protesters to even mention why they protest. The fact that possibly within 10 years millions may die as regarded as irrelevant by government directed judiciary. So much for the separation of powers which is a cornerstone of democracy.
Much to agree with
1. Which wazzocks proposed this.
2. Who was funding them/”helping them”
3. Why the urgency?
4. Is this the chief wazzocks final act (Starmer)
5. Why is this law needed in the first place?
The only party that would get my vote, is the one that says: OK, every single law relating to “security” or “law n order” going back to 1990………will be repealed. Then we can have an adult conversation on what is really needed – as opposed to what the establishment thinks it needs to keep the rabble in line.
It is a supposed response to the Jewish ambulances arson in north London.
It makes no sense in that or any other context.
It is anll about performative oppression.
Very much agree Richard – this is just the latest widening of the authorities’ powers to crackdown on freedom of protest and expression – following the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 , the Public Order Act 2023 the Crime and Policing Act 2026<p>
It seems we already have several hundred political prisoners – either on remand or sentenced by juries not aware that they were finding people guilty of a ‘terrorist’ offence<p>
It really is frightening – the overwhelming majority of MP’s don’t seem to care a fig, or more probably too scared to raise their heads.
Agreed. Frightening is the right word.
We can already see how this bill will be used – NOT to protect UK from genuine threats but in an intimidatory way, to silence dissent and protect the powerful.
It is happening NOW with intimidatory detention and questioning of UK citizens at the border, with violent dawn raids, arrests with restrictive bail conditions. Aimed at genuinely dangerous people? No, far more often, at independent journalists, protesters, & whistleblowers, whose information is inconvenient to our rulers and their allies and backers, especially if it exposes crime, corruption, or even, ironically, treason.
It will not be used to protect me, a UK resident, but to protect fossil fuel interests, arms manufacturers profiting from genocide, Israel, Saudi Arabia, USA, UAE, other Western governments and the party in power in the UK, the interests of the rich and powerful, and their corporations.
Does the UK state care about “foreign threats”? Johnson & Lebedev? Convicted fraudster Trump? Indicted Netanyahu?
Snowden escaped to Hong Kong, and is now in Russia. Julian Assange was very inconvenient to our government and incredible efforts were made to silence him and Wikileaks. The Palestinian voice is effectively suppressed even now.
Under this legislation could a UK citizen with experience of relief work in Gaza, give evidence to the ICJ? How many scandals about government crimes could be successfully covered up? How might a Reform UK Ltd. or Restore government use this legislation? How do we find out about Israeli abuse of detainees, including children, under this legislation, if they are all deemed to belong to proscribed organisations?
So I have to rely on Ministerial/prosecutorial discretion? From compromised Ministers already controlled by foreign governments and bought off?
Katherine Gun’s case is one of many warnings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Gun
I can imagine it being used against me.
Just imagine if this could be used retrospectively on words or phrases now regarded as wrongspeak.
Steven J Newbury offers a fantastic analysis of the new bill:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-206581013
He notes that this could be terminally damaging for the City of London’s financial operations.
That looks well worth reading…..later.
Thanks. Read it. “An act has a prohibited purpose if the person ought reasonably to have known that their conduct is ‘prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom’.”
As readers know, I am professionally interested in (& an expert in) matters to do with the UK’s electrical power systems and markets – which are failing, this can be shown – empirically.
Once the act has been passed the above statement (& even my professional interest and critiques) will be “prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom’”. The owners of this blog that publishes my thoughts and views could/will go to jail. Of course, initially, nowt will happen, LINO scum will go “there there nothing to worry about”. But when substantial criticism on something (does not matter what – over-crowding in jails? police racism t etc etc) starts to get traction, the LINO scum will have manufactured the perfect weapon to put people in jail – & they will-go-to-jail. Witness what has happened in the last couple of years, peaceful demonstrators jailed. The law is nothing to do with national security, it is everything to do with LINO/Tories/Liberals etc trying to control dissent. We need 600 Count Binfaces in the House of Cock-ups to eliminate this and the mountain of other neo-fascist laws.
Agreed
Having lived in apartheid South Africa until late 1984, I can tell you this type of law is always used against opponents of the Government. It was always ‘This is just temporary, only aimed at terrorists, etc’. As soon as passed journalists and any critic of the government started getting detained. The Minister could just Gazette somebody and there was no trial or appeal. When newspapers started leaving blank spaces where the censors had blocked a story, then blank space was made a criminal offence too.
Agreed.
In 1950s South Africa the mother of a school friend spent 90 horrific days in jail for peaceful protest about apartheid. Tony Blair once proposed a similar 90 day automatic detention. This act appears very much the same.
What frightens me about this is the prospect that the designation “state threat” may one day be applied by an ever more desperate Westminster to such organisations as the SNP and Plaid Cymru.
Agreed
They are state threats, of course. Perhaps the biggest the UK faces.
“They are state threats, of course. Perhaps the biggest the UK faces”.
Seriously, Richard? Do you genuinely believe that the SNP, as presently constituted, have the cojones, to pose a genuine “threat to the British state”?
I am of the opinion that they have been thoroughly cleansed, corrupted and bought.
I follow their actions/inactions/statements closely. I know you have more than a passing-acquaintance with them too.
Do you really believe they will do anything to threaten their cozy-slippers and to essentially render themselves redundant?
Tht is not the question – it is whether the British State thinks so and it may be convenient for them to do so.
Under the last Tory government we had orders to cease teaching about Critical Race Theory (obs by someone who hadn’t a clue what CRT is), don’t use speakers or material from anticapitalist sources (impossible in Sociology) and action to diminish any climate change material in science. We also had the bogus ‘British Values’ bollocks we were mandated to teach. The racist myth of ‘the British Empire was a good thing is also back. Information is already propaganda.
So much to agree with
It seems to me that the legislation falls foul of two basic principals
The first is Peels that the Criminal Law should be easily understood with clear consequences. Clearly this is neither.
The second is an old convention that Parliament only passes legislation when there is a new mischief. I do not see that any such mischief exists.
Much to agree with
It occurs to me, that there are now many FOI requests that the UK government cannot answer, without breaking this law. I wonder if Archbishop Mulally’s recent meetings with former Palestinian detainees could be repeated in 12 months time or would she and the editor of the Church Times end up in chokey?
Reporting on events in Iran will have to change significantly if the IRGC is proscribed,
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2026-06-11/debates/D0483EDD-A8B9-4A96-AE00-28378D9512C9/details
because official responses from any bodies connected with the IRGC (whose ifluence has recently extended into all areas of the Iranian state, business and private life), could not be quoted without risk of 14 years in jail. Nor could leaks from IGRC whistleblowers about human rights violations within Iran during protests. Can we even publish official Iranian statements on the war,the ceasefire, and conditions for passage through the Staits of Hormuz?
A similar situation could arise if Turkey persuades us to proscribe various Kurdish groups (that helped resist Daesh/ISIS in Iraq).
And it gets ridiculous when we come to the current President of Syria.
And news from Afghanistan?
For the benefit of those old enough to remember – “the words of RobertJ in this post, have been transcribed by an actor. No proscribed sources were used in compiling this post.”
All governments have a habit of calling the resistance, terrorists, from Nazis describing the Maquis, to Vervoerd or Thatcher’s Tories describing Mandela, or the UK referring wanting to execute Eamon de Valera in 1916.
But then the “terrorist” becomes the government.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard(IRG) has a public relations office, which regularly issues press releases.
Under the impending new law if I read the IRG press releases, which are likely to have a somewhat different slant on US attacks and Iranian attacks than the US/UK main stream media reports.
Then if I comment on them in this blog, I + Richard can face 14 years in jail.
Am I missing something? Trump assassinates Iran’s leadership, commits war crimes, threatens to bomb Iran to the Stone Age. Nothing is done about Trump. This can be reported but not the Iranian views?
So the mother of parliaments does not believe in free speech. What shits all UK politicians are.
It used to be a mantra of political parties to never pass legislation that you would not want used against you. Present day politicians display massive unawareness of unintended consequences.
Surely convenient to do this when recess dates are looming and people tend to be already in vacation in their heads.
For all their talking, they’re humans after all.
It worked this week in the EU with its re-implementation of the unpopular Chat Control.
It worked this week for the german government for it’s unpopular health insurance reform.
BUT:
At least in the EU there was a majority against the Chat Control even though an absolute majority would have been necessary to reject it.
At least gives some kind of glimmer of hope that not all politicians are reckless.
So, hoping for the best concerning this law!
Authoritarian, Fascism, along with Proscription. I don’t recognise anything remotely democratic about any recent Westminster government. I unfortunately see many similarities to a wartime government, but the UK is not at war, except with its own people.
Thank you, Richard, for bringing this critical threat to democratic reporting to our attention. I feel it is essential we actively fight this Act’s implementation!
Asking AI, it suggests:
Force Parliamentary Debate: “Coordinate a mass, synchronized email campaign to MPs on a specific day. If combined with an official Parliament petition that reaches 100,000 signatures, it forces a debate in the House of Commons, keeping the issue in the political spotlight.”
Would this be something you would consider creating, Richard?
Might you?
I will promote it
Great! Is there anyone in your circle/reads your blog who could put something together for you to promote? Unfortunately, I am too unwell physically to do it.
I am too busy…
Why the extraordinary rush to push this Bill through? Could it be to create a fact on the ground before Burnham gets in? Has he any easy constitutional move that would quietly block it? Like asking the King not to give Assent? Or More feebly failing to designate any organisations?
They need never designate anyone
Labour have used (instead of repealing) some awful legislation including the Act stuff this Bill builds on.
A future fascist government will be grateful for this Bill and will use it to further repress dissent. It needs repealing.