UK Fast-Tracks Foreign-State Proxies Bill Amid Security Crisis

The day's substantive policy news is the announcement of fast-track legislation against foreign-state proxies. Security Minister Dan Jarvis told the Commons on 14 May the government will introduce a bill in the coming weeks giving authorities "new proscription-like powers to ban the activities of state-backed organisations that pose a threat to the UK's national security," covering individuals and groups carrying out hostile activity for foreign states and their proxies. Jarvis set out a threat picture spanning Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorism, Iranian state-linked attacks on British Jews and regime opponents, and Chinese state interference operations on UK soil; he said MI5 and Counter Terrorism Policing have disrupted 19 late-stage attack plots since 2020, including what he called a "chilling ISIS-inspired plot to target Jewish communities in Manchester using firearms." The catalyst was last week's first NSA2023 China convictions of two men over Hong Kong-directed surveillance and intimidation — "a shadow policing operation in the United Kingdom," Jarvis said — after which the Chinese ambassador was summoned and the FCDO demanded the immediate termination of Chung Biu Yuen's employment at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office.

The legislation arrives layered on top of a wider security uplift. The terrorism threat level was raised from substantial to severe on 30 April, meaning a terrorist attack is "highly likely in the next six months," and a review is now underway of the national threat-level system, which presently captures only the terrorist threat. The government announced £25 million in immediate funding for Jewish community protection following a series of arson attacks and a stabbing in Golders Green — taking total protective security funding to £58 million this year — on top of an extra £140 million for Counter Terrorism Policing last year and nearly £600 million more for the intelligence services, both now at record funding levels. Jarvis cast all of it as one programme rather than a sequence of responses.

A separate institutional problem opened at the other end of the security state. The Metropolitan Police has launched an urgent investigation into allegations that officers from its Royalty and Specialist Protection team fell asleep on duty and left their posts unattended at Windsor Castle. The force said the alleged behaviour falls "below the high standards expected" and that early reporting suggested specific posts were not properly covered for periods; the case adds to a pattern of personnel-vetting and tradecraft questions inside RaSP that has dogged the unit over the past two years.

On foreign policy, the government published an updated factsheet on 12 May putting total UK support to Ukraine since the 2022 invasion at £21.8 billion. Military aid stands at £10.8 billion, with the government commitment to sustain £3 billion a year in military aid until at least 2030-31; non-military support covers humanitarian assistance, energy infrastructure, sanctions enforcement and reconstruction work. In trade, the UK is close to finalising a Gulf Cooperation Council deal covering Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, with negotiations now advanced on goods, services and digital trade and bilateral investment flows.

The week's structural political story remains the contraction around the Starmer government. On 14 May Health Secretary Wes Streeting resigned from cabinet saying he had "lost confidence" in the prime minister's leadership; he was joined by another four junior ministers and four ministerial aides earlier in the same week. By mid-May, 97 Labour MPs had signed letters calling on Starmer to either resign or set out a departure timetable, an open demand without recent precedent in Labour government. The backdrop is the May local elections, in which Labour lost control of 35 councils and roughly 1,500 councillors — nearly 60% of seats up for election — with the BBC's projected national vote share putting Labour at 17%, joint third with the Conservatives and roughly half the party's general-election share. Reform UK, on Nigel Farage's claim of "a historic shift in British politics," forms the largest insurgent gainer; the government's earlier February U-turn on delaying 30 local elections, after Reform's legal challenge, set up the magnitude of the defeat. The proxies bill, the Windsor inquiry, the Ukraine factsheet and the GCC talks all now play out against an immediately uncertain prime-ministerial timeline.