Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 23 August 2026. © Richard Kemp

Iran just shut down a UK power plant for four days in the most successful cyber attack ever on British national infrastructure. For those who were previously in any doubt, this strike confirms that our country is at war with Iran.

The government appears to be trying to play it down, describing the target as ‘a very small-scale site’ with the outage not affecting the national grid. This is part of a pattern of weakness. In March, an Iranian-made drone fired by Iranian proxies hit RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. Our response: nothing – other than perhaps a few harsh words with Tehran’s ambassador.

This fear of standing up to Iran goes much further back. During the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was responsible for killing and maiming many British soldiers using explosively formed projectiles against our vehicles as well as other forms of attack. How did we respond to that? Despite potential military options, we settled for a diplomatic ticking-off which predictably had zero effect. These feeble reactions are stored up in the collective minds of the leadership in Tehran.

This is not the way to deal with hostile states, and least of all Iran. The jihadist dictatorship rightly sees our paralysis as weakness and that only encourages greater aggression. So instead of trying to hush it all up, we need to see strong and publicly-pronounced action. Nor should we restrict ourselves to cyber counter-attacks. Military strength is the only language the regime in Tehran understands, whether that be against cyber capabilities, headquarters or their own energy infrastructure. We should also vigorously sign up to Trump’s Operation Economic Fury campaign against Iran, applying economic sanctions, financial restrictions and blockade measures to constrain oil exports and access to revenue.

On top of that, it’s time to properly proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation rather than the state threat designation that was recently applied to it. Starmer stopped short of full-blown proscription because he was afraid that might complicate UK-Iran diplomatic relations as the IRGC is an instrument of the Tehran government. But this latest Iranian aggression should show Burnham that we are now beyond that. And he also needs to examine the veracity of our intelligence estimates on the threat from Iran. If I were him I would be asking questions about last year’s Intelligence and Security Committee report that said the chance of an Iranian cyber attack on British infrastructure was “unlikely”. Bear in mind the committee has access to the secret intelligence on which the government relies.

I emphasise the need for public rather than behind-the-scenes action because diplomacy doesn’t work with Tehran as we have seen repeatedly since the Islamic Revolution. Such a stance would of course be a hard bullet to bite for this Labour government which will be very wary of doing anything that alienates their backbenchers and hard left voters. But this is a time to put the country’s security interests ahead of the party. Otherwise the next Iranian cyber and drone attacks will not be so ‘small-scale”’

There are also others than Iran to consider. Last week Vladimir Putin threatened Britain with unspecified ‘consequences’ for supplying Ukraine with long-range drones. Apparently we are to ‘pay a price’, and no doubt he has more in mind than just withdrawing his ambassador. The best way to counter Putin’s threat is a demonstration of our resolve against any enemy that launches attacks against us.