Philip Ingram MBE examines how hostile states are blurring the line between espionage and terrorism, exposing legislative gaps and ushering in a new era of hybrid threats.
The UK confronts an unprecedented security challenge.
81 terrorist organisations stand proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000, with 14 additional groups banned under previous Northern Ireland legislation.
According to the UK government’s CONTEST strategy, the terrorist threat is now ‘more diverse, dynamic and complex.’
However, state actors now pose the gravest emerging threat. MI5’s Director General, Sir Ken McCallum, has identified Iran as “the state actor which most frequently crosses into terrorism”.
State-sponsored terrorism now demands new responses from security services unprepared for adversaries with diplomatic immunity and vast resources.
Britain’s terrorism laws create significant gaps when confronting state actors.
Two key pieces of legislation form the foundation of counter-terrorism law, but neither adequately addresses state-sponsored threats.
The Terrorism Act 2000 established Britain’s first permanent terrorism legislation, defining terrorism as “the use or threat of action” involving serious violence, property damage, endangerment to life or disruption of electronic systems, coupled with political, religious, racial or ideological motivation.
This definition contains a critical flaw: Parliament never intended the Act to apply to state entities. Russian intelligence services exploit this gap deliberately.
The Home Secretary can proscribe organisations “concerned in terrorism” when they commit, prepare for, promote or encourage terrorist acts.
Parliament must formally approve each proscription order, ensuring legislative oversight of the Home Secretary’s decision. Supporting or belonging to such organisations carries penalties of up to 14 years imprisonment.
State intelligence services operate beyond these rules entirely.
The Terrorism Act 2006 criminalised encouraging terrorism, introduced after the 7/7 London bombings. Section 1 targets statements likely to encourage terrorist acts directly or indirectly.
“Glorification” constitutes indirect encouragement if people could reasonably infer they should copy such conduct.
Whilst the legislation helps counter online radicalisation, it often proves less effective against sophisticated state influence operations.
State-sponsored operations appear to be expanding beyond traditional intelligence gathering into more visible forms of disruption. Recent operations indicate a growing readiness by foreign states to carry out activity on UK soil.
Foreign intelligence services have abandoned traditional espionage boundaries.
They now blend terrorism tactics with state resources, creating threats that existing frameworks struggle to address.
Russia increasingly employs criminal proxies, including private intelligence operatives and individuals from the UK and other countries.
By using proxies, operations can continue while keeping a degree of separation that provides plausible deniability.
This allows attacks to continue without a clear link to the state. The National Security Act 2023 provides fresh tools against hostile actors. These measures represent progress, but gaps remain.
According to Europol’s 2025 European Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA), “criminal networks are increasingly operating as proxies in the service of hybrid threat actors.”
McCallum reported a 35% increase in individuals under investigation for state threat activity. State threats have expanded beyond traditional espionage to include “attempts by state actors to commission surveillance, sabotage, arson or physical violence” on British soil.
According to Counter Terrorism Policing, more than one-fifth of its casework is now focused on protecting the UK against state-linked threat activity rather than traditional terrorism.
State threats operate across multiple domains: Espionage, physical violence, assassination attempts and economic damage. These activities target government, businesses, universities and critical infrastructure alike.
Counter Terrorism Policing developed dedicated state threats teams after the 2018 Salisbury poisonings to investigate what Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor calls “transnational repression.”
The distinction between espionage and terrorism has collapsed.
When states commission arson attacks or assassinations on foreign soil, they cross into terrorism territory.
Yet diplomatic immunity and state resources make them far more dangerous than traditional terrorist groups.
The UK government has assembled new legislative tools and updated the existing CONTEST frameworks to counter state-sponsored terrorism.
These responses acknowledge that traditional counter-terrorism measures prove insufficient against sophisticated state actors.
State-sponsored terrorism has altered the UK’s security landscape permanently. These include proposals for Statutory Alert and Liability Threat (SALT) Notices under the National Security Act 2023. These would function as terrorism proscription powers for state actors.
According to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism and State Threat Legislation’s 2025 report, the mechanism would allow authorities to formally designate hostile foreign intelligence services.
This would make it more difficult for these entities to operate covertly in the UK, as they could no longer rely on finding willing or unwitting assistance.
This represents the most significant expansion of government powers since the original Terrorism Act.
The challenge demands continued adaptation.
Legal frameworks designed for traditional terrorist groups struggle with state actors who exploit diplomatic immunity and vast resources.
Security services must balance finite resources between conventional threats and increasingly sophisticated state operations exploiting legislative gaps.
This era of hybrid threats requires different responses.
The measures introduced represent significant progress, yet hostile powers continue to test Britain’s resolve. Our security services face increasingly complex decisions about how best to allocate limited resources – choices that will shape the nation’s security posture for decades to come.
The threat is unmistakable; the response must be equally resolute.
While strategic ambiguity has long been treated as an art form across the sector, particularly in relation to evolving legislation, the current moment demands clarity of purpose and conviction.
