Reviewer of State Threats Legislation tells RUSI: “Beware the Foreign Hand
24 July 20242 Minute Read
Jonathan Hall KC, the UK’s Independent Reviewer of State Threats Legislation, discussed unlawful foreign interference in the UK in a speech given at RUSI on 23 July 2024.
Giving his first public address in his new role, as the Home Secretary’s Independent Reviewer of State Threats Legislation, Mr Hall reflected on the UK’s innovative legal response to overseas meddling, from assassination and election interference to disinformation and diaspora intimidation.
Describing the rationale of the new offence of ‘foreign interference’, Mr Hall said:
The purpose of this offence is fundamentally two-fold. Imagine that a UK resident has been caught and prosecuted for interfering in UK affairs on behalf of a Foreign Power. Firstly, it is saying to the Foreign Hand – “we see you”. We see what you are doing, and we call it out. Not just in the shadowy odd expulsion of foreign intelligence officers, but through arrests, detentions, searches, and in the glare of the criminal justice system.
He continued:
Secondly, saying to the public at large – “don’t you dare”. If you are a tasked foreign agent you are personally at risk. If you are an enabler tempted by greed, don’t lend yourself to foreign meddling. Regulate your conduct if not as a matter of morality or patriotism then legal sanction. Beware the Foreign Hand.
Jonathan Hall KC, the UK’s Independent Reviewer of State Threats Legislation
