Britain’s Hybrid Threats Directorate: Whitehall’s Ministry for Manufacturing Enemies

Freddie Ponton
21st Century Wire

A British government operation established to counter Russian disinformation has expanded to Iran, China and Gaza, according to leaked Foreign Office files examined by David Miller, a British political sociologist and investigative researcher specialising in the study of propaganda and political influence.

Miller’s investigation for MintPress News draws on internal government pages and an organizational chart naming officials, specialist teams and private contractors. The documents expose part of a state apparatus that operates with little public scrutiny while monitoring and countering narratives deemed threatening to British interests.

At the centre of the files is the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Information Threats and Influence Directorate. Its teams covered Russia, China and Iran, while another structure worked on Israel and Gaza. Miller reports that the directorate was later absorbed into the Cyber, Information and Tech Threats Directorate. Its functions now appear to fall within the broader Hybrid Threats Directorate.

Iran was not merely added to a list of foreign concerns. Miller reports that leaked charts place the China and Iran desk under the same official who led a semi-detached team focused on Israel and Gaza, with personnel developing proactive campaigns alongside regional and communications departments. The documents therefore place work concerning Iran, Israel and Gaza within an overlapping institutional structure, showing how the same Foreign Office information-threat structure could be directed across related geopolitical issues.

The Gaza operation emerges amid an unprecedented crackdown on Palestine solidarity in Britain. The government proscribed Palestine Action under terrorism legislation in July 2025. Since then, more than 3,300 people have been arrested and over 1,200 charged with terrorism-related offences, many for peacefully opposing the ban. The UN human rights chief warned that the proscription misused counterterrorism law and threatened freedom of expression, assembly and association.

The leaked files expose another layer of state power behind that visible police response. Government analysts monitor political narratives and trace how they circulate, while intelligence agencies, communications teams and contractors develop measures against activity classified as foreign manipulation. Ministers have already portrayed pro-Palestinian demonstrations as having been “hijacked” by people seeking to sow division. Within the information-threat apparatus described by Miller, such rhetoric can recast opposition to British support for Israel as something imported, manipulated or dangerous rather than a genuine political response to the destruction of Gaza.

Once dissent enters that system, official assessments can shape government messaging, engagement with online platforms, funding decisions and how people are treated across public institutions. The machinery exposed by Miller allows officials to define the threat, identify its alleged carriers and intervene without disclosing the evidence behind those judgments.

Parliamentary oversight has not kept pace. The Intelligence and Security Committee has warned that security functions transferred into policy departments have escaped its scrutiny. The government blocked attempts to extend the committee’s remit to bodies including the Counter Disinformation Unit and the Foreign Office’s intelligence policy department, preventing what the committee called “effective scrutiny by Parliament.”

When an organic protest movement can be branded a foreign influence threat and its supporters arrested under terrorism law, who prevents a hidden information-war apparatus from treating political opposition as an enemy of the state?

READ MORE: MILLER’S FULL MINTPRESS NEWS INVESTIGATION 

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