Scottish police on Friday said they arrested two people attempting to enter a Royal Navy base where Britain’s nuclear submarines are based, as UK media identified one detainee as an Iranian man.
“Around 5pm (GMT) on Thursday, 19 March, 2026, we were made aware of two people attempting to enter HM Naval Base Clyde,” Police Scotland said in a statement sent to AFP.
“A 34-year-old man and 31-year-old woman have been arrested in connection and enquiries are ongoing,” the police added, without providing additional details.
The pair “unsuccessfully attempted” to enter the naval base, known as Faslane, a Royal Navy spokesperson said.
“As the matter is subject to an ongoing investigation, we will not comment further.”
Faslane houses the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent, four submarines armed with Trident ballistic missiles.
That has made it the target of regular anti-nuclear protests. Earlier in March, the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament organised a demonstration outside the naval base.
The UK has allowed the United States to use two of its military bases — in Fairford in southwest England and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — for operations in Washington’s war against Iran, which the British government insists are purely “defensive”.
UK police, the domestic MI5 intelligence service and members of parliament have long warned about a growing threat of Iranian espionage in Britain.
In October 2025, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said British security agencies had tracked “more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots” in the previous year.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on Thursday warned her Iranian counterpart by phone “against targeting UK bases, territory or interests directly”, according to a foreign office statement.
It came after Tehran issued a statement saying Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Cooper in the call that allowing the United States to use British bases would be seen as “participation in aggression” against the Islamic republic.
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