This analysis examines the foreign policy features and domestic implications of British policy towards Iran between 1974 and 1976. Starting with the assumption that economic interests, as well as Cold War imperatives, shaped British policy towards Iran into one where human rights had no space, the conduct of Britain's foreign policy apparatus towards the Shah vis à vis the disturbing reporting of human rights abuses in Iran and the intensification of anti-Shah activism in Britain remains important. Situating the relationship amongst societal forces, foreign policy, and diplomacy as the main analytical thread, this analysis brings new evidence to the field of Britain's relations with Iran, anti-Shah activism abroad, and the effects of the government's policy towards Iran on the British Labour Party. Any scholar exploring Iran's relations with Britain and, more generally, with the West in the 1970s is well aware of the diplomatic efforts required to please the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Keeping the Shah happy was not an easy task at that time. The Conservative government of Edward Heath, in power from 1970 to 1974, had to spend 'an inordinate amount of time and resources and diplomatic efforts to keep the Shah happy', as the monarch, 'being a brittle personality', was very sensitive to criticism of his rule and demanded unconditional support from his allies. 1 This exercise became particularly visible in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis, when despite the Shah's role in the rise in oil prices that contributed to Britain's economic recession, the Heath government actively discouraged any sort of reprisal against the monarch. 2 And it emerged even more clearly between 1974 and 1976 when, as a consequence of the growing criticism of human rights violations perpetrated by the Iranian regime, one of the primary tasks of Britain's ambassador to Iran, Anthony Parsons, became to reassure the monarch and his entourage of London's continued appreciation of the Shah's rule. 3 In what can be regarded as the most recent and insightful historical treatment of Britain's policy towards Iran in the late 1970s, Edward Posnett's 2012 article,

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