The attack on Salman Rushdie has hit close to home in Britain where it has spilled over into many aspects of life, including the Tory leadership contest.

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who voiced her support for Rushdie, has also received a death threat, apparently coming from Pakistan.

Rishi Sunak, said to be behind foreign secretary Liz Truss in some polls, has called for sanctions against Iran, where an assortment of hardliners have praised the actions of Rushdie’s intended assassin but with no proof the regime in Teheran was directly involved in the attack

“The brutal stabbing of Salman Rushdie should be a wake-up call for the West, and Iran’s reaction to the attack strengthens the case for proscribing the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps),” the former chancellor said.

Referring to the slow progress in talks between Iran and the West to revive a nuclear deal, Rishi added: “We urgently need a new, strengthened deal and much tougher sanctions, and if we can’t get results then we have to start asking whether the JCPOA is at a dead end.”

The JCPOA, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is the 2015 agreement under which Iran curbed its nuclear programme in return for an easing of sanctions by the US, the EU and the United Nations. This agreement was torn up unilaterally by former US President Donald Trump.

At a time Iran entertains hopes of reviving the agreement with President Joe Biden, it would not make sense for the Teheran regime to get involved in an attempt to assassinate Rushdie. But there are plenty of hardliners in Iran willing to emphasise Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against the author of The Satanic Verses remains valid — and use Rushdie as a pawn in their internal power game. But the regime does not condemn the use of violence against Rushdie.

The FBI said it was supporting state police and “working closely with our international partners in the United Kingdom to provide additional resources, since the victim is a UK-US dual citizen”.