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Iran

For several years, LFI has warned about the activities and agenda of the Islamic Republic of Iran which not only poses an existential threat to Israel, but also a substantial threat to Britain. 

 

Iran is a hugely destabilising force in the Middle East. Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution was never designed to be confined to within Iran’s borders. Thus, with financial assistance, guidance and training provided by the regime’s ideological warriors, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran has established and commands a broad network of Shia militant proxy armies and terror groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis. Iran’s strategic goal is the completion of an “arc of influence” – a land bridge connecting Tehran to the Mediterranean Sea and the Israeli border. The completion of the land link would allow for the free flow of arms, soldiers and oil from Hezbollah in the Golan to Iran, via Syria and Assadist forces and Shia-controlled Iraq. 

 

Alongside its proxy armies, Tehran has a burgeoning ballistic missile arsenal and appears to be actively pursuing a nuclear weapons programme with repeated and continual breaches of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action. These developments are concerning not simply because Iran has the Middle East’s largest and most diverse missile arsenal, with a range of up to 2,000km but because of its status as the only country that openly calls for the annihilation of another state.  

 

The regime’s pernicious activities overseas are matched by a malign record at home. Over the past four decades, Iran’s human rights record has consistently been one of the worst in the world. Dissent is rarely tolerated and ruthlessly put down. In the protests and clampdown which followed the death at the hands of the “morality police” of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022, approximately 500 protesters, including at least 68 children, were killed by the security forces and almost 20,000 people were arrested. In 2023, Iran executed over 700 people – a significant increase on 2022 – with the widespread use of torture; severe restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly and the rights of women; and the targeting of human rights and union activists, lawyers, journalists, students and minorities, including the LGBTQ+ community and religious minorities. 

 

LFI has led the way in calling for the British government to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. Labour supports proscription, and set out the legislative changes necessary to make it happen. Outlining his decision, the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy stated: “The Iranian regime’s actions against courageous protestors seeking a better future, as well as British nationals imprisoned in Iran and its threats to UK security mean robust action is needed now. The IRGC is behaving like a terrorist organisation and must now be proscribed as such.” Labour reiterated its commitment to proscribe the IRGC at LFI’s 2023 annual lunch. 

 

LFI previously played a leading role in the effort to persuade the British government to proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety in the UK, with our former chair, Joan Ryan, at the forefront of parliamentary efforts. This work came to fruition in January 2019, when the government agreed that there was no meaningful distinction between Hezbollah’s political and military wings and proscribed the former. Another former chair, Dame Louise Ellman, repeatedly highlighted – and called for an end to – protestors parading Hezbollah flags at the annual Al-Quds Day march in London. 

 

LFI also works to highlight the danger posed by Iran’s ballistic missile programme. As Michael Herzog, former head of the IDF’s strategic planning and now Israel’s ambassador to the United States, argued in LFI’s publication on Iran, “missiles would serve as the main delivery system for a nuclear weapon. At the same time, missiles, rockets and, increasingly, armed drones are proliferated by Iran as a central tool in its regional power projection.” 

 

Our chair, Steve McCabe MP, led calls for the British government to act before the Iranian missile ban lapsed, as well as raising concerns about the expiry of sanctions covering Tehran’s ballistic missile programme. 

 

LFI has exposed Iran’s appalling human rights record and the past failures of the government to impose Magnitsky sanctions – which are designed to promote human rights and punish corruption. We were pleased that David Lammy has echoed our calls for employing such sanctions.  

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LFI director: In this dangerous new world, Britain’s crackdown on Iranian terror is critical

LFI director Michael Rubin has written the below article for the Jewish Chronicle. Click here to read the original. However much the Trump administration shakes the global kaleidoscope, the principal threat facing this country and our allies in Europe and the Middle East remains the same: the Moscow-Tehran axis which promotes violence Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 3 months6 March, 2025 ago

Lord Cryer takes fight to proscribe IRGC to the Lords

Lord Cryer, formerly MP for Leyton and Wanstead between 1997-2024, has today continued his longstanding campaign to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation in the House of Lords. He asked Home Office Minister Lord Hanson: “My Lords, I want to press my noble friend the Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 3 months6 March, 2025 ago

Labour MPs push for IRGC proscription to protect Jewish community

At today’s statement from the Security Minister announcing that the Labour government was placing Iran on the highest tier of the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS), a number of Labour MPs welcomed the announcement as a step towards proscription of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. LFI chair Jon Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 3 months4 March, 2025 ago

Labour govt places Iran and IRGC onto highest foreign influence register tier

The Labour government has today placed the entire Iranian state, including its intelligence services and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, onto the highest tier of the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS). Security Minister Dan Jarvis today confirmed that the FIRS scheme will require “the registration of arrangements to carry out Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 3 months4 March, 2025 ago

LFI chair: We must act urgently to stop Iran producing a nuclear bomb

LFI chair Jon Pearce MP has written the below article for PoliticsHome. Click here to read the original. The UK and its allies are running out of time to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. With the world’s attention focused on the devastating war that began on 7 October 2023, Iran has Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 3 months25 February, 2025 ago

LFI vice-chair Damien Egan: We must not forget the role of those in Tehran who backed Hamas

LFI vice-chair Damien Egan MP has written the below article for the Jewish News. Click here to read the original. Many of us will have experienced a mixture of emotions as we saw the images of Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy as they were released by Hamas on Saturday. Relief Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 4 months13 February, 2025 ago

LFI chair Jon Pearce: It is time to make Britain a Khamenei-free zone

LFI chair Jon Pearce MP has written the below article for JewishNews. Click here to read the original. Last year, the Iranian regime celebrated the 45th anniversary of the revolution which brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power and ushered in more than four decades of brutal repression at home and the export Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 5 months7 January, 2025 ago

After the War: Marginalising the Enemies of Peace

LFI today publishes After the War: Marginalising the Enemies of Peace, a policy paper on what needs to be done after the Gaza war to marginalise the enemies of peace.   For Britain, Europe and pragmatic Arab states, the foundational principle – that a negotiated two-state solution offers the only long-term Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 6 months19 December, 2024 ago

Pat McFadden: Government “will always support Israel’s right to defend itself”

Following developments in Syria over the weekend, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and former LFI vice-chair Pat McFadden MP has reiterated that the government “will always support Israel’s right to defend itself and make itself secure”. Speaking on Sky News, he continued that the overthrow of Assad “had partly Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 6 months9 December, 2024 ago

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s speech to LFI’s 2024 Annual Lunch

***CHECKED AGAINST DELIVERY*** Chief Rabbi, Honoured Guests… It’s a privilege to be invited to speak to you today. And I’d like to begin by thanking our lunch co-sponsors – Sir David Garrard and Stuart Roden. And I know everyone here will join me in sending our very best wishes to Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 6 months2 December, 2024 ago

PM pledges UK-led International Fund meeting at LFI annual lunch

Keir Starmer yesterday addressed LFI’s Annual Lunch – its biggest in 15 years – and underlined his support for Israel and a two-state solution.  The prime minister also had strong words for Iran, restated the government’s opposition to BDS, and made a major announcement on Britain’s work to help establish Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 6 months2 December, 2024 ago

Ministers reiterate need to free hostages and tackle Iran

At today’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Questions session, Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer and International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds respectively reiterated the government’s positions on the need to free the 101 Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza and the need to tackle the threats posed by the Iranian regime. Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 6 months26 November, 2024 ago

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