Labour Friends of Israel
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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.  

Labour Lords push govt on BBC, hostages and IRGC proscription

LFI’s chair in the House of Lords, Baroness Ramsay, said with regard to the BBC’s reporting of the the conflict between Israel and Hamas: “Saying that Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation was a weasel-worded way of getting out of the fact that they were not going to call it Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years24 October, 2023 ago

Labour FCDO Lords spokesperson: “Responsibility for this crisis lies with Hamas”

Responding today’s debate in the House of Lords for the opposition, Labour’s Foreign Office spokesperson in the House of Lords, Lord Collins, said: “As Keir Starmer said yesterday, the brutal attack in Israel just over two weeks ago was the darkest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust. The horror Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years24 October, 2023 ago

Labour pushes for hostage release and IRGC proscription amid Israel-Hamas war

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary and LFI parliamentary supporter David Lammy MP used one of his questions to ask: “George Mitchell, the great American peacemaker, said that diplomacy was “700 days of failure and one day of success”. Labour recognises the hard, quiet diplomacy required to secure the release of hostages Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years24 October, 2023 ago

LFI director Michael Rubin: Labour members should welcome Keir’s clear line on terror and antisemitism

LFI director Michael Rubin has written the below article for LabourList. Click here to read the original. Hamas’ attacks on Israel on October 7 were brutal and unprecedented. Deliberately targeting civilians, 1,400 people were murdered: young people enjoying a rave, Holocaust survivors and pregnant women among them. At a kibbutz I Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years19 October, 2023 ago

LFI statement on the tragic events of the last 10 days in Israel and Gaza

Last weekend, Hamas launched a terrorist attack deliberately targeting Israeli civilians. Over 1,400 people were murdered: babies massacred, Holocaust survivors shot dead and entire families tortured and killed. Hamas seized 200 Israeli hostages, including women, children and people with disabilities.   The terror attacks represent the deadliest day for the Jewish Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years17 October, 2023 ago

Analysis: Israel reels from Hamas attacks as Gaza intervention looms

Israel is preparing to initiate a “significant ground operation” to strike Hamas in Gaza “from air, sea and land” following last week’s terror attacks. Latest developments Latest figures suggest that at least 1,400 Israelis were killed in the Hamas terror attacks and rocket fire from Gaza, with 4,121 injured and around 200 Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years17 October, 2023 ago

Labour “stands with Israel” in Commons statement

At today’s statement from the prime minister on Hamas’s attacks on Israel and the ongoing situation in Gaza, Labour leader Keir Starmer made clear that “Labour stands with Israel”, summarising the party’s wish to “send a strong message that Westminster is united, and Britain is united: with Israel, against terror, Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years16 October, 2023 ago

Analysis: Hamas’ bloody massacre sparks war with Israel

Hamas launched a massive assault on southern Israel on Saturday morning, murdering over 1,000 men, women and children and kidnapping an estimated 130 hostages. Thousands of people were injured in the well-planned and highly organised sneak attack which took place on Shabbat, while many Israelis were journeying to synagogues to Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years11 October, 2023 ago

Starmer to LFI: “Labour stands with Israel”

Keir Starmer strongly backed Israel and condemned Hamas at LFI’s reception on Tuesday evening, at which some 1,000 people turned out to show support for the Jewish state. The Labour leader addressed LFI supporters during a vigil for the victims of the terrorist attacks, during which there was a memorial Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years10 October, 2023 ago

LFI chair: Labour can be ambitious in its Middle East policy

LFI chair Steve McCabe MP has written the below article for Progressive Britain Click here to read the original. If Labour wins the next general election, the political and economic landscape of the Middle East will look rather different than when Tony Blair arrived in Downing Street in 1997. Although already Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years6 October, 2023 ago

Analysis: LFI lays out Middle East policy agenda for next Labour government

Ahead of Labour’s annual conference next week, LFI has released its latest policy pamphlet: Britain and the Middle East: Priorities for the Next Labour Government exclusively in the Guardian today. Priorities for the next Labour government Britain and the Middle East: Priorities for the Next Labour Government offers 26 policy recommendations to a wide Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years5 October, 2023 ago

In Brief: Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander visits Syria

The head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ elite Quds Force, Esmail Ghaani, visited Syria last week to oversee a joint military drill, according to Iranian media reports. Ghaani, who was appointed following a US drone strike against his predecessor, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020, reportedly met senior Syrian officials in Read more…

By lfiIsrael, 2 years26 September, 2023 ago

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