Shadow Home Secretary and LFI parliamentary supporter Yvette Cooper MP
Shadow Home Secretary and LFI parliamentary supporter Yvette Cooper MP has reiterated Labour’s intention to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation should it come to government after the next election.
In a speech today at the Royal United Services Institute, Yvette set out Labour’s vision for national security, saying: “As part of the strategy, Labour will bring forward new changes to legislation to allow the government to ban hostile state-sponsored organisations who undermine our national security”.
“So instead of trying and failing to use counter-terror legislation to proscribe organisations like Wagner or IRGC, we will introduce a bespoke proscribing mechanism to address state-sponsored threats”.
“We will work with the security and intelligence agencies, public and private sector businesses, universities and partners here and abroad to ensure this strategy is fit, comprehensive, collaborative and fit for the challenges we face.”
Under Labour’s pledge, it would be a criminal offence to belong to the IRGC, attend its meetings or encourage support for it.
Labour’s announcement comes as Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, disclosed that ten IRGC plots in the UK had been foiled in the past year. The IRGC sends hit squads to assassinate dissidents on British soil.
Proscription of the IRGC is a longstanding LFI campaign goal, having been called for in our pamphlet on Iran published last year.