Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) has published a new policy paper: Unleashing hell: Time to ban Tehran’s terror army which details the Islamic Republic’s brutal repression of its own people and calls for the proscription of the IRGC, recognition of the regime’s crimes against humanity and to protect Britons from this threat.
“Britain should immediately ban the external terror wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,” former home secretary David Blunkett argues in a foreword for the paper. He goes on to say, “Despite the continuing war, the regime intends to survive, and its new leadership are as odious and hardline as their predecessors.”
Blunkett points to, “The new head of the IRGC, Ahmad Vahidi, is an internationally wanted terrorist who has been implicated in the murderous 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed. As interior minister, Vahidi presided over the brutal crackdown on the Women, Life, Freedom protests in 2022. His record symbolises the pernicious, dual-nature of the IRGC as an instrument of terror overseas and on the streets of Iran.”
The paper’s author, former Iran International director of security Roger Macmillan, argues that “the case for proscribing the IRGC-Quds Force does not weaken in the fog of war; it sharpens. If the IRGC consolidates further power in the post-Khamenei order, the UK will face not a weakened adversary open to diplomacy, but an enhanced militarised state whose new commander personally embodies the fusion of international terrorism and domestic atrocity.” Macmillan calls for the government to urgently make parliamentary time to bring forward new legislation allowing it to ban the IRGC in its entirety.
As Iran takes its war abroad, the government must step up support for the Jewish community and Iranian dissidents – who have long been targets for the regime’s terrorist activities. The report recommends a number of steps the UK can take now to address the threat from the Islamic Republic and the IRGC, including:
- Immediately proscribe the IRGC-QF under existing terrorism legislation. The IRGC’s Quds Force is formally designated by a number of allied governments, albeit as part of the wider proscription of the IRGC. However, Canada proscribed the QF in 2012, 12 years before full proscription. This can be accomplished immediately without awaiting new legislation.
- Accelerate Hall review implementation. Bring forward state-analogous proscription legislation as an urgent priority with a clear timeline. As a priority, make parliamentary time available given cross-party support.
- Publicly recognise crimes against humanity. The foreign secretary should formally acknowledge evidence indicating crimes against humanity by Iranian security forces. Support international accountability, including ICC referral and UN fact-finding mission.
- Enhance diaspora protection. Expand protective measures for British-Iranian dual nationals and dissidents through enforcing the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme and enhanced security service cooperation with affected communities.
- Escalate and enforce sanctions. Target senior political elites, IRGC and entities facilitating sanctions evasion, including cryptocurrency networks and oil smuggling.
- Identify and remove soft influence networks. Identify and dismantle soft influence networks that advance the regime’s objectives under the cover of cultural, academic, charitable or media activity. This is not about restricting lawful speech, but about exposing opaque funding, coordination with sanctioned actors and systematic diaspora intimidation.
- Downgrade future diplomatic engagement. If the regime survives in some form, the UK must fundamentally recalibrate its diplomatic posture. Any future nuclear negotiations must not preclude accountability for mass atrocities. We must make clear that the restoration of normal relations is contingent on a cessation of repression and regional destabilisation.