Starmer told to ban IRGC now
While other nations have shown strength in banning the Iranian terror group, the Government continues to sit on its hands
Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to take immediate action to ban Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Jonathan Hall, KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said that further delays would leave the UK isolated from allies that had imposed bans, including the United States, the European Union, Canada and Australia.
Tory MPs and the Tony Blair Institute have also urged the Prime Minister to take urgent action to ban the IRGC to send a clear message to the Iranian regime over its massacre of protesters and harassment of dissidents in the UK.
Proposals by Mr Hall for legislation to introduce new terror-style powers enabling ministers to ban the IRGC were backed by the Labour Government in May last year.
However, they have still not been published or enacted. Government sources have said the measures will be introduced “when parliamentary time allows”, but they admit there is no timeline.
Mr Hall told The Telegraph: “My recommendation was not for several years away. It was an immediate recommendation. It is up to the Government how important it thinks the recommendation is compared with other legislation but I was making a recommendation based on a genuine need.”
His report warned that there would be practical difficulties if the UK used current terror laws to proscribe the IRGC, like Hamas or Islamic State (IS), because it is a state body and has upwards of 600,000 members, each of whom would be defined as a terrorist.
Instead, he proposed hybrid powers targeted at those who support and provide help for the IRGC rather than membership, with a maximum jail sentence of 14 years, and a new criminal offence of inviting support for state agencies such as the IRGC or displaying their flags or insignia.
Without the new law, the UK could not follow the EU and send a tough message to Iran. “What’s frustrating here is that the Government hasn’t got the option of doing that unless it brings forth new laws,” he said.
“If it wants to pass other laws in priority, that’s its decision. But the frustration is that unless they do pass new laws, the Home Secretary hasn’t even got the choice.”
The Telegraph: continue reading
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Why won’t Britain just ban the IRGC?
he European Union has finally done what it long argued it could not. Yesterday, the bloc formally designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation, placing it in the same legal category as al-Qaeda and Islamic State. The decision was framed by Europe’s foreign ministers as a response to mass repression, extrajudicial killings and the systematic use of terror by the Iranian state against its own population. ‘Repression cannot go unanswered,’ said Kaja Kallas, vice-president of the European Commission, announcing the move.
It was not a symbolic flourish. The designation means the EU can now freeze assets, assign criminal liability and enforce travel bans. It signals, at least on paper, that Europe has accepted a basic reality: the IRGC is not a conventional military force but the Iranian regime’s primary instrument of internal repression, regional violence and transnational intimidation. What took them so long?
Iran’s formal response to the EU designation was delivered through ministries and generals: denunciations, threats of ‘consequences’, and claims that Europe is subservient to Washington and Israel. Meanwhile, Iranian state-aligned media escalated the rhetoric. Kayhan, a mouthpiece closely associated with the so-called Supreme Leader’s office, openly threatened to sink American ships and close the Strait of Hormuz. Days later it announced live-fire naval drills that would disrupt shipping. None of it fooled anyone.
But where does Britain now stand?
The United Kingdom, having left the European Union in order, among other things, to pursue an independent foreign and security policy, remains conspicuously outside this decision. At least ministers are now signalling that the IRGC should be proscribed, with legislation being prepared to facilitate that. Briefings have begun, but the problem is time. The organisation is still legal on British soil. So is the Muslim Brotherhood, by the way. If Brexit was sold as a means of restoring sovereignty and strategic clarity, few of its proponents can have hoped independence would translate into a posture that is slower, softer and more permissive than that of Brussels.
David Lammy condemned Iran’s ‘brutal oppression’ this week, but initially reaffirmed the government’s long-standing line that it does not comment on whether specific organisations are being considered for proscription – a formula designed to sound serious while committing to nothing. The contrast with the EU’s decision could not be starker. Separately, the government finally confirmed yesterday that new powers are being drafted to allow the proscription of hostile state agencies, including the IRGC. But those same briefings emphasised that the legislation will not be fast-tracked and is not imminent.
This gap matters because declarations without enforcement change little. Terror designations derive their force from coordinated action by banks, regulators, shipping authorities and intelligence services. Without that machinery, sanctions become theatre. Britain has refined the language of moral outrage while allowing process to substitute for action. Our systems are exposed, our financial markets open, our legal thresholds conveniently distant. Westminster has moved cautiously in the past partly because successive US administrations have quietly valued the British embassy in Tehran as a channel for indirect communication with the regime, but any such argument for caution has well and truly been outrun by events. There have been numerous Islamic Republic murder and terror attempts on British soil; we have seen the horrific slaughter of Iranian protestors over recent weeks in Iran.
The consequences are visible in London itself. The ‘Islamic Centre of England’, based in a former cinema in Maida Vale, west London, remains operational. Everyone in Westminster knows what it is. Regulators know. Neighbours know. Journalists know. Iranian dissidents certainly know. It functions as an institutional hub of Iranian state religious and political influence in Britain, with documented links to the Supreme Leader’s office and a record of activity aligned with regime narratives. It has been investigated, warned, temporarily closed and then allowed to reopen. Its continued presence speaks volumes about the limits of British resolve.
At the same time, Britain is being used as a safe deposit box for the regime’s elite. A recent Bloomberg investigation by Ben Bartenstein detailed how Mojtaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader’s son and a pivotal figure in Iran’s power structure, has built a sprawling overseas property and investment network. London features prominently. Mansions, shell companies, compliant intermediaries, western banks. Oil money flows out while Iranians are left with worthless currency. Europe moves to blacklist the IRGC. Britain hosts the beneficiaries of the system it claims to oppose. It is shameful.
All of this is unfolding against a rapidly hardening military backdrop. The United States continues to pour forces into the region: missile destroyers, electronic warfare aircraft, airborne command platforms. The language coming from Washington is increasingly explicit. Unlike June’s stealth bomber mission, this is meant to be seen clearly and in advance. It is meant to focus minds.
The Spectator: continue reading
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