Members of the Iranian Basij paramilitary force rallying in support of Palestinians (Alamy)
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Labour MPs are leading renewed calls for the government to proscribe the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.
Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) has urged ministers to step up their response to the IRGC, warning that it is “propagating antisemitism” and “plotting to murder dissidents and journalists” on British soil.
In a new paper published on Monday, LFI said the government should proscribe the organisation while it is conducting its review of terrorism legislation. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in January confirmed the government was reviewing its “counter-extremist system”.
Report author Jemima Shelly, a senior research analyst at United Against Nuclear Iran, said that if the government could not outlaw the group within current terrorism legislation, then Starmer should still ensure those who support the IRGC face the same repercussions as proponents of terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
The paper shared with PoliticsHome argued that designating the IRGC as a terrorist organisation would disrupt its efforts to nurture homegrown Islamist extremism in the UK.
Jon Pearce, Labour MP for High Peak and LFI Chair, said the IRGC’s “malign influence” in the UK was “propagating antisemitism and plotting the murder of dissidents and journalists”.
“Tehran’s terror army is not simply responsible for gross violations of human rights against the Iranian people and sowing violence and instability throughout the Middle East, it is also a clear and present danger here at home,” he said.
“The government’s counter-terrorism review announced last month provides the perfect opportunity to do just that. We must give the police, security services and public bodies the powers they need to ensure the IRGC is banned and treated just like other terrorist groups.”
Luke Akehurst, Labour MP for North Durham, told Politicshome: “I welcome this paper and have been calling for a long time for proscription of the IRGC.
“Labour backed proscription in opposition, now we are in government, we should act on this and designate this extremely dangerous Iranian organisation as the terrorist threat that it is.”
A government spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “The UK government, law enforcement and our international partners continue to work together to identify, deter and respond to threats from Iran.
“We continue to take strong action and hold the Iranian regime to account, sanctioning more than 450 Iranian individuals and entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, as well as placing Iran on the enhanced tier of the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme.”
The IRGC was introduced in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution as a branch of the country’s armed forces.
It is today one of the most powerful paramilitary organisations in the Middle East, exporting Islamic extremism abroad and supporting terrorist groups abroad like Hamas and Hezbollah.
It has been directly linked to at least 20 foiled terror plots in the UK since 2022, according to MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum.
Two IRGC commanders – Hossein Yekta and Saeed Ghasemi – in 2021 and 2022 gave antisemitic talks to students in the UK, the BBC reported in January. In one of the talks, shown online, students were encouraged to be “soft-war officers” at their universities — a term used by the Iranian regime to describe an ideological war with the West.
In 2022, Yvette Cooper, the then-shadow home secretary, confirmed Labour in government would commit to adding the group to its list of terrorist organisations.
In the wake of Iranian missile attacks on Israel in April 2024, she asked the then-Home Secretary James Cleverly whether it was “now time to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the UK?”
After the 2024 election, Foreign Secretary David Lammy told The Guardian the government was unlikely to rush such an action. There has been an underlying tension between the Home Office and Foreign Office over whether to ban the IRGC outright, with the latter believed to fear it would damage important diplomatic back channels with Tehran.
Security minister Dan Jarvis in March directly addressed the threat of Iranian terror groups on British soil, after he claimed the regime was using criminal proxies to do its bidding.
He said the government would place the whole of the Iranian state – including the IRGC – onto the enhanced tier of the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme.
