Labour plans change in law to make ban on Iranian military group easier
Home affairs and foreign affairs spokespeople Yvette Copper and David Lammy both committed to move to proscribe the IRGC
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
Labour is planning to change the laws around proscribing organisations as terrorist groups if elected to power, after watching the current government failing to act over Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Following through on a manifesto commitment to formally declare the IRGC a terror organisation, Labour has concluded a radical overhaul of current ways to do this is needed.
Communal groups including the Labour and the Conservative Friends of Israel organisations have both called for the IRGC to be proscribed, as have the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council.
Counter-terrorist experts revealed 15 plots by Iran to kill or kidnap on British soil, including of individuals with Israeli backgrounds.
The IRGC, a military group with its own air, land, naval, and special forces, leads the way in protecting Tehran’s hardline regime.
A report in the The Telegraph suggested one aspect of Labour’s new “bespoke” approach to prescription would be the formation of new “joint cell” between the Home Office and the Foreign Office to work together on how to tackle state-based threats posing a risk on UK soil.
The Tory government was divided over whether it was beneficial to proscribe the IRGC, with differing views emerging from ministers in Suella Braverman and Tom Tugendhat.
There were also concerns raised that proscription of the IRGC would mean cutting off all diplomatic back channel routes through to Tehran.
Both Labour’s Yvette Cooper and David Lammy – who will become home secretary and foreign Secretary if the party are elected into power – are both committed proscribing the IRGC.
As part of this process both will back an update of the UK’s cross-government counter-terrorism strategy, called Contest, introduced in the wake of the Sept 11 2001 attacks in America.
Labour’s election manifesto states: “From the Skripal
poisonings to assassination plots by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps, threats from hostile states or state-sponsored groups are on the rise, but
Britain lacks a comprehensive framework to protect us. Labour will take the
approach used for dealing with non-state terrorism and adapt it to deal with state- based domestic security threats.”
Full proscription of the IRGC will only be possible once Labour’s proposed new laws have passed their way through parliament.
LFI director Michael Rubin said:“LFI has long called for the proscription of Tehran’s terror army.
“Despite tough rhetoric, the government has been asleep at the wheel when it comes to the threat from Iran.
“The next government must take firm and decisive action: proscribing the IRGC, tackling the Iranian threat domestically and combatting the Islamic republic’s pernicious destabilising activity across the Middle East.”
Last week Canada listed Iran’s IRGC as a “terrorist” entity and urged its citizens in Iran to leave.
The Canadian government made the announcement saying that the move will help Ottawa with “countering terrorist financing”.
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