The UK must press to bring the full force of international law against the Iranian regime for targeting civilians in Israel and the mass murder of its own people, senior politicians have told the JC.
The call comes after constant nightly air attacks on heavily populated areas, often including the use of illegal cluster munitions, with hundreds of Israelis left injured.
With a growing dossier of evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, critics are urging the government to abandon what they claim is a long-failed go-soft approach to Tehran.
Pressure is mounting for a referral of the regime to the International Criminal Court and investigation of the massacre earlier this year.
There is also wide consensus that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) should finally be proscribed, even as the government appears to be rolling back from earlier signals that it would bring in the ban.
Sir Michael Ellis, a former Conservative attorney general, told the JC that the concept of international law itself was being undermined by what he called “double standards”.
Labour MP Mark Sewards, chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), urged the government to “take action now” at the UN.
Meanwhile Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice slammed what he saw as inconsistency when it came to international law and its application when it came to Israel and Iran.
“While the left blather on about the legality of stopping the Iranian regime from getting nuclear weapons, Iran shows it does not care about law as it drops cluster bombs against Jewish civilians,” Nigel Farage’s second-in-command told the JC.
Since the start of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, Israeli towns and cities have been struck with cluster munitions, which contain smaller explosives that disperse across a wider area with devastating impact.
The IDF estimates that around 50 per cent of all missiles launched by Iran have contained cluster warheads, which Israel says are being launched deliberately at civilians, including children.
In a letter to Unicef earlier this month, Israel urged the UN body to condemn the Iranian missiles – which they said had injured 18 children and infants and killed three children, aged 13,15 and 16.
In the letter on March 23, Israel’s foreign ministry said the attacks were “illegal”, decrying “indiscriminate ballistic missile attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the civilian population of Israel”.
Israeli train stations in Tel Aviv and Holon have suffered damage as a result of Iranian attacks.
In January, the Islamic Republic murdered thousands of protesters and since the war began has repeatedly threatened to show no mercy to any ordinary Iranians taking to the streets against the regime.
Sir Michael Ellis called out the failure to hold Iran to account in international bodies.
The former Conservative MP said: “This is what happened after October 7 when there were dozens of rapes committed by Hamas but women’s groups around the world who are normally vociferous in their advocacy for women and girls were silent because the victims were Israeli and Jewish.
He went on to say that the same erosion was now happening to the concept of war crimes: “The use of cluster munitions is unlawful when they are deployed against civilians.”
Ellis continued: “Iran has indiscriminately targeted civilians with bombs that have been banned by 120 countries – where is the outrage? Where is the fervent condemnation by international bodies and charitable institutions? The silence is once again deafening – because the moral outrage is missing when the victims are Jews.” He went on to say that the bias “damages not only the legitimacy of the institutions but the integrity of international law as a whole.”
The government is also being panned for what critics say is a muted approach to potential Iranian violations of international law.
Greg Smith, Conservative MP for Mid Buckinghamshire and chair of Conservative Friends of Israel in the House of commons, told the JC he believed that: “Iran’s use of cluster munitions during this conflict is clearly in breach of international humanitarian law regardless of whether they are signatories to the convention. These weapons are, by their very nature, indiscriminate.
He continued: “The deliberate use of these horrible weapons against populated residential areas in Israel is an appalling tactic by a regime that has little regard for human life” and added that he was “surprised that we are not hearing stronger condemnation from our government about these war crimes.”
Despite Lib Dem opposition to British involvement in the US-Israeli war against Iran, which their leader Sir Ed Davey described as “illegal”, the party has robustly condemned use of cluster munitions against Israel and suggested that this could be a war crime.
The party’s foreign affairs spokesman Calum Miller told the JC: “No civilian population or infrastructure should be targeted in war. All parties must seek to protect civilians and must not deploy munitions that have the capacity to mutilate and maim non-combatants. Any deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime.”
While ministers have described Iran as a “threat” and updated the House of Commons about the use of British military capabilities to defend allies in the region from Iranian missiles and drones, they stress that any use of force is for purely defensive reasons and are yet to label Iran’s actions as potential war crimes. Despite pledging to proscribe the IRGC in opposition, Labour has failed to do so in government, drawing criticism from high-ranking former British intelligence chiefs and from across all sides of the House of Commons.
Miller went on: “The IRGC has repeatedly attacked civilians both in Iran and beyond its borders. The Liberal Democrats have long called for the IRGC to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation. Beyond its brutal domestic repression of the Iranian people, the group poses a direct threat not only to the UK’s national security but also to our Jewish and Iranian communities. This is unacceptable.
“With the war creating new urgency, it is now time to act. Having already received clear guidance nine months ago on how to proscribe the IRGC, Liberal Democrats renew our call for the emergency legislation to enable this.”
The government has committed to introducing tools proposed by Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, to better tackle state-based threats and which he said would be more suited to proscribing the IRGC. However, the government has yet to bring forward plans to make his proposals law.
As well as opposition parties, some Labour parliamentarians are also putting pressure on their own government to adopt more robust policies towards Iran and take punitive action over what they see as potential breaches of international law: the use of cluster munitions as well as the massacre of tens of thousands civilians by the Iranian regime in response to protests in January.
A Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) report launched in the Commons last week issued a series of policy recommendations.
These included getting the foreign secretary to “formally acknowledge evidence indicating crimes against humanity by Iranian security forces” and “support international accountability, including referral to the International Criminal Court and a UN fact-finding mission”.
The LFI report also suggested that the IRGC’s Quds Force – the organisation’s “international terrorism” branch which has targeted Iranian dissidents abroad – could be proscribed immediately without jumping over the legislative hurdles required to ban the organisation as a whole.
Mark Sewards, LFI’s chair, told the JC: “The UN Human Rights Council report, released earlier this month, left no doubt that the Islamic Republic stands guilty of ‘many gross human rights violations… crimes against humanity including murder, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence’.
“More than 30,000 courageous Iranians are believed to have been murdered fighting for their freedom in January’s uprising. The UK must take action now – as Iran’s brutal regime threatens against further protests – at the UN security council to hold the Islamic Republic to account.”
The LFI report’s author, defence and security professional Roger Macmillan, also director of safety and security at dissident news outlet Iran International, noted that Canada proscribed the Quds Force 12 years prior to banning the IRGC as a whole.
Macmillan also suggested making parliamentary time available to bring in Hall’s proposals to fully proscribe the IRGC, “given cross-party support” on the matter.
Should the Iranian regime survive the current conflict with Israel and the US, LFI urge the government to “recalibrate its diplomatic posture” towards it, demanding that any talks over Iran’s nuclear programme “must not preclude accountability for mass atrocities” and that restoration of normal relations should be “contingent on a cessation of repression and regional destabilisation”.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We condemn in the strongest terms the Iranian regime’s reckless attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Israel and across the region. We call for the immediate and unconditional cessation of all such attacks, and, alongside G7 partners, have repeatedly stated that Iran must end its destabilising activities in the region.
“The UK remains committed to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and we believe its continued enforcement plays an essential role in protecting civilians from harm.”
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.