Proscribe the IRGC, says Intelligence and Security Committee chair

Despite pledging to proscribe the IRGC in opposition, the government is yet to do so. They have, however, said that they would draw up “new powers modelled on counter terrorism powers in a series of areas to tackle these state threats”, following a recommendation by Jonathan Hall.

In May, Hall, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, advised that the government create the ability to “issue statutory alert and liability threat notices against foreign intelligence services, an equivalent to proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000”, which he said would be “available for use against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”.

The Homeland Security Group within the Home Office – formerly the Office for Security and Counter-terrorism – emphasised the intricacies involved in proscribing a state-linked organisation and told the ISC’s report that: “proscription decision of a state-linked entity such as the IRGC would be particularly complex” and that the complexity hasn’t yet “been really brought out yet in the public or indeed the Parliamentary debate that there has been”.

However, the report also noted that following the proscription of Wagner Group – linked to the Russian state – in September 2023, “senior Parliamentarians including the former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Lord Carlile KC, have called again for the proscription of the IRGC”.

Despite the challenges surrounding proscription, Beamish told the JC he was in favour of proscribing the group: “personally, I think if it was something which was going to be effective against the IRGC, yes”.

The former Labour MP for North Durham – whose real name is Kevan Jones and whose title refers to Beamish in his former County Durham constituency – said his committee’s report “underpins why the threat [from Iran] has not gone away” and gave a “whole picture” on the scale of the threat posed to the UK from Iran.

“People concentrated very much on the nuclear issue, which is obviously an important issue, but … what's changed recently is their use of proxies across the world to attack dissidents.”

Beamish also referenced a November 2022 attack on a German synagogue, which, according to the report had “the Iranian hand behind it”, and which showcased recent the Iranian’s modus operandi: “This idea that you can actually then distance yourself from it by getting involved with organised crime and other actors makes it very difficult security services to actually monitor this and actually resist it.”

He was, however, satisfied that Britain’s intelligence services were fully aware of and equipped to deal with the threats posed by Iran.

As well as counter-terrorism police and MI5 working more closely together in a “more joined up approach”, Beamish also said that MI5 was now responsible for tackling far-right extremism, which has helped the overall position of the security services in terms of dealing with threats.

Although he could not point to direct coordination between Iran and far-right extremist groups, Beamish said that both may have similar targets.

He continued to say that it would not be inconsistent of Iran to use “whoever they want to or can do, to further what they want to do”, having previously used organised crime groups to carry out violence on their behalf.

The committee’s role, which is to provide parliamentary oversight of Britain’s intelligence and security services, was thrust into the limelight following revelations that the government had, using a super-injunction, prevented coverage of the leaking of a spreadsheet containing the names of British special forces operators, MI6 agents and nearly 25,000 Afghans linked to Britain, fearing that they would be targeted by the Taliban.

Beamish “took a dim view” of the argument made by former defence secretary Ben Wallace that the ISC couldn’t have provided parliamentary oversight of the decision made in secret by government as it wasn’t in the committee’s remit.

“We have oversight of Defence Intelligence, irrespective of what Ben Wallace said on Radio Four”, he added.

Asked if Wallace should correct the record, Beamish said: “Talk to him, I'm just stating the facts. Two things he said are not true, one that we didn't have oversight of Defence Intelligence. We do. The other one was that we don't look at ongoing current intelligence. Yes, we do.”