The UK is reportedly preparing to introduce a ban on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after the group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the EU on Thursday.
Following a meeting of the bloc’s Foreign Affairs Council, Kaja Kallas, the vice-president of the European Commission, said: "EU Foreign Ministers just took the decisive step of designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation.
"Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise."
Labour has pledged to proscribe the group since its time in opposition, but has yet to do so in government, arguing that its status as a state-affiliated military force, rather than a non-state actor like Hamas or Hezbollah, complicates the legal process.
Officials are now preparing to introduce legislation allowing ministers to restrict the operations of such groups in Britain.
The government has said since May that it is looking to introduce a new system, akin to proscription, which could be applied to state organisations, with then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper specifically referring to the IRGC at the time.
The Home Office has today recommitted to that goal, saying it is preparing legislation to proscribe hostile state agencies, which could include the IRGC, although the bill is not expected to be fast-tracked despite the group’s role in Tehran’s violent crackdown on mass anti-government protests in recent weeks, which left at least 6,000 people dead.
Reports in The Times suggested proposed laws will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows and indicated that the IRGC would be on the list.
A government source told the JC that there had been no change to the Home Office’s position, adding: “We’ve been saying this for ages.”
The source said the government would not comment on specific proscription, but confirmed that new legislation would allow it to ban state-sponsored groups.
Pressure has grown on the Home Office to respond to the IRGC’s deadly suppression of protests in Iran. Some human rights groups estimate that as many as 30,000 people may have been killed in the streets on January 8 and 9 alone, according to two senior officials who spoke to Time magazine.
The Jewish community has long called for a ban on the IRGC in Britain. Board of Deputies president Phil Rosenberg said last July: “We continue to urge the UK Government to take active steps against the Iranian terror threat, including by proscribing the IRGC.”
The director general of MI5 has previously stated that, since the start of 2022, the UK has responded to 20 Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and residents.
Current proscription powers are designed for non-state terrorist organisations, not state bodies. New powers would be required to ban the IRGC, which acts as a military guard for Iran’s ayatollah and operates separately from the regular army.
Commenting on the story, a government spokesperson said: “The government has already sanctioned the IRGC in its entirety, as well as more than 550 Iranian individuals and entities, and set out a robust package of measures to tackle threats from the Iranian regime.
“We utterly condemn the terrible violence being used by the Iranian regime against those exercising their right to peaceful protest.”
The government has also placed the entire Iranian state, including the IRGC, on the enhanced tier of the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, designed to increase transparency around Iranian influence activity in the UK.
In addition, new training has been announced for frontline police officers across all police forces on state threats which is aimed at improving the identification of state-directed crimes and strengthening the ability of officers to escalate and mitigate such activity.
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