One year ago, the UK and our allies defended Israel from an unprecedented direct attack on the Jewish state by Iran and its terrorist proxies – with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) playing a lead role in choregraphing this onslaught of missiles.
But, as well as being an ongoing threat to Israel, the IRGC poses a real and growing threat to Britain’s national security. The IRGC is an ideological, professionalised paramilitary Iranian organisation whose destabilising activities stretch far beyond the Middle East. In the UK, the IRGC is stoking discord in society, silencing Iranian opposition voices, nurturing homegrown extremism, and hiring criminal gangs to target British nationals, primarily in the Iranian opposition and the Jewish community.
Despite this, the UK is yet to follow countries such as the US, Canada and Sweden in proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. It is now time for the UK to take the IRGC’s threat seriously. In a new paper for Labour Friends of Israel, I argue that proscription of the IRGC is the only viable option when it comes to impeding Iran’s radicalisation efforts and constraining their terror-related activities in the UK.
Last month, the Home Office intensified its efforts to protect the UK from malign foreign influence when the Islamic Republic of Iran became the first foreign power to be placed on an enhanced tier of the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS). FIRS is a two-tier scheme that strengthens the resilience of the UK political system against covert foreign powers or entities that pose the greatest risk to UK safety and interests. As the security minister Dan Jarvis told MPs last month, Iran has been “asserting itself more aggressively to advance their objectives and undermine ours”.
While these new measures are welcome, they are not sufficient to combat the IRGC’s covert operations on British soil. The UK has also sanctioned the IRGC, amongst other Iranian regime entities, but these steps have been primarily aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear programme and destabilising behaviour in the Middle East. Proscription, however, would make it illegal to be a member of, provide support to, or collaborate with the IRGC. Proscribing the IRGC will mean that its members cannot be active in any respect in the UK, including attending or speaking at meetings. It means it will be a criminal offence for anyone in the UK to associate with the IRGC, to profess support for it, to share any materials created by the IRGC or attend any meetings with IRGC representatives. Proscribing the IRGC will mean this behaviour would be considered a criminal offence and IRGC online material would have to be removed.
This broader approach would criminalise a wider range of activities associated with the IRGC, going beyond the more limited scope of existing sanctions or registration schemes.
The IRGC’s multifaceted nature as a military, economic, societal, and ideological force makes it a mainstay of the Islamic Republic’s power structure and the primary driver of destabilisation in the Middle East. The IRGC is at the operational and ideological heart of Iran’s “axis of resistance.” Through this axis – which includes Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis – the IRGC threatens the interests and security of the UK and its allies, seeking to expel western influence from the Middle East, block a two-state solution and Arab-Israeli normalisation, and ultimately destroy Israel.
The IRGC also plays a pivotal role in the societal oppression and human rights abuses of the Islamic Republic. The IRGC is deeply intertwined with the regime’s power structures. It answers directly to Iran’s supreme leader and is therefore not accountable to the president or parliament, enabling it to exert considerable influence over policymaking decisions, particularly in foreign policy. The IRGC exercises significant control over Iran’s security infrastructure, political decision-making, the surveillance of the Iranian population, and the suppression of dissent.
While Iran is the primary destabilising actor in the Middle East, it also contributes to conflict and instability elsewhere. Through the IRGC, the regime adopts multiple strategies to undermine western security by promoting international destabilisation, domestic disruption and the suppression of dissidents.
The IRGC is unrelenting in its efforts to silence opposition voices and critics living outside its borders, using a variety of tactics, including assassination, abduction, intimidation, and surveillance. The IRGC plotted to assassinate two British-Iranian journalists using a people smuggler to organise and carry out the killings in exchange for $200,000. The IRGC was ultimately aiming to hurt Iran International and force it off the air on account of its public opposition to the regime.
To engage in domestic radicalisation, senior IRGC officers have sought to address British audiences. During an Instagram live event for a British student group in September 2020, for instance, IRGC commander Hossein Yekta reportedly urged UK-based students to “raise the flag of the Islamic Revolution, Islam, and martyrdom” and said that they should see themselves as “holy warriors in the field of knowledge.” During an online webinar in January 2021, the BBC reported another senior IRGC commander, Saeed Ghasemi, praised Soleimani and described an “apocalyptic war” that British students could join to “bring an end to the life of the oppressors and occupiers, Zionists and Jews across the world” and termed the Holocaust “a lie and a fake.” Despite accusations of involvement in human rights abuses and engaging in radicalisation activities in the UK, neither Yekta nor Ghasemi are subject to UK sanctions.
Labour, which committed to proscribing the IRGC in opposition, said in its 2024 general election manifesto, which cited the IRGC, that the party “would take the approach used for dealing with non-state terrorism and adapt it to deal with state-based domestic security threats.” This is the correct course of action. If the government determines that it cannot proscribe the IRGC under existing legislation, it should move swiftly to amend the legislation or develop a new legislative mechanism that results in the IRGC, and those who wish to support it, facing the same restrictions to which other proscribed organisations, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, are subject. The government’s current review of terrorism legislation should prioritise proscribing the IRGC.
This much needed measure would ultimately dismantle the IRGC’s network, impede their homegrown radicalisation efforts, and constrain their terror-related activities on British soil.
To learn more about this topic, click here to read Labour Friends of Israel’s paper covering the threat that the IRGC poses to Britain.
