550 UK Parliamentarians Demand Proscription of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard: ‘Business as Usual Is Over’

A coalition of over 550 UK parliamentarians is urging the next government to officially label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization as part of a broader effort to address the threat posed by the radical Islamic military body’s activities globally.

Despite persistent resistance from the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), the MPs and peers, part of the British Committee for Iran Freedom, are pushing to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist group in a cross-party initiative, marking a significant policy shift. 

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration designated the IRGC a terrorist organization in 2019, setting a precedent that these UK lawmakers are keen to follow.

Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy of Britain’s Minority Labour Party — which is expected to achieve significant victories in the upcoming election, potentially unseating Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Tory government — has indicated that a Labour-led government might be open to such a policy change, according to the Independent.

Labeling the IRGC — which is already under British sanctions — a terrorist organization would make it a criminal offense in Britain to be a member, attend its meetings, or display its logo publicly.

Catherine Perez-Shakdam, a leading Middle East expert and executive director of the Forum for Foreign Relations, highlighted the urgency of this issue during a Knesset hearing as she warned of the escalating threat of Iranian-backed terrorism targeting Western countries and the need for proactive measures.

“I would like to issue a warning to western capitals that if they do not back Israel now and realize what happened on October 7 then it will happen… in capitals across the western world,” she said.

Urging the international community to abandon appeasement and take a firm stance against Tehran, Iranian opposition MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq) political leader and President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Maryam Rajavi said the British parliamentarians’ push “points to their profound understanding of the crisis in Iran and the region and recognizes the clerical regime as the primary obstacles to regional and global peace and security.”

On Monday, German press agency dpa reported that several EU countries, led by Germany, are advocating for the IRGC to be classified as a terrorist organization, following a German court ruling.

Meanwhile, calls for Canada to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization have intensified, with political and civic leaders urging swift government action.

In addition, the British Committee for Iran Freedom expressed deep concern over the Iranian regime’s severe human rights abuses, including the high execution rate and the suppression of protests. 

Highlighting the regime’s sham trials against Iranian resistance leaders and state terrorism activities in Europe, the committee urged global recognition of the Iranian people’s right to resist while calling for accountability for the infamous 1988 massacre; support for democratic reform through Rajavi’s Ten-point Plan which aims to ensure Iranians’ freedom of expression and assembly; protection of Iranian dissidents in Albania; and the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, along with implementing oil sanctions on Iran to curb its destructive role in the Middle East.

The calls for action have been intensified by the IRGC’s connections to Hamas and the recent October 7 massacre in Israel. 

Last year, the Gaza-based terrorist group perpetrated the deadliest attack against Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust. The massacre saw the torture, rape, execution, immolation, and abduction of hundreds of Israeli civilians, as well as widespread Palestinian support for it.

LISTEN: Hamas Terrorist Calls Parents, Brags About Killing 10 Jews

Israel Defense Force

In response, Israel invaded Gaza to dismantle Hamas and rescue its hostages.

In addition, the recent death of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, who was notoriously known as the “Butcher of Tehran” due to his past involvement in mass executions, is being viewed by many as a pivotal moment to reassess and potentially alter current policies.

Raisi, who once held a seat on the Central Committee of the nation’s “death commissions” and whose death could potentially trigger a succession battle and destabilize the regime, had an extensive record of ordering mass executions of opponents of the Islamic regime and was accused of involvement in a range of egregious human rights abuses, including the execution of thousands of political prisoners, among them pregnant women and teenage girls.

Under Raisi’s leadership, impunity was granted to those responsible for the 2019 protest crackdowns, while he appointed terrorists and anti-Western hardliners to top ministerial positions.

The Revolutionary Guard, under the command of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, has been implicated in various attacks across Europe, including an assassination attempt on a former Spanish MEP. 

Proscribing the IRGC would restrict their access to international funds and hamper their operations abroad.

Leading the charge is Conservative MP Bob Blackman, alongside notable figures such as Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Tobias Ellwood, and John McDonnell. Their collective statement urges the government to support the National Council for Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and hold the Iranian regime accountable.

Asserting that decades of appeasement have resulted in “failure after failure,” Blackman posited that it was “simply emboldening the regime in intensifying its nefarious conduct.”

The proposed policy focuses on empowering the Iranian people to instigate “change from within,” he explained. 

According to Blackman, designating the IRGC as a terrorist entity and disrupting its financial networks would signal support for the “brave Iranians” in their struggle in a move that would mark a significant shift in UK foreign policy towards the Islamic regime:

It should be coupled with holding the regime accountable, including by designating the IRGC as a terrorist entity, a step long overdue. That would send a clear message to the ayatollahs that business as usual is over and would signal to the brave Iranians that the West has started to be on their side. It would have a huge impact on the regime’s schemes to skirt sanctions and finance its repressive forces at home and proxy groups all over the region.

Last year, over a hundred former world leaders penned an open letter to the heads of the United States, Canada, the E.U., and the U.K. calling for the regime in Tehran to be held accountable for its long-running crimes against humanity.

The letter condemned the Iranian regime’s “meddling in the Middle East and Europe,” while urging Western leaders to “stand with the Iranian people in their quest for change and to take decisive steps against the current regime,” including “blacklisting the Revolutionary Guards and holding regime officials accountable for their crimes against humanity.”

Among the signatories of the letter, including 50 former presidents and 47 former prime ministers, are former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Italian ex-premier Matteo Renzi.

Pence had already accused the Biden administration of threatening to “unravel all the progress” the Trump administration made in marginalizing the Iranian regime.

He has also expressed undying support for Iranian resistance while blasting the Biden team’s new concessions to the “tyrants” in Tehran, its “virtual abandonment of our ally Israel,” and the “disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan,” which have emboldened the “adversaries of freedom” that now sense American “weakness.”

The current administration has long been accused of emboldening Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, and its terror proxies, by seeking to revive the failed Obama-era nuclear deal, easing sanctions, and providing the Islamic Republic with financial resources to support terrorism and regional aggression. 

Additionally, weak responses to attacks by Iranian-backed militias and policy shifts in the Middle East have been viewed as “appeasing” the theocratic regime.

More recently, shortly after the Iran-backed massacre of an estimated 1,200 people in Israel and a mere six months before a ballistic missile attack on Israel in April, the Biden administration allowed sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile production to expire. 

Last month, a Foreign Policy magazine essay called for the United States to capitulate to the Iranian demand to remove the IRGC from its foreign terrorist organization list, even as it admitted that doing so would alienate Middle East allies and that Iran cannot be trusted to follow up on its promises.