Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The UK’s counter-extremism commissioner has called on the government to proscribe Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation, as concerns grow about Tehran’s activities in Britain.
Robin Simcox said on Thursday that such a move would be in “the national interest” and that the group — the most powerful wing of Iran’s state security apparatus — had operated “like a terrorist organisation ever since its inception”.
UK ministers are at odds over whether to make the change amid growing concerns over the threat posed by the force to UK national security. The US designated the IRGC a terrorist organisation in 2019, during the Trump administration.
In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, Simcox said: “I am aware that there has been debate about whether we should follow the lead of the US government, and proscribe the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp.
“Who government does and does not proscribe is not down to me. But from a counter-extremism perspective, I believe it is in the national interest.”
He added that the IRGC was not a “regular” part of the Iranian government, adding: “It has operated like a terrorist organisation ever since its inception, over four decades ago.”
The Revolutionary Guards were established after Iran’s 1979 revolution to protect the Islamic republic from domestic and foreign threats.
According to government insiders, home secretary Suella Braverman is increasingly concerned that Iranian agents are plotting to kill British citizens, including prominent Jewish figures.
MPs were told in February that the Iranian government had been behind 15 credible threats to kill or kidnap British citizens or UK-based individuals in just over a year.
Foreign secretary James Cleverly is much more cautious than Braverman amid concerns that the change could weaken diplomatic efforts to save the 2015 nuclear accord, or lead to retaliatory measures against dual British-Iranian citizens.
British diplomats fear that Iran would almost certainly retaliate by closing the UK embassy in Tehran. London is also seeking to calm, rather than inflame, tensions in the Middle East, given the war between Israel and Hamas. The militant group receives significant financial support from Iran.
Responding to Simcox’s comments, the government said it was working with international partners “to identify, deter and respond to threats from Iran” and would “continue to take strong action against Iran while they threaten people in the UK and around the world”.
“Whilst the government keeps the list of proscribed organisations under review, we do not comment on whether a specific organisation is or is not being considered for proscription,” it added.
The Tony Blair Institute, a think-tank set up by the former prime minister, this year called for the IRGC to be proscribed.
It said the designation would provide the “government, civil society groups and technology companies with a clear mandate to more effectively protect against homegrown [Revolutionary Guards] and Shia-Islamist extremism and radicalisation through outright bans on activities linked to the [Guards] in the UK”.
Writing in The Times newspaper on Thursday, Simcox also blamed a “failed policy mix of mass migration and multiculturalism” for the “normalisation” of antisemitism in the UK, which he claimed had created a “permissive environment”.
Security minister Tom Tugendhat rejected the assertion, telling Times Radio that threats to any community in the UK were taken “extremely seriously”.
