The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmerannounced this Monday that the Government will declare the Corps of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) considering it a threat to national security, with prison sentences for its members.
The Government will present to Parliament for approval a draft regulation to ban both the IRGC and two other groups, the Islamic Movement of the Comrades of the Right (IMCR) and the Volunteer Corps of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU).
At an event with members of the Jewish community held in Downing Street Gardens, Starmer stated that the IRGC, key to the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, has a “long history of using intermediary groups and criminal networks to attack people in the United Kingdom.”
“We will never allow this country to become a playground for States that want to sow fear, division and violence in our streets,” he said.
“These new powers will make it easier to prosecute and jail anyone who carries out their dirty work here in the UK,” he added.
If Parliament approves the measure later this week, those who commit acts of sabotage on British soil on behalf of these groups could face life in prison.
Also the expression of support for these organizations, linked respectively to the secret services of Tehran and Moscow, will be penalized with up to 14 years in prison.
Iranian drivers pass a mural depicting Abu Ali Khojasteh, an officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Photo: EFE/EPA/ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH
In recent months, the United Kingdom has recorded several attacks, including arson, against targets in the Jewish community and even Starmer’s own properties, which have ultimately been linked to the Iranian and Russian states.
In a written statement to Parliament, the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Anglea Eagle, said that the minister, Shabana Mahmood, has concluded that the three selected organizations meet the requirements to be banned.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, is a central component of the security apparatus of the Iranian state and answers directly to the supreme leader of Iran,” he stated in the text.
“Its role goes far beyond that of a conventional military force, as it includes intelligence activities, the use of intermediary groups for its purposes and the projection of influence aimed at promoting the objectives of the Iranian State,” he added.
