Iran's IRGC is already at war with Britain

Telegraph

5 hours ago

For years, Britain and its allies have appeased Iran's regime – ignoring its calls for a second Holocaust while it built the nuclear weapons, missiles and terrorist armies with which it hoped to achieve it.
While our politicians call impotently for 'de-escalation' and shuffle outdated aircraft around the globe, their greatest failure is not overseas. It is here at home.
For all of the fulmination about the need for 'regional stability' thousands of miles away, nobody seems to be doing anything about the IRGC agents operating freely on our soil.
The IRGC is radicalising young people in the UK. IRGC figures have addressed British students at our prestigious universities, denying the Holocaust and inciting hatred: 'The real Holocaust took place in Iran. The one the Jews claim is a lie.' Students were told that 'the battlefront is the university', that they were 'soft-war officers' and 'holy warriors' in a coming apocalyptic war to end 'the era of the Jews'.
This is not empty rhetoric. Just last month, Security Minister Dan Jarvis told Parliament that police and MI5 have responded to 20 Iran-linked plots since 2022. These include assassination and abduction attempts. The IRGC is behind them.
Founded in 1979, the IRGC functions as a second military that answers directly to the fundamentalist mullahs who rule Iran. Believed to have well over a quarter of a million personnel, it has a mandate to spread terror at home and abroad. It propped up Assad in Syria, provided the weapons that the Houthis fire at Royal Navy ships and Israeli cities, and built up the genocidal death cults of Hezbollah and Hamas. The IRGC not only trains, arms and supports this axis of terror but has also brutally crushed four major civilian uprisings in Iran since 2009. It works day and night to foment anti-Semitism and sow bloodshed across the region.
In Britain, eight IRGC officials have been exposed as having addressed students under the banner of the Islamic Students Association. They spread hatred, promote violence against Jews, and call for martyrdom.
These are just the cases that we know about. Just like the thwarted IRGC plots that the authorities understandably say very little about, there are doubtless countless other cases of our universities and even schools being used as recruiting grounds – in recent days an exposé has claimed that adorers of the Iranian regime have set up a summer camp in Britain.
Taken together, it is clear to anybody paying attention that there is a domestic danger in Britain that should command the urgent attention of our politicians. As Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6 recently said of proscribing the IRGC under the Terrorism Act, 'I just don't get why we haven't done so.' He added: 'It is the agency through which Iran has conducted what I would call 'arm's length warfare'... It should have been identified as a terrorist organisation a long time ago.'
We at Campaign Against Antisemitism – along with many others – have long called for a ban on the IRGC. Our polling shows that 93 per cent of British Jews – who are increasingly concerned about their security in the UK – agree.
Events in the Middle East heighten the urgency. The IRGC is already known to have mapped the Jewish community in the UK, with the former Security Minister Tom Tugendhat telling Parliament two years ago: 'Between 2020 and 2022, Iran tried to collect intelligence on UK-based Israeli and Jewish individuals. We believe this information was a preparation for future lethal operations.'
Unless the IRGC is proscribed, our security services can only swoop when they have evidence that a plot is being prepared – as they did just last month, arresting Iranian nationals in Swindon, London, Stockport and Rochdale. But proscription would enable our protectors to arrest IRGC operatives immediately, just for being IRGC operatives.
Some believe that there may be a legislative complication in proscribing an entity that is a state agency, but that is no excuse for inaction. Indeed the Government's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has proposed legal changes to address this.
Besides, if Iran's regime collapses, the IRGC may continue as a rogue terror army without state status. The threat will remain – or grow worse.
Two governments have failed to act. This one still can. Both the Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary promised before the last election to ban the IRGC.
They must now honour that promise.