Israel urges UK to proscribe Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorist group

Israel has urged allies, including Britain, to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group following the drone and missile attacks on the country.

On Sunday, Lior Haiat, spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called for a terrorist ban on the IRGC as an “initial price” for its “large-scale and unprecedented” aggression against Israel.

The call will increase pressure on the Government with Tory MPs and Labour set to reaffirm their demands for a ban on Monday when Rishi Sunak is expected to give a statement on the Iranian attack to the Commons.

Former home secretary Suella Braverman and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick have led calls in recent days for the IRGC to be proscribed in the wake of the October 7 terror attack on Israel.

The US designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organisation in April 2019, but the Government has resisted such a move on the basis that it keeps open a vital channel of communication with the Iranian regime.

Although the US publicly called for its allies to proscribe the IRGC after the October 7 attacks, The Telegraph understands American diplomats have privately asked the UK not to do so.

The US has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since 1980 and relies on other Western allies including the UK to act as a backchannel with Iran.

Some US officials have privately raised concerns that if the UK was to proscribe the group, Tehran would sever diplomatic ties with London and cut off a key diplomatic backchannel.

On Sunday, Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, said IRGC proscription was kept under “constant review” but added: “There is a point of the value of being able to have a direct conversation with the Iranian authorities in the way that has already happened, there is a value in that, to be able to land those messages directly with Iran.”

She also said the police, the security services and courts had the powers that they needed to target those people causing the most concern, noting that the UK had sanctioned some 400 organisations or individuals.

However, Mr Haiat tweeted: “Iran must pay a price for its aggression. The initial price must be the immediate recognition of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps – which launched the extensive terrorist attack last night – as a terrorist organisation.”

Mrs Braverman tweeted that the attack must mark the end of “Western backsliding” on Israel. Last week she said the Government needed to “grow a backbone” and take tough action against the IRGC as the “chief sponsor of global terrorism.”

In an article for The Telegraph in January, Mr Jenrick said it was time the UK took the “fanatical Iranian regime at their word and treated them as the zealots they openly professed to be”, which would mean proscribing the IRGC.

Labour also renewed its call on Sunday for the Government to proscribe the IRGC. David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, said that Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel on Saturday “highlights once again the extreme danger of the IRGC”.

He added that it was for the Government to “come forward with new plans to proscribe them and to deal with this issue of state actors that will behave in this appalling way that wreaks terror on a wider community”.

Mr Lammy also called for further sanctions against Iranian drone technology and said that the opposition would support such a move.

He said: “It’s time that we stepped up sanctions on those drones, and I hope the Government will be coming forward with more plans for that tomorrow.”