A large group from Great Britain's Parliament is recommending the next government after the July 4 election label Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.
About 550 members of Parliament, as well as members of the British Committee on Iran Freedom, have been advocating for the designation but found resistance from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the Independent reported Monday.
Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy of Britain's Minority Labour Party has suggested if his party is put back in charge after the July 4 elections and he leads the FCDO, there could be a change of policy, according to the Independent.
The liberal Labour Party is expected to make serious gains during the election, leading to the ouster of conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Tory government.
The U.S. has labeled the IRGC as a terrorist organization, and the dpa German Press Agency posted on X on Monday that multiple European countries, including Germany, are pushing to do the same.
Labeling the IRGC as a terrorist organization means it would become a criminal offense in Britain to belong to the group, attend its meetings, or carry its logo in public. The IRGC already is subject to British sanctions.
"Our longstanding position is that we support proscribing the IRGC either through the existing process, or through creating a new process of proscription for hostile state actors," a source close to Lammy told the Independent.
The initiative reportedly is led by Tory MP Bob Blackman, a longtime supporter of the National Council for Resistance of Iran (NCRI), who has worked with the NCRI and the British Committee for Iran Freedom. Others involved include Tory MPs Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Tobias Ellwood, Vicky Ford, Liam Fox, Sir John Hayes, Caroline Nokes, and Desmond Swayne, and Labour's former shadow chancellor John McDonnell.
"We have tried the current policy of appeasement for 40 years, and it has only resulted in failure after failure, simply emboldening the regime in intensifying its nefarious conduct," Blackman said, according to the Independent. "The new policy, as suggested by more than 553 MPs and peers, puts the focus on siding with the Iranian people and their organized resistance to bring about change from within Iran by the people of Iran.
Also Monday, the Independent reported that Catherine Perez-Shakdam, executive director of the British think tank Forum for Foreign Relations and regional director of the American Center for Levant Studies, warned during a hearing at Israel's Knesset that Iranian backed terrorism is coming to the West.
"I have been to the Islamic Republic of Iran, I have walked through the corridors of power," she said. "I have met with Ayatollah Khamenei and now deceased President [Ebrahim] Raisi. I know what they are doing.
"I would like to issue a warning to western capitals that if they do not back Israel now and realize what happened on Oct. 7, then it will happen — it's not a maybe — it will happen in capitals across the western world."