Iran appeasement 'has only resulted in failure' as calls to proscribe IRGC intensify

The UK must reverse its “policy of appeasement” and declare the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation, ministers have been warned.

More than 550 MPs and Peers have backed calls to proscribe the IRGC and “send a clear message” to Tehran that “business as usual is over”.

The IRGC has been accused of attempting assassinations on British soil, funding, arming and training terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah and supporting the Houthis’ Red Sea piracy campaign.

Campaigners warn the IRGC “through proxy groups… spreads terrorism and obstructs regional and global peace and security.”

Bob Blackman CBE, MP from Harrow East, said: “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.

“The new policy, as suggested by more than 553 MPs and peers, puts the focus on siding with the Iranian people and their organised resistance to bring about change from within Iran by the people of Iran.

“It should be coupled with holding the regime accountable, including by designating the IRGC as a terrorist entity, a step long overdue. That would send a clear message to the ayatollahs that business as usual is over and would signal to the brave Iranians that the West has started to be on their side.

“It would have a huge impact on the regime’s schemes to skirt sanctions and finance its repressive forces at home and proxy groups all over the region.”

Iranian dissidents living in the UK have been warned by counterterror police of an increased risk of violence and kidnap.

Tehran has been accused by MI5 and police of more than a dozen assassination and kidnap plots in Britain against dissidents and media organisations in the past two years.

Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said: “The statement by more than 550 members of the British Parliament points to their profound understanding of the crisis in Iran and the region and recognizes the clerical regime as the primary obstacles to regional and global peace and security.

“The statement has called for the terrorist designation of the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and recognition of the right of the Iranian people and the “Resistance Units” to confront the IRGC.”

The IRGC was linked to a plot to assassinate two TV presenters outside their studio in London.

Iranian spies offered a people smuggler $200,000 to murder two Iran International hosts, Fardad Farahzad and Sima Sabet because they were allegedly causing “a lot of humiliation in the media”.

They were given codenames of the “bride and groom”, it is understood.

Mohammed Reza Ansari, a commander from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was allegedly behind the plot.

According to Ismail, the people smuggler approached by the Iranians to carry out the hit, his commanders told him in October last year: “This London thing must be done in any circumstances.”

“We must finish them,”

Ismail, speaking about the presenters, told ITV: “They accuse Iran of committing any kidnap or assassination [on television] and we must finish them and make an example of them to anyone who will run the channel after them, so anyone who will take their place in the channel will learn a lesson from what happened to them.”