Countering Iran’s Hostile Activities

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of countering hostile activities by Iran.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mr Henderson. I am particularly grateful to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for co-sponsoring the debate. My thanks also go to Redress and Labour Friends of Israel for the briefings that they have provided. Our focus is on the active role that Britain is wittingly or unwittingly playing in supporting Iran and its agents as they pursue their violent, repressive and hostile activities here in the UK and across the world. We have some practical asks of the Government, to which I hope the Minister will respond when she replies to the debate.

It is now almost a month since we woke up to the news that Iran had launched 300 drones and missiles at Israel, following Israel’s attack on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders in Damascus. That was the first direct attack by Iranians on Israel’s soil in the horrendous conflict that is taking place in the middle east, but it sits within a wider context of the threat that Iran poses not just to Israel, but to Britain and to our western allies. Iran is listed alongside Russia and China by our security services as a hostile state, and yet, in the words of the commissioner at the Commission for Countering Extremism, Robin Simcox,

“what is underappreciated is the scale of Iranian-backed activity in this country; and the extent to which Iran attempts to stoke extremism here.”

Mostly, Iran works through its agents. At their heart is the IRGC, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We all remember the protests in Iran following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, arrested simply for refusing to wear a hijab. The widespread protests that followed her death, with women removing their headscarves and chanting, “Women, life, freedom”, were violently crushed by the IRGC. More than 500 protesters were killed, more than 19,400 individuals were arrested and at least 27 protesters have been given a death sentence, of whom seven have been executed.

In Iran, the IRGC is renowned for its brutality and violence, for undermining human rights and democracy, and for being a terrorist paramilitary organisation that acts as the ideological custodian of the Islamic Republic. But its influence extends to Britain and to our allies. Since the fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, the IRGC has targeted British nationals and Iranian opposition activists living in exile here on our soil. In 2022, the head of MI5, Ken McCallum, warned that Iran’s intelligence services had made at least 15 credible threats to kidnap or even kill individuals living here in Britain. Such actions pose a significant threat to our national security.

Attacks on journalists who seek to hold the Iranian regime to public account are particularly horrific. Those journalists have been described by Iran as “enemies of the state”. We had the terrifying attack on Pouria Zeraati, who worked as a journalist for Iran International, a Persian-language opposition TV channel, and was stabbed in the leg outside his home in Wimbledon. We learned about the threat and harassment meted out to BBC journalists working for BBC Persian. For example, Rana Rahimpour, who worked for the BBC for 15 years, had her car broken into, a listening device installed in it and her phone tapped, and the conversations were misleadingly edited and broadcast in Iran to suggest that she supported the regime. That led to attacks on her from those who oppose the regime. In the end, she quit her job because of the pressure on her and her family, saying:

“They don’t want fair, trusted or impartial news to reach the shores of my homeland.”

A recent report by Reporters Without Borders says that London has become a “hot spot” for transnational repression. Iran also seeks to influence public opinion by spreading propaganda. There are concerning ties between the IRGC and local Islamic centres in cities such London, Manchester and Glasgow. According to Policy Exchange, the Islamic Centre of England, which is located in a converted cinema in Maida Vale, is the centre of Iranian influences in the UK. The head of the centre is directly appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei. Senior clerical figures travelled freely from Iran to the centre in the UK to voice their repressive ideology, while at the same time Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was languishing in a prison in Iran.

Similarly, the Kanoon Towhid Islamic centre in west London is used as a meeting place for the Islamic Students Association of Britain. There, IRCG commanders lecture students on the evils of Israel and its western allies. “Death to Israel,” proclaimed one IRCG commander, who also claimed the holocaust was

“a lie and a fake”.

Another claimed that they are engaged in

“an apocalyptic war that will end the lives of Jews”.

All that is going on within our shores, in our communities and places of worship in Britain. That is just a small part of the nefarious activities in which Iran is engaged, which also include providing weapons to Russia in Ukraine, and to Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in the middle east. Even worse, our financial institutions are facilitating Iran’s wrongdoing.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady is making an excellent speech to which I am listening carefully. I would press slightly on one other issue. It is quite clear, through links that I will set out later, that the Hamas attacks were organised by the IRGC. That came at a time when Russia had been under pressure in Ukraine. Iran has links to the Russians and this has taken the pressure off them, as most of the focus has gone to Gaza. Does the right hon. Lady agree that, on a wider front, this is an absolute threat to us all?

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I absolutely take that point. My attempts to condense everything I wanted to say in the time available did not allow me to give more time to that very important link.

Our financial institutions are helping Iran and its agents to pursue their evil objectives. Two banks—Bank Saderat and Melli Bank—sanctioned by the USA for supporting the IRGC and other military-related activities, have active subsidiaries in London. They operate out of the heart of London in Lothbury and Kensington High Street, funnelling funds from Iran to the state-controlled agencies in the UK.

In February, the Financial Times revealed that two of the UK’s largest banks—Santander and Lloyd’s—had provided accounts for firms connected to Iran’s state-controlled Petrochemical Commercial Company. US officials believe that that company has funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to the IRGC, and that it has worked with Russian intelligence agencies to raise money for the Iranian proxy militia. Money in the hands of rogue states and terrorists is a deadly weapon. There is a real risk of the UK becoming a safe haven for Iranian perpetrators of human rights violations and international crimes. Those bad actors must not be permitted to seek shelter, threaten UK citizens and residents or accumulate funds and other resources to support their actions.

I am afraid that our response so far does not match the scale of the threat we face. We are working with our allies to counter Iran’s hostile activities, but the Government must do more at home to target both the IRGC and its enablers. There are three key levers that I urge the Minister to consider. First, I call on the Government to act firmly and proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist group. Action against what is clearly a hostile state-sponsored threat is long overdue.

Secondly, the Government must ramp up their efforts to impose sanctions on the members of the IRGC. I recognise that significant strides have been made in sanctioning the IRGC as an entity and several of its commanders. Indeed, the Government’s new Iran sanctions regime gives us the enhanced powers we need to target those involved in supporting the Iranian regime’s human rights violations across the world. That includes those who finance or are associated with Iran’s hostile activities, as well as any entities involved in the production and export of Iranian weapons. Imposing sanctions on IRGC agents, or other associated entities, would allow us to freeze their UK assets, deport those without UK citizenship, and prevent any UK persons from dealing with them. We must make full use of those powers and target a far broader range of agents, including networks of individuals and companies associated with the IRGC.

Thirdly, we must ensure full transparency over who owns or controls UK companies, properties and trusts so that all the assets and individuals associated with the IRGC can be appropriately referred to the enforcement authorities. Any UK companies or individuals dealing with the Iranian Government or the IRGC, by facilitating transactions on their behalf or by supplying them with military equipment or other resources, is likely to be in breach of the existing UK sanctions regime. Entities regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, such as Bank Saderat and Melli Bank, could be referred to the FCA for failures in their sanctions screening and failures in customer due diligence checks.

Those measures would send a message to Iran, to the IRGC, and to other hostile state-sponsored threats: the UK will not serve as a conduit for the financing of conflict and terror. The UK will not stand by as foreign agents intimidate and threaten people on our soil. Finally, the UK will not stand as a safe haven for perpetrators of human rights violations and international crimes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Ghani]

I can only be honest and say that that is not my experience of the Home Office, so no doubt that is just further speculation. We need to focus on the powers that we have and how we apply them appropriately.

Those powers are in the sanctions regime, and more than 400 Iranian individuals and entities have been sanctioned already. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation also has a role on behalf of the Treasury. OFSI does not comment on specific cases, but every instance of non-compliance with financial sanctions is taken very seriously. To touch on the issue of banks, UK businesses, including banks, are expected to perform due diligence checks on all customers and clients to ensure compliance with UK sanctions regulations. However, firms need to consider their own risk exposure. The Government are committed to ensuring that our sanctions are robustly enforced, potential breaches investigated and appropriate action taken.

I was surprised to hear, in two contributions, about reporting in the Financial Times referencing, in particular, Santander and Lloyds Bank. It was absolutely appropriate to then reference the Financial Conduct Authority and ensuring that those concerns are raised with it to see whether it needs to explore any further. I took on board the other two banks that were mentioned, Bank Saderat and Melli Bank. The evidence presented in this debate is incredibly concerning, and I urge colleagues to raise it with the appropriate authorities.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I am pleased with the Minister’s remarks about the banks. Will she or her Department also ensure that the FCDO and other enforcement agencies are made aware of what is happening and what was said in the debate?

[Ms Ghani]

I am not sure what the process is, but because the right hon. Lady raised the issue with me and I am responding in the debate, I will ensure that correspondence is sent to tell the FCA what was said today, and that we would like a response to the issues raised, which are concerning.

I have a few more points to make, which I think are the most important. We have talked about some of the major macro issues, but there are other issues that Iranians have to deal with day in, day out—in particular the human rights abuses that are mostly meted out to women and young girls. The case of Mahsa Amini was raised earlier. She was 22 years old and was arrested simply for refusing to wear a hijab. In the widespread protests that followed her death, women removed their headscarves and chanted, “Women, life, freedom.” The protests were crushed violently by the IRGC. I am a Muslim woman myself, and it should not be a privilege to choose to show my hair or life-threatening for me not to cover it up, but unfortunately that is the case for many women in Iran.

In any debate on Iran, we have to take into account its terrible human rights abuses at home—the repression of women and girls; the uninhibited use of the death penalty; violent crackdowns on dissenting voices—which will not go unchallenged. Just last week, we saw more reports of the regime’s appalling treatment of protesters, journalists and those expressing their right to freedom of expression, including the fearless artist Toomaj Salehi.