Iran

Debate between Fiona Bruce and Brendan Clarke-Smith

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his point. He has hit the nail on the head. There are knock-on effects as Iran’s missiles have the potential to interfere in other conflicts, and that is so damaging and undermines what we are all trying to do. This House has been very much united in supporting Ukraine, so he is right in what he says.

Iran’s egregious human rights abuses also necessitate a robust policy response. My constituents were disgusted by the graphic footage of regime forces brutally suppressing protesters seeking the sorts of basic freedoms that we all take for granted. The UK has responded well to Iran’s many abuses. I applaud the Foreign Secretary’s leadership in introducing comprehensive and ever-growing lists of sanctions against organisations and individuals responsible for the suffering of ordinary Iranians.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Two Iranian grandmothers were recently sentenced to 10 years in prison simply for being Baha’is. They had not long ago already served 10 years for the same reason. Will my hon. Friend join me in standing firm in the UK’s opposition to such sentences, particularly the use of blasphemy and apostasy laws, which can involve the execution of individuals in Iran simply on account of what they believe?

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

My hon. Friend is right. We must do everything we can, in Iran or elsewhere, to protect religious minorities and everyday citizens against appalling abuses. She gives a fine example of the kind of thing we are dealing with. She certainly has my full support and I thank her for her personal efforts; I know this is an issue that she is passionate about and works very hard on.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

My hon. Friend is completely right. That is something that people in this and many other countries would be horrified by. The community has suffered for many years and Iran in particular has a disgraceful record this this respect. Not just in Iran but around the world the UK has an important role to play in promoting LGBT rights and ensuring that everybody enjoys the same rights that we enjoy in this country. There is still a long way to go, even in this country, in what we can do to support people, but in Iran there is a huge problem. I thank him for his point; he is spot on.

[Fiona Bruce]

We also hear of the death penalty being used to execute young people for crimes committed when they were below the age of 18. Will my hon. Friend join me in calling on the Iranian authorities to honour their international human rights obligations, and immediately halt all executions of juvenile offenders and commute all death sentences?

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

I absolutely join my hon. Friend in that call. Regardless of people’s views on the death penalty, everyone should have a free and fair trial and no civilised country can accept a minor found guilty of a crime being made to pay the ultimate penalty. We must also push against the treatment of citizens who have been subject to the death penalty without fair due process—a point to which I will return.

The regime’s appalling treatment of its own citizens speaks volumes. We must act, as an ongoing warning that the Republic cannot be trusted and must not be treated as an equal in any sort of negotiations. Lest we forget, the JCPOA’s failure to address Iran’s human rights abuses speaks to the failure of the compartmentalised approach to Iran policy from which we must break free. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is Iran’s foremost practitioner of human rights abuses, and it is deeply regrettable that we have not acted decisively against the organisation by proscribing it in its entirety. We must be unambiguous. All of Iran’s malign activity is underwritten by the IRGC and its elite Quds Force. It is directly instigating conflicts around the world through its funding, arming and training of countless terror groups, many of which are proscribed in the UK for very good reason.

The IRGC is also reaping great financial rewards from its deep involvement in the international drugs trade, with a particular presence in South America. The dangerous captagon drug trade—much of which is centred in Syria, thanks to Iran’s control of the country—is now entering Europe, posing a profound policy challenge to the entire continent; it is no longer possible to dismiss the IRGC as a distant threat. The people of Ukraine know better than anyone what happens when the Iranian regime is left unchecked. IRGC-supplied suicide drones have wrought terror across Ukraine and brought the Iranian threat into the heart of Europe, making Iran directly complicit in President Putin’s hideous war crimes.

The IRGC’s charge sheet for its publicly documented activities against the UK is grave and growing: 15 planned terror assassinations in the UK have been foiled by MI5 since 2022; British civilians have been killed around the world, as have UK armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; an attempted bomb attack on British MPs in Paris a few years ago; the radicalising of British citizens in the UK using a network of religious centres, one of which is undergoing an active Charity Commission inquiry; the use of British crime gangs to gather information for terror attacks in the UK; attempted attacks on a London-based Iranian news channel, harming freedom of the press in this country; and cyber-attacks against UK critical national infrastructure and this place.

The House of Commons has already voted unanimously to call on the Government to ban the IRGC, so the question now is: what are we waiting for? In the vacuum, IRGC activities have expanded and concerns are growing across the UK. Back home, millions of Iranians are fighting the pernicious IRGC in their ongoing and life-threatening efforts to secure greater freedoms. But such efforts are by no means limited to Iran. Here in the UK, one man—Mr Vahid Beheshti—has exemplified the courage and commitment of Iranians in standing against the IRGC.

I commend the Vahid’s bravery in his extraordinary 72-day hunger strike outside the Foreign Office, which resulted in him having to spend two weeks in hospital due to ill health. I was heartened by Mr Beheshti’s release from hospital and applaud his strength as well as that of his wife, Councillor Mattie Heaven. Undeterred, the sitting by Vahid and his many supporters continues outside the Foreign Office and has now surpassed an extraordinary 100 days, but this remarkable self-sacrifice has only been necessitated by our inaction and failure to proscribe the IRGC in its entirety. During the hunger strike, Mr Beheshti’s campaign for proscription received an unprecedented volume of cross-party support, and it was an honour to join 125 of my colleagues from all corners of Parliament in writing to the Prime Minister in solidarity with Mr Beheshti. It is hard to think of an issue that has received such broad parliamentary support.

Sanctioning the IRGC in its entirety is a welcome step, but I am afraid it fails to adequately reflect the extent of the threat posed by the Islamic Republic’s brutal enforcers. Today, I reiterate the call of so many by again urging the Government to proscribe the IRGC in its entirety. Reports suggest that the UK has come under pressure from the Biden Administration over the question of proscription, which jars with their active decision not to delist the organisation from their own proscription list. The UK Government must pay no heed to these overtures and instead put our national security interests first.

The UK should show its commitment to rooting out Iran’s support for terrorism by proscribing the IRGC and leading essential international efforts to end its financing of terror surrogates. There is clearly support for this landmark step within Government, and I particularly applaud the Minister for Security, who has done so much to raise public awareness of the dangers of IRGC activity within the UK. I also note that the Prime Minister has previously said that IRGC proscription

“must now be on the table”,

and he vowed unequivocally in December last year that he would utilise

“the full range of tools at our disposal to protect UK citizens from the threat of the IRGC”.

It all begs the question, if not now, when?

This is by no means the first debate in this place on the urgent need to respond to Iran’s malign activities across the world, and I dare say it will not be the last. It is hard to escape the assessment that Iran, emboldened by the absence of IRGC proscription and a snapback of biting sanctions in response to its nuclear transgressions, has systematically escalated its deplorable efforts to export bloodshed and instability. The Iranian regime is ruthlessly holding the threat of terrorism and its expanding missile capabilities over our heads. There is a real risk that the UK and our western allies will become the agents of Iran’s deterrence here.

US-led policy towards Iran has been shown as ineffective and, in many cases, harmful to UK national interest. A clear-eyed analysis of Iran’s behaviour and activities means that the UK-Iran relationship cannot simply continue as business as usual. It is time we pursued a robust, independent approach. We have rightly led the way in defending Ukraine against unprovoked attacks, and I applaud the Government’s relentless commitment to sanctioning Russia. Now, let us take the same principled approach in our Iran policy and lead from the front.