By Kayhan Life Staff
Lotus Advocacy, a UK-based think tank, has launched a campaign calling on the British government to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and to designate it as a terrorist organization, arguing that sanctions alone are no longer sufficient to counter the IRGC’s activities inside Iran, across the Middle East, and in Britain.
The “Ban IRGC” campaign aims to raise public awareness of the IRGC’s involvement in domestic repression, hostage-taking, overseas intimidation, money laundering, and opinion-shifting operations in the UK.
The campaign comes amid renewed concerns in Britain about Iranian state-linked threats.
Between January 2022 and October 2024, the UK responded to 20 Iran-backed plots targeting British nationals or residents considered threats by Tehran. The scale of the threat increased sharply in 2025, with MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, tracking more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots in a single year.
This year, the UK’s domestic security climate has further deteriorated. On 30 April, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Center raised the UK national terrorism threat level from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe.’ In early May, anti-terrorism police arrested two people after an arson attack on a memorial wall honoring Iranian protesters killed by the state in January.
British-Iranian actor and comedian Omid Djalili told Kayhan Life that IRGC proscription would have consequences far beyond symbolism. “As well as spreading terror, the IRGC is an international business,” Djalili said.
Gio Esfanidary of Lotus Advocacy explained that, to date, the IRGC has not been proscribed in the UK, because successive governments have been cautious due to concerns about diplomatic relations with Tehran and wider regional tensions. However, he noted, the mood is changing.
“There is clearly growing support in Parliament for stronger action against the IRGC,” he said. “More Lords and MPs are speaking publicly about the issue, and pressure on the government is increasing.”
Lord Walney, the former UK government adviser on political violence and disruption, who also backs the campaign, said Britain had repeatedly found “excuses” not to act while allies had taken firmer measures. “The delay, we cannot do anything about,” he said. Now, “we must demand that they act fully to proscribe this organization.”
Djalili said critics who argued that proscription would make little practical difference were underestimating its impact. His comments reflect a central argument of the campaign, that the IRGC is not only a military-security force, but also an economic and ideological network with influence extending far beyond Iran’s borders.
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, becoming a member of a proscribed organization, inviting backing for it, arranging meetings to support it, and displaying symbols that reasonably suggest support can be criminal offenses. Membership in a proscribed organization can carry a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment.
Former detainees and British-Iranian campaigners who support the initiative argue that there are links between the IRGC and threats within the UK, such as alleged money-laundering activities, and raise concerns that individuals linked to IRGC-affiliated families in the UK may be benefiting from the system in ways that raise ethical and security questions.
Elika Ashoori, daughter of Anoosheh Ashoori, the British-Iranian held in Evin Prison for 1,677 days, said former hostages were “living evidence of the IRGC’s depravity.”
“They are not just statistics,” she said. “They are individuals who have survived the psychological and physical machinery of a terrorist organization.”
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She said prioritizing “diplomatic channels” over proscription was a choice to validate an executioner, adding that the issue should not be treated as partisan. Ashoori’s Change.org petition has gathered more than 38,000 signatures.
Nasrin Roshan, a British-Iranian former prisoner who spent 18 months in Evin Prison after taking part in the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests in London and attending a ceremony in Egypt for the late Shah of Iran, said she had promised fellow prisoners before her release that she would be their voice.
“No one can truly understand what it means to spend months living day and night blindfolded in a space resembling a grave unless they have experienced it themselves,” she said. “Silence in the face of oppression and torture only gives perpetrators more power to continue their crimes.”
British-Iranian businessman Kambiz Pouya Majd said he joined the campaign because he believes the IRGC poses a direct national security threat to the UK. “As a British Iranian, I believe it is a national security issue for the UK,” he said. “We are all at risk if the IRGC has its tentacles here.”
Pouya Majd said campaigners are calling for greater transparency around property ownership, company structures, and unexplained wealth linked to regime-connected figures, and want British authorities to examine alleged regime-linked financial networks, charities, and company structures. He cited concerns about institutions such as the Islamic Center of England in Maida Vale and the Islamic Human Rights Commission.
In his 109-page report, “Undue Influence: The Iranian Regime’s Abuse of the UK Charity System and the Limitations of Oversight,” Lord Walney examined a number of UK charities and religious or cultural institutions alleged to have ideological, institutional, or personnel links to the Islamic Republic. The report warns that the Islamic Republic has developed a long-term influence infrastructure through charities, religious centers, educational bodies, and activist organizations, exploiting what it describes as gaps in charity regulation. He argued that proscription would simplify enforcement by making support for or contact with the IRGC a criminal offense in itself. “It is not a magic bullet,” he said, “but it is an essential part of being able to protect the British people from the Iranian regime.”
The United States designated the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2019. Canada listed the IRGC as a terrorist entity under its Criminal Code in 2024, and the European Union formally added the IRGC to its terrorist list in February 2026.
Esfanidary said the UK could still maintain necessary diplomatic channels while taking a firmer legal position against the IRGC. “The UK can still take a firm position against organizations linked to threats and hostile activities while maintaining diplomatic channels where necessary,” he said.
For the campaign’s supporters, however, the central issue is no longer whether the IRGC poses a threat, but whether Britain is prepared to treat it as one.
As Djalili put it, proscription would force governments, companies, institutions, and financial networks to confront a basic distinction: whether they are dealing with a state entity or a terrorist organization.
