Britain has ruled out involvement in regime change in Iran following the bloody suppression of protests by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a government minister has said.
The build-up of American forces in the region has led to discussion that President Donald Trump might order the toppling of the Tehran government.
The first high-level diplomatic talks in many months will go ahead this Friday in Istanbul between the US and Iran. US special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to discuss the possibilities for nuclear negotiations and de-escalation.
Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer told the UK parliament on Tuesday that he did not “want to be drawn into speculating about regime change in Iran”.
He was responding to a question from former Conservative cabinet minister Kit Malthouse who asked “if the Iranian people, through their courage, are able to throw off their oppressors, are we able to say that there is a plan to support whatever may emerge after that event?”
Mr Falconer also had to face down a barrage of demands from MPs calling for the IRGC to be proscribed as a terror organisation, after reports that it played a major role in the killing of up to 30,000 demonstrators last month.
Foremost among them was former chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Julian Lewis, MP, who stated that there was “an analogy between the IRGC and the Gestapo and Hitler's SS”.
The government has refused to proscribe the IRGC mainly because existing legislation addresses terror groups rather than state organisations.
Jonathan Hall, the government’s independent reviewer on terrorism, has recommended that Britain should create a new, special legal regime to target hostile state actors to move against the IRGC.
While the government is looking at ways to bring legislation to parliament, Mr Lewis argued that this could be expedited as both the SS and Gestapo “were designated as criminal organisations by the Nuremberg Tribunal” after the Second World War ended.
Others decried that Britain was taking too long to enact the legislation especially after the EU, US, Australia and Canada had all proscribed it.
Mr Falconer stated that getting the new legislation through parliament was being “treated as a matter of urgency”.
There were also several calls from MPs for those accountable for the estimated 30,000 deaths to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court.
“The government must take concrete steps to ensure that those responsible one day face justice,” said James McCleary the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman.
He added that it was the “right direction” for the government to use “British satellites to gather” evidence to pursue criminal action against the IRGC in the courts.
“There can be no doubt that Iran's leaders have perpetrated crimes against humanity on a catastrophic scale,” he added.
Street force
MPs also asked the government to look at sanctioning the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission, which is linked to the Iranian regime and has been accused of extremism, whose supporters allegedly attacked Iran freedom activists.
“There is also another organisation called the Islamic Human Rights Commission, which is linked to the Iranian regime and just this weekend they were seen on the streets of London with placards in support of the Ayatollah,” said David Taylor, a Labour MP.
“But even more depressing than that, I've had reports from Iranian freedom protesters that they have been beaten up, including women, when they have attempted to hold these people to account outside their own centre.”
He asked the government to not only look at proscribing the IRGC but at “other groups like that, which go under the guise of standing up for human rights but doing anything but”.
Mr Falconer responded that the government was aware of pro-regime protests in Britain but could not comment “on the process of sanction, or indeed proscription review”.
He added that Iranian violence on the streets of the UK “will be treated in the very serious terms”.
No one involved in the Iran crackdown should be granted asylum in the UK, an ex-minister also insisted. Former Labour foreign minister Catherine West urged the government not to grant asylum to anyone involved in the crackdown on protesters in Iran so that a “loud message” was sent to the regime.
Mr Falconer replied that he would “take that up” with ministerial colleagues.
