The British Committee for Iran Freedom (BCFIF) welcomes the European Union’s decision to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.

We agree with Mrs Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) that this decision is at least three decades overdue. The reality is that the brutal crackdown on the Iranian people can no longer go unanswered, and that their courage and the perseverance of the organised resistance in the face of brutal repression has moved the EU to take a firmer stance against the regime.

The BCFIF have long championed the call to proscribe the IRGC in the UK. The House of Commons as well as many cross-party Peers in the House of Lords now back this call to outlaw the IRGC. During this time, we have repeatedly emphasised that the IRGC is not a state entity but the regime’s central instrument of export of terrorism and internal repression, answering only to the Supreme Leader.

Regretfully, the UK Government continues to hesitate. While our allies, including the United States, Canada, and Australia, have taken decisive steps to outlaw the IRGC, the UK Government remains on the sidelines. The soft-line approach toward the regime in Tehran must be revised as it poses wide-ranging threats to the UK’s security and democracy.

Furthermore, it ought to be recognised that in the face of regime indiscriminate repression, the popular Resistance Units inside Iran have a legitimate right to defend themselves and the people against the IRGC’s brutality and deadly violence.

As the regime mobilises the entire state to crush legitimate protests and responds with lethal force to peaceful calls for freedom, the right to resist becomes essential in the struggle for democracy.

The IRGC is responsible for many acts of terrorism, grave violations of human rights and the destruction of Iran’s infrastructure and economy.

The British Committee for Iran Freedom (BCFIF) calls on the UK Government to immediately proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. This is the only way to stand in true solidarity with the Iranian people, who demand a democratic republic founded on values and rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

British Committee for Iran Freedom

29 January 2026