Ban the IRGC or face the consequences at home

You’ll think I’m nagging (though if I were a man, you’d probably say I was merely being “tough” or “assertive”), but I’m going to say it again: why hasn’t the UK government banned Iran’s brutal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the powerful paramilitary force that not only supports the Iranian regime at home and its proxies abroad but also controls the “covert, foreign operations” of the Iranian government?

Last July, in an opinion piece for Jewish News, I called on this Labour government to honour its election pledge to ban the IRGC, whose leaders at the time had openly called for “an apocalyptic war on Jews” – that is, an “apocalyptic war” on people of the Jewish faith living in the UK and across the globe.

The UK government did not ban the IRGC.

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In October, following the shocking but all-too-predictable terrorist attack in Manchester on Yom Kippur, I wrote in a blog that it was now “even more urgent” for the government to “ban Iran’s stormtroopers” – in case it’s not absolutely clear, that’s the IRGC –  as well as other extremist groups that quite openly radicalise and incite hate and antisemitic violence in the UK, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which many argue has played a role in spreading extremist ideology, and Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is now banned in the UK.

But they did not act then, either.

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And just a few days ago, there was another terrorist attack on UK soil against British Jews. Though potentially deadly and quite terrifying for those in nearby homes, the attack resulted only in twisted metal and burnt-out ambulances and is, for now at least, being described as an “antisemitic hate crime” rather than “terrorism” (a distinction that some in the community question).

But even before there were dead Jews at Heaton Park Synagogue and a potentially deadly arson attack in the heart of the NW London Jewish community, this government’s refusal to honour its promise on the IRGC was already having frightening, real-life consequences for the Jewish community, as reports from the CST and the Board of Deputies’ Commission on Antisemitism revealed. Following the 7 October Hamas massacre in Israel, Jews in the UK were suffering an “onslaught of antisemitism”.

According to the Commission on Antisemitism, an “atmosphere of dread” left many British Jews “scared to enter their own cities” as frenzied mobs called for “globalised intifada” and screamed support for the Islamist psychopaths who slaughtered 1200 men, women and children on 7 October.

Although this week’s attack fortunately resulted only in burnt-out ambulances, the realisation of where this nation is now in terms of both radicalisation and the normalisation of Jew-hate has shocked the UK Jewish community and provoked existential fear. This was given extra impetus when, within a few hours of the Golders Green attack – which many believe reflects a wider climate of radicalisation and incitement – Kent Police declared that an exhibition of so-called “art”, which would not have been out of place in 1930s Nazi Germany, was “legitimate criticism of Israel”.

You might have thought that after the West Midlands Police fiasco, when the force was accused of being overly lenient towards antisemitic activism, Kent officers would be a little more cautious or circumspect. But not only did Kent Police declare that images which depicted vile, millennia-old antisemitic tropes and blood libels –  such as Jews eating babies and drinking blood –  were not “insulting” or “abusive to Jewish people”, but insisted there was “no information” to suggest “hostility” towards Jews”, even though the Star of David, which has been a symbol of Jewish people for millennia, featured repeatedly, and even though one “work” reads “antisemitic art exhibition this way”. But perhaps they thought that was post-modern irony.

Despite police officers flooding Temple Fortune and Golders Green (and I assume Stamford Hill), such responses – especially when combined with this government’s continuing refusal to honour its election pledge to ban the IRGC – destroys any lingering illusion that the establishment has our backs.

So, forgive us if we feel hand-wringing and rhetoric are not enough. I – and many others – said after Manchester that the government needed to act – and decisively – before another incident took place. Another incident has taken place. By the grace of God, no one died or was injured. But as long as the IRGC – and the Muslim Brotherhood – are allowed to remain active in the UK radicalising, inciting and fomenting hatred in our nation, it can only be a matter of time before another, more grievous atrocity takes place in, say, a Jewish kindergarten such as the one attempted by radicalised Muslims in Michigan or in a Jewish school such as those perpetrated by radicalised Muslims in France.

This government made a pledge just days before the 2024 election to ban the IRGC. They did not honour that pledge. Less than two years later, we have seen two terror attacks — one leading to the death of two Jewish men – in the UK by radicalised individuals. And still the government hesitates over a ban on a brutal paramilitary organisation which, when not fomenting hate and inciting violence against Jews globally, has been accused by human rights groups of involvement in the repression and killing of up to 30,000 Iranian citizens.

Our fear and anger will only be assuaged by tough action. Not by platitudes of the kind we heard after Manchester and heard again this week.

• Jan Shure is a writer, editor and blogger