Kearns accuses Home Secretary of ‘waving through’ new powers to designate IRGC without scrutiny

A Tory shadow minister  has accused Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood of attempting to “wave through” new legislation which would crack down on those working for hostile foreign powers, including Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Shadow Home Office minister Alicia Kearns raised concerns that new powers that will see organisations such as IRGC designated as a threat to national security, could “collapse” under legal scrutiny.

The former Foreign Affairs Select Committee chair said the while the Tories supported the intention of the National Security (State Threats) Bill, they would criticise the Government for only allocating one day in the Commons for MPs to debate it.

Kearns said her party “wanted the IRGC designated” and that there is “a national emergency” in this country as a result of rampant antisemitism.

She said that while the Bill was “welcome and overdue” but that “if this Bill is found wanting” it would damage its good intentions.

Responding Mahmood told the Commons there is a “need for speed” following “recent events” and “the threats the country faces”.

She said the Bill had been designed to target the threats posed “predominently but not exclusively” from Russia, China, and Iran.

The Home Secretary later spoke of the recent wave of attacks on the Jewish community in this country,  and of an investigation by terror cops into claims of involvement by the Iranian state.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had also pledged to fast-track the draft legislation following a series of attacks on Jews in recent months.

The PM was responding to calls from communal leaders, including Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, to ban to IRGC.

In an attempt to block the Bill going through all its parliamentary stages in one day, the Conservatives pushed a vote on the allocation of time on Wednesday.

This bid was rejected by 233 votes to 94, majority 139.

Labour MP Luke Akehurst later spoke of his own support for the new bill, which had been drafted following recommendations by Jonathan Hall KC.

The legislation follows a recommendation from the Government’s terror law watchdog Hall,  who said existing laws did not cover state-backed groups such as the IRGC.

Akehurst said that if the Home Secretary used her powers under the new law, it would ensure the protection of the Jewish community and Iranian diaspora groups in this country.

Hertsmere Tory MP Oliver Dowden also said it was “privilege to represent one of the largest Jewish communities in the country” and said the new legislation would ensure that it would feel “secure” at synagogues and at other communal buildings.

He also noted that hatred on Britain’s street was often linked to Islamist extremists, and that “we must look at this broader ecosystem” of connections to foreign states.

Mark Sewards MP, parliamentary chair of the Labour Friends of Israel group also spoke powerfully of the impact of the recent attacks on the Jewish community in Golders Green and at Finchley Reform Synagogue.

He said there was “a need to designate the IRGC as soon as this Bill receives Royal Accent” and noted Starmer’s “promise” to the community to do so.

Former Tory minister Tom Tugendhat also warn about the spread of lies through media organisations such as the Iran-linked Press TV who he said are “just propagandists for a violent tyranny.”

Ministers hope the draft law will make it easier to combat threats from hostile states, with the ability to designate groups as involved in “foreign power threat activity”.

People working for them and their proxies could face up to 14 years in jail, under the new powers.

In the Commons, Kearns said: “Let me be clear from the very outset, we support this Bill, and we want it on the statute book, but we cannot support the manner in which the Government supports to pass it.

“This motion makes a permanent change to the criminal law of our country, and it was laid only late Tuesday, and they seek to drive through every single stage in one afternoon.

“The months of debate this Bill should have had are gone. The line-by-line scrutiny, the votes and amendments at committee stage have all been taken away. So the first test of this law will be in a courtroom where it may well collapse.

“The case for these powers was made well over a year ago. The House does not exist to wave through legislation. We exist to test it and to find the weaknesses before our enemies do.

“A motion that forbids us that duty does not strengthen the Bill, it imperils it.”

In response, Mahmood said: “I regret the approach taken by the official Opposition. They know full well that this is a very tightly constructed Bill that takes forward a specific set of recommendations made by the independent reviewer of terrorism and state threats legislation.

“It will be fully scrutinised by this House and the other place, and the reason for moving quickly, as she well knows, is because we do need this wider power to designate bodies and we will debate this in due course, so that we can move quickly, given the threats the country faces.

“The need for speed, I believe, is made out by recent events, and I think the Government is doing the right thing.”

Conservative former minister Sir Jeremy Wright said it was the Home Secretary who has “decided there is a lack of time”.

He added: “Jonathan Hall KC produced an excellent report, most of which we will all agree with, but he did that in May of last year, so the Home Secretary can’t have this both ways.

“Either this is a desperately urgent matter, in which case the Government should have brought forward legislation long before now, or it is not. In which case we should have longer than a day to consider it. Should we not?”