Majority of Brits back terror ban on Iran’s IRGC, poll finds

Nearly two-thirds of Britons want the Government to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terror group, according to new polling.

The JL Partners survey for the Iranian Front for the Revival of Law and National Sovereignty found that 65 percent of voters support a ban, rising to 74 percent among those who backed Labour in 2024. Only five percent opposed proscription.

Seventy-one percent of respondents said the IRGC poses a direct threat to the UK’s security. The findings follow MI5’s disclosure that it has foiled at least 20 Iran-linked assassination and kidnap plots in Britain over the past two years. Two-thirds of the public also favour cutting diplomatic ties with Tehran, while more than four-fifths expressed concern over the IRGC’s role in arming terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Vahid Beheshti, founder of the Iranian Front, said: “For 46 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s survival strategy has been to export instability to the West – from hostage-taking and facilitating Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine to exporting its deadly extremist ideology into British society. With over 70 percent of people concerned about the threat of the IRGC to the UK, it is unmistakably clear that the British public has had enough – especially Labour’s own voters. It’s time that the Government woke up and delivered on its commitment to ban the vile IRGC as a terror group.”

Labour MP Jon Pearce added: “The British public are rightly under no illusions about the nature of the Iranian regime. It is clearer than ever that the IRGC poses a threat to the safety and security of everyone in Britain.

“After 14 years of the previous government dithering and delaying, we have made important progress towards our manifesto commitment to proscribe state-based groups like the IRGC. Now we need to bring forward legislation to ban Tehran’s terror army as swiftly as possible, which this polling shows will have the overwhelming support of Labour voters.”

Lord James Abuthnot, the former chair of the Defence Select Committee, said: “With M15 telling us that they have foiled at least 20 state-sponsored attacks by Iran in the UK, what on earth is holding the Government back from proscribing the IRGC? The IRGC sponsors terror around the world, as well as in Hamas and Hezbollah. They kill people in Iran and are trying to do so in the UK, while their drones kill civilians in Ukraine. What more do we need to know? What more do we need to know? What more does it take to get the UK to take effective action against them?”

The poll of 1,500 adults was carried out on 9-10 August.