Politics
Board of Deputies call for IRGC and PFLP proscription in meeting with Home Secretary
Yvette Cooper said the government would 'redouble efforts to tackle antisemitism'
February 27, 2025 11:59
Yvette Cooper said the government would 'redouble efforts to tackle antisemitism'
February 27, 2025 11:59Representatives from the Board of Deputies met with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on Tuesday and urged her to proscribe extremist groups including Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The delegation – which included President Phil Rosenberg, Vice President and Chair of Security, Resilience and Cohesion Division Andrew Gilbert, Chair of the Board’s Criminal Law Group Paul Harris and Religious and Civil Affairs Officer Victoria Lisek – also discussed the Jewish community’s difficult experiences with public order over the last 16 months since the eruption of anti-Israel protests after October 7, 2023.
The Board welcomed new measures in the government’s Crime and Policing Bill to make it a criminal offence, punishable by a possible custodial sentence, to conceal one’s face in an area designated by police and to climb on specific war memorials such as the Cenotaph.
They also discussed the need to protect synagogues, mosques, and other places of worship from hostile demonstrations and to consider the cumulative impact of weekly protests on community wellbeing.
Following the meeting, Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg said: “On the day that some of the measures to be included in the Crime and Policing Bill were announced, it was good have the opportunity to discuss the provisions we think are necessary for the protection of our community."
He added: “We found the Home Secretary to be very receptive to our concerns and look forward to working with the Home Office to fight antisemitism and ensure the safety of our community”.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that she was “grateful for the positive and productive meeting with the Board of Deputies today, discussing how we can redouble our efforts to tackle antisemitism and the range of extremist threats facing our communities”.
She went on: “I look forward to continuing to work with the Board on this Government’s plans for safer streets”.
The government do not routinely comment on whether a group is being considered for proscription, however, in opposition, Labour had pledged to proscribe the IRGC.
Then-Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy told in Parliament in February 2023: “We would proscribe the IRGC, either by using existing terrorism legislation or by creating a new process of proscription for hostile state actors.”
Labour’s election manifesto did not call for the IRGC to be proscribed, but during the general election, it was reported that Labour was planning to bring in “bespoke” proscription mechanism to make it easier for “state-based actors” to be formally declared as terror groups.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told MPs in November last year that the decision on whether to proscribe the IRGC would be kept “under review”.
However, earlier this month, MPs including former Home Secretary Suella Braverman said that the sentencing of 23-year-old former solider Daniel Khalife for spying for Iran and escaping Wandsworth Prison showed the urgent need to the need to take the threat posed by Iran to the UK seriously.
The PFLP is banned in the US, Canada, Japan and the European Union.
The “revolutionary socialist” group gained notoriety for carrying out plane hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s. Under EU law, the PFLP was subject to financial sanctions in the UK, but those no longer apply due to a loophole since the Brexit.