Actions of Iranian Regime: UK Response

Debate between David Davis and Hamish Falconer

Monday 7th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I do not want anyone in the House to be under any illusions about the seriousness with which we take the IRGC’s activities. That is why we commissioned the Jonathan Hall review. That is why it is on the enhanced tier of FIRS—the foreign influence registration scheme. That is why it is fully sanctioned. That is why we have continued to impose sanctions in response to Iranian aggression. I know well the threat that Iran poses not just to British nationals but to journalists as well, as my hon. Friend eloquently points out. I have met many of those journalists. I am appalled that some of those threats are being made here in the UK. I will not comment too much on law enforcement and intelligence activity, but I have been clear with the Iranian ambassador that the full force of the law and all our capabilities will be focused on those who seek to harm people here.

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

Omid Khalili, a British citizen and renowned Iranian broadcaster, hosts a phone-in reaching over 30 million Iranians. He has been targeted by the Iranian regime. The detail has been laid out in UnHerd by the journalist David Rose, but in summary his wife, parents and sister have been detained in Iran, interrogated, threatened and their passports have been confiscated. The aim of that is to blackmail Mr Khalili into coming back to Iran, where he will certainly be arrested and very probably executed. Those acts of intimidation are carried out by the Iranian secret police and the IRGC, and facilitated by so-called diplomats in the Iranian embassy here. We cannot ignore this state-sponsored blackmail, so what the Government ought to do is expel Iranian officials complicit in that behaviour and finally proscribe the IRGC.

[Mr Falconer]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the pattern of Iranian detentions in Iran and some of the threats that we have already described that are sought to be prosecuted here. I will not say more about the state threat here, as I think I have probably laid out more than I would like to, but it is incredibly important that people are aware of the way in which the Iranian state has operated and continues to operate within Iran. We are deeply familiar as a Government —as I know our predecessors were—with the pattern and tactics of Iranian detentions. We continue to provide consular support wherever we can. We are constrained by the Iranian refusal to recognise dual nationality, which often means that those with links to the UK are not in a position, although they should be, to get consular assistance from the UK. We will continue to do everything we can to change that.

Israel-Gaza Conflict: Arrest Warrants

Debate between David Davis and Hamish Falconer

Monday 25th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Hamish Falconer]

I am not really able to go much further than to say that there is a domestic legal process, through our independent courts, that would determine whether to endorse an arrest warrant. We would follow due process in the way that hon. Members would expect. This is a decision not for Ministers but for an independent court.

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

The Minister may be aware that I have fought the corner for international courts time and again in this House. I view upholding the authority of those courts and their reputation as very important. The difficulty here is not just that Israel is a democracy, but that it has an internal, independent judiciary, which puts a limit on what any Government can do in Israel. That is why equating—or appearing to equate—Netanyahu with all the other monsters that the International Criminal Court has quite properly prosecuted risks bringing the court into disrepute.

[Hamish Falconer]

I know that the right hon. Member has looked at these issues over a long period of time. Questions of complementarity are important, and I understand that they were considered by the pre-trial chamber.