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The Green Party of England and Wales is at loggerheads over how to respond to the war in Iran, with a well-organised campaign calling for an end to economic sanctions on the regime and opposition to the designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign state-backed threat.
Two competing motions on Iran are being debated ahead of the party’s autumn conference.
One, A93, has 106 named backers on the Green Party members’ portal and is supported by Greens for Palestine.
It calls on the British Government to “pursue diplomatic normalisation with Iran”, to “campaign for the lifting of broad-based economic sanctions” and to “oppose the proscription or designation of Iranian state institutions, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)” on the grounds that “such measures are counterproductive, undermine diplomacy, close channels for engagement, and reduce opportunities for mediation and peacebuilding”.
Since the Green Party’s conference is sovereign and binding, passing it would bring party policy into conflict with the position of most of its MPs. Four Green MPs recently backed a Liberal Democrat amendment calling for the IRGC to be banned more quickly than under the Government’s own plans.
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The amendment, which fell, would have required the Home Secretary to bring forward regulations designating the IRGC as a state threat within one month of the Act passing, but it was defeated. Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion), Carla Denyer (Bristol Central, by proxy), Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) and Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) backed the push. Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) has no vote recorded.
The anti-proscription motion was tightened on 7 July to oppose the designation mechanism specifically. Six days later, on 13 July, the Government designated the IRGC as a state threat and banned support for the group. The motion contains no reference to IRGC activity in the UK. Several British-Iranians appear to back the motion, with one writing on the members’ forum that relatives cannot obtain important medicines under Western sanctions.
The Government accuses IRGC proxies of targeting dissident journalists on British soil and supporting attacks on Jewish communities, including the arson attack on Jewish community ambulances in Golders Green on 23 March.
Against that motion sits A99, “Justice, Not War, For Iran”, written by British-Iranian members. It opposes US and Israeli military action while calling for Magnitsky-style sanctions on named individuals and to “financially proscribe” the IRGC.
Incorporating concerns from some members about free speech, it also backs repealing “s11-13 of the Terrorism Act and the National Security Act” to “protect freedom of speech and Association in the UK”, in a nod to members in prison or facing court for allegedly supporting the banned group Palestine Action. It has, at the time of writing, 55 supporters against A93’s 106.
Backers of A99 cite a figure from the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) of more than 53,000 arrests made by the Iranian state in January alone, including hundreds of children. On 21 January 2026, Iran’s own Supreme Council of National Security issued a statement saying 3,117 people were killed during protests against the regime.
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‘Proscription as a Political Weapon’
A93’s proposer, Dr Ashok Kumar, did not answer specific questions from this outlet, including whether he believes the IRGC has directed or supported attacks on UK soil. But he said in a statement: “Britain has no business lecturing anyone about violence in the Middle East while our Government continues to enable it. The war on Iran is illegal.”
He continued: “My motion is based on a simple principle: proscription is being used as a political weapon to restrict free speech, criminalise solidarity and shut down opposition to Western foreign policy.”
He added: “We do not need to romanticise any anti-imperialist state or movement to oppose imperialism. Western governments do not get a free pass to wage illegal wars because their opponents are imperfect.”
Dr Kumar said it was “ridiculous” to “talk about what ‘Iranians’ supposedly want as though Iran were politically homogeneous. There are Iranian members of the Green Party who support this motion, just as there are Iranians who oppose it.”
The free-speech framing appears to be a shift from what Dr Kumar told the Substack publication HR News in June, when he said: “The only reason [the IRGC are] being proscribed is because they are the only counterweight to Israel.”
Of the backers of the anti-proscription motion, Paul Ingram was the most forthright in his criticism of the Iranian Government. A nuclear disarmament specialist, a member of the party’s governing council and a former presenter on Iranian state television, he told this outlet: “I oppose the designation of the IRGC. That should not be confused with approval of the IRGC or denial of its record…
“I am appalled by serious human-rights abuses associated with organs of the Iranian state, including repression of protesters, women, dissidents and journalists. Where individuals are responsible for crimes, including crimes committed or commissioned in the UK, they should be investigated and held accountable.”
Ingram, who is currently a research affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, also condemned the Golders Green arson attack and noted that four men have pleaded guilty.
On whether the IRGC directed it, he said: “An intelligence assessment, a criminal allegation in an indictment, and a judicially established command chain for a particular attack are not the same thing. I do not have independent evidence that enables me responsibly to state who ordered the Golders Green attack, and I do not think it is helpful to pretend to a certainty I do not possess.”
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Ingram appears sceptical of claims of IRGC-backed attacks on UK soil, suggesting there is no strategic benefit to Iran from antisemitic attacks and asking whether the IRGC would not more likely conduct “targeted assassinations”. He invoked misleading intelligence ahead of the Iraq war as a warning against intelligence claims being taken as certainties.
The nuclear disarmament expert was clear that if conference adopts the motion, “it would establish party policy that differs from the position taken by four Green MPs in their June vote”.
“That is a real disagreement.” But he added: “We do not whip our representatives, and value diversity of opinion.”
Ingram says he is himself due to face proceedings under the Terrorism Act 2000 for holding up a sign opposing the ban on Palestine Action. He is one of several thousand people facing court proceedings over the proscription.
‘Why Can’t We Name All the Bad Actors?’
Raeeka Yassaie is a co-proposer of pro-proscription motion A99. She is British-Iranian and says her family fled during the revolution in 1979. She has never been to Iran because it is not safe for her to go.
She is concerned about the framing of the anti-sanctions campaign.
“There’s not a clear understanding that the IRGC is also a bad actor, that it executes its own people, that it puts them under internet blackouts…
“It’s the people that are the revolutionary actors, not the state. The state is an oppressive regime, and while it might stand up and postulate against the US and Israel, it is demociding, executing, assaulting its own people.”
She believes the US, Israel and the IRGC are all guilty of human rights violations. “Why can’t we name all the bad actors?” she asks.
Yassaie is frustrated by the near-unanimity of support in the party for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel — which she supports — but far more hesitancy about the same approach to Iran.
“There’s always sanctions in BDS, right? So why are we acting like we’re going to do it in one direction but not the other?…
“If you look at A93, human rights are kind of a footnote… Whereas to us as Iranians, that’s the main header. Yes, please don’t have war, but we’ve been enduring human rights violations on an epic level for almost half a century.”
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Yassaie says backers of her motion are “talking about sanctions that very specifically target the people doing the bad stuff, not the Iranian people” – so-called ‘Magnitsky-style’ sanctions which target human rights abusers.
“We’re being very specific and saying there needs to be some sort of consequence for the brutality. Otherwise we’re just sitting there and watching it happen.”
She says anti-regime Iranians within the Greens are taking “quite a toll” to “keep showing up”: “It’s a difficult space to sit in as a progressive Iranian.”
Farnaz Bradley, her co-author on A99, said: “I co-wrote this motion in Spring because the Iranian people need solidarity and justice, i.e. accountability, not another war. We challenge human rights abuses without punishing ordinary Iranian civilians who resist state oppression…
“We can’t support a camp which makes pawns of valorous Iranian lives in a larger war of ‘revenge’.”
Another backer of A99, Shakira Ortiz, said she was moved to support it after speaking to Iranians.
“A lot of Iranian people are saying yes, obviously we want peace for Iran, but it’s not just about foreign entities coming and destroying our peace… The regime itself is oppressive and it does brutalise people, and we should be able to acknowledge both at the same time. To me, it is quite logical.”
She added: “There is debate between different Global Majority Greens members… that the regime Iran has now is the way it is because of foreign interference… But in my personal opinion, that doesn’t excuse brutalising a people. We should still hold both sides accountable.”
The Campaign Behind It
Greens for Palestine has been a major backer of the anti-proscription push, arguing on 10 June that proscribing the IRGC would mean “siding with the US Empire and Israel against the people of Iran”, and claiming the IRGC “protects Iran from the Zionist war machine”. It said the ban would add to “British complicity in crimes against humanity”.
A spokesperson for Greens for Palestine did not respond to specific questions on the motion or its positions but told this outlet: “It is perfectly legitimate for anyone to oppose war, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide and defend the sovereignty of a people.
“It is also perfectly legitimate — and legal — to oppose the proscription or designation of any organisation. Greens For Palestine will not sit silently while our rights to freedom of speech, assembly and association are stripped away in the name of imperial violence.”
The spokesperson added: “Iran has the right, according to international law, to defend itself.”
None of the backers approached by Byline Times used this framing in their responses. Dr Kumar, Reader in Political Economy at Birkbeck, University of London, along with Ingram and Greens for Palestine itself, instead reframed the motion as one in favour of free expression.
The Greens for Palestine statement also said the UK was “directly involved in war crimes” in Iran, through the US’ Minab school strike which killed 120 schoolchildren on the first day of the war on 28 February. However, this was before the UK had granted the US permission to launch “defensive” strikes from UK bases. The Tomahawk missiles used are also launched from US Navy ships, not military bases.
The Green Party’s autumn 2025 conference voted to call for the Israel Defense Forces to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, in a motion put forward by Greens for Palestine. The A93 anti-proscription motion does not use the word “terror”, with regards to the IRGC or any other Iranian state body.
On 13 July — the day the Government designated the IRGC — the party’s Standing Orders Committee froze comments on both Iran motions, announced it was seeking legal advice and said it would delete members’ comments where necessary.
The Green Party has not responded to repeated requests to explain what that advice concluded or whether it constrains debate at conference. Members have voted on whether to prioritise the motions for debate, with the results due this Thursday (10 September).
Backers of the anti-proscription motion include at least two members of the Green Party’s governing council: Paul Ingram and the East Midlands representative Animah Kosai.
On 7 July, Kosai commented on the party’s members’ forum on motion A93, suggesting the proposer add the words “or designation” after “proscription”, noting that under the National Security Act and the then Bill the term used is “designation/designate”. She added that it was clear from Hansard that the IRGC was intended to be the first body designated once the new amendments came into force. Dr Kumar amended the motion the same day.
Backers also include the former Jeremy Corbyn spokesman Matt Zarb-Cousin, who joined the Greens from Labour in November 2022. He told Byline Times: “From my perspective waging an unwinnable war against Iran to line the pockets of arms companies and on behalf of Israel is not something we should be defending under any circumstances. Particularly given the impact on cost of living in the UK.”
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Senior Backer Speaks Up
Paul Ingram has a long history engaging with Iran. He hosted a weekly programme, 60 Minutes, on the Iranian state broadcaster IRINN from 2007 to 2012, and was paid £150 per programme. He has also appeared eight times on Press TV, the Iranian state channel stripped of its UK broadcast licence by Ofcom in 2012, between February 2024 and June 2025.
He says those appearances were unpaid and that he has not appeared since, though he would do so again if invited. He previously presented a documentary series for Press TV on nuclear issues.
Ingram told Byline Times he seeks engagement with Iran rather than endorsement of it, that he appears more often on Turkish state television and on the BBC, and adds that appearing on a broadcaster does not imply backing the Government behind it. He says the IRGC investigated him as a suspected MI6 agent, and that he has considered travel to Iran unsafe for 15 years.
“I can see that my judgement could be open to criticism,” he said. “But it was a judgement about engagement, not allegiance.”
His April 2024 appearances spanned the week of Iran’s missile and drone attack on Israel and the launch of the regime’s hijab crackdown, the Noor Plan. They followed a UN fact-finding mission that found the state’s response to the 2022 protests amounted to crimes against humanity.
In a 2020 Los Angeles Review of Books essay, Ingram described visiting Iran at the invitation of the Foreign Ministry, mixing with high-level officials and being briefed each week on the messages his programme was expected to draw out. He says he resisted this, and describes being handed “the keys to the citadel of state propaganda”.
During his time as an Iranian TV presenter, Ingram was also executive director of the British American Security Information Council and a tutor on the UK National School of Government’s Top Management Programme for senior civil servants, according to his online biography.
Both motions oppose Israel and the US’s military actions in Iran.
The Green Party did not respond to requests for comment. Animah Kosai was also contacted for comment.
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