British MPs invite deposed shah's son to promote Iran regime change in parliament
According to an invitation to the event seen by MEE, Pahlavi is set to brief MPs and peers on "the ongoing situation in Iran and his plan for the collapse of the current regime and for a stable transition to a secular democracy".
The event is scheduled to take place at 5pm in a committee room in parliament and is co-hosted by Labour MP Luke Akehurst and Conservative MP Aphra Brandreth.
Akehurst told MEE: "It is for the Iranian people to decide what type of government they want, but clearly MPs are going to be interested in hearing what different opposition voices have got to say about the future of such an important country."
MEE also contacted Brandreth for comment.
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Referred to among his supporters as a "king in exile", Reza Pahlavi, 64, is the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the late shah of Iran, who was toppled during the 1977-1979 popular uprising that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic as we now know it.
As a staunch defender of a US-backed monarchy that he hopes to bring back to Iran, he has made several visits to Israel, taken photographs with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and cast himself as the only viable leader of a modern Iran if the Islamic Republic collapses.
On 16 June, during the recent hostilities between Israel and Iran, Pahlavi said that "the root cause of the problem has been the regime and its nature, and the only solution, ultimately, that will benefit both the Iranian people as well as the free world is for this regime to no longer be there".
Responding to Pahlavi's comments, Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif made headlines by calling the shah's son a "bloody parasitical imperial whore".
"If Iranian people are energised and motivated according to you," Asif said in a post on social media platform X, "show some balls and go back and lead them and remove the regime."
'Important message from Reza Pahlavi'
Labour MP Akehurst, who was first elected last July, described a 14 June video address by Pahlavi calling for regime change as an "important message from Reza Pahlavi about backing the Iranian people".
How the son of Iran's last shah became a pro-Israel stooge Read More »
In 2021, Akehurst was asked if he regarded the UN as antisemitic because the Security Council, of which Britain is a member, ruled that "Israel's establishment of settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity". Akehurst answered: "Yes."
In November 2023, he said that the "major West Bank settlement blocks" should become part of Israel as part of a land exchange with Palestine, adding that he wants the Golan Heights "to remain part of Israel".
The establishment and expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, according to a recent UN report, amount to a war crime.
Before becoming an MP, Akehurst was also once photographed wearing a T-shirt describing himself as a "Zionist shitlord".
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