LONDON (Dispatches) -- Several UK MPs attended a rally in Paris organized by the anti-Iran MKO group which was listed a terrorist organization by the UK government until 2008, according to parliamentary data released Tuesday.
Since it was founded in the 1960s, the terrorist group has gone from Marxism to ally of Saddam Hussein, attempting to position itself as the Iranian government-in-waiting.
Conservative MPs David Amess, Bob Blackman, Theresa Villiers, Matthew Offord and Labor MP Toby Perkins were among the UK delegation at the MKO’s rally in Paris on July 1, where the terrorist group is based after being driven out of Iran.
Speaking to Middle East Eye, Iranian analyst Mahan Abedin said: "If UK parliamentarians are supporting them with a view to pushing for change inside Iran or supporting the protesters then this may not be the right way to go about it because this group has no traction. It’s universally reviled.
"One reason it’s so reviled is because memories are very long. They were blatantly fighting on the Iraqi side in the Iran-Iraq war.”
The MKO paid Perkins’ $1,112 in expenses to cover his travel, accommodation and meals, while attending the rally, according to the Parliamentary register of MPs' financial interests. MPs Blackman and Amess were paid to attend by a Zurich-based organization.
The Paris rally featured speeches from Western politicians, including Villiers and Amess, who spoke of their support for MKO gang leader Maryam Rajavi.  
During the Iran-Iraq war from 1980-1988, the MKO sided with Saddam Hussein and its terrorists launched an attack on Iran and helped provide intelligence on military targets within Iran.
The group also helped violently suppress Kurdish and Shia uprisings in Iraq. In return for its support, the Iraqi ruler allowed the MKO to run a military camp near the Iranian border called Camp Ashraf.
According to a 2005 Human Rights Watch report, after the Iran-Iraq war many MKO members grew disillusioned.
MKO gang leaders Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam Rajavi then began to enforce punishments for dissent which have led to accusations from former members that the MKO has become a cult.
In its report, Human Rights Watch said that all MKO members were forced to divorce, although Massoud and Maryam Rajavi remained married, and that any dissenters were imprisoned and tortured inside Camp Ashraf.  
According to former members, two dissenters were killed while being interrogated, HRW reported.
In 1992, the MKO raided several Iranian government embassies in the West. In 1997, the U.S. listed the MKO as a terrorist organization and in 2001, the UK followed suit.
When Iraq was invaded in 2003, the MKO was disarmed as part of a ceasefire deal with the U.S. forces. Its camps in Iraq were gradually shut by the new Iraqi government, with the remaining residents from Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty moving to a new camp in Albania in 2016.
Since the U.S. invasion, the UK, U.S. and EU have taken the group off their lists of terrorist organizations.