In this dangerous new world, Britain’s crackdown on Iranian terror is critical

This means that those who the ayatollahs are directing to further Tehran’s pernicious goals on British soil – including plotting against dissidents, journalists and Jewish and Israeli targets – will at last be forced out of the shadows. As Jarvis rightly noted: “They will face a choice, expose their actions to the government or face jail.”

Second, the government has appointed Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, to examine whether our current counter-terror laws are fit to deal with “modern day state threats, such as those from Iran”. Crucially, the security minister said Hall’s study will give “specific consideration to the design of a proscription mechanism of state or state-linked bodies”.

This represents a significant step towards fulfilling Labour’s manifesto commitment which, citing the IRGC, pledged that the party “would take the approach used for dealing with non-state terrorism and adapt it to deal with state-based domestic security threats.”

LFI has long urged for the IRGC to be proscribed. As our forthcoming publication on the domestic threat posed by Tehran’s terror army will argue, however the government chooses to proceed, the goal should be that the IRGC, and those who wish to support it, face the same restrictions to which other proscribed organisations, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, are subject.

Since it took office, the government has made a major downpayment on its pledge, significantly tightening the sanctions to which the IRGC – as well as a host of other Iranian individuals and entities – are now subject.

So why is some form of proscription mechanism against the IRGC still needed? Proscribing the IRGC will mean that its members cannot be active in any respect in the UK, including attending or speaking at meetings. It means it will be a criminal offence for anyone in the UK to associate with the IRGC, to profess support for it, to share any materials created by the IRGC or attend any meetings with IRGC representatives. Proscribing the IRGC will mean this behaviour would be considered a criminal offence and IRGC online material would have to be removed.

At his speech to LFI’s annual lunch last December, the Prime Minister bluntly declared: “Iran is a state sponsor of terror” and vowed “I will not turn a blind eye while Iran seeks to destabilise the Middle East”.

That’s why he stood resolutely by Israel’s side when Tehran launched its second direct attack on Israel last October.

And it’s why the Prime Minister has matched words with action. In response to the Iranian attack last October, for instance, the government announced new measures to disrupt Iran’s UAV and missile industries and its access to items critical for military development. Those drones and missiles are, of course, being both deployed by Tehran to terrorise Israeli civilians and shipped to Putin to commit mass murder against Ukrainian civilians.

Together with our allies in France and Germany, the government has also issued a series of warnings to Tehran regarding its nuclear programme. Last September, for instance, we jointly declared: “Iran must never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon”. This has been backed up by threats that, if Iran doesn’t deescalate, we will in the coming months trigger the “snapback mechanism” and reimpose the key UN sanctions lifted by the 2015 nuclear deal.

At home, there’s still much to do. As LFI has consistently argued, Britain must counter Iran’s support for radicalisation, ban entry permits to Iranian extremists, and close the ideological centres propagating the regime’s violent and extremist ideology. We must act to combat and disrupt the threat posed by Iranian-linked platforms which spread disinformation and hatred. And we must identify and sanction Iranian regime oligarchs, elites and proxies in the UK, treating them in the same manner as we rightly treat Putin’s regime.

As the government’s announcement this week underlines, we must take new, tough and smart measures to counter the domestic threat Iran poses. Those who seek to do Tehran’s bidding – and those who seek to promote the violence, terrorism and antisemitism which lays at the heart of the regime’s ideology – must be stopped.

Michael Rubin is the director of Labour Friends of Israel