As Labour FINALLY proscribes the IRGC... why we must sanction everyone who spreads Iran's malignant tentacles into the heart of Britain: DAVID PATRIKARAKOS

By DAVID PATRIKARAKOS, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT Published: 01:43, 15 July 2026 | Updated: 01:43, 15 July 2026 When the Ayatollah Khomeini arrived in Tehran on a chartered Air France Boeing 747 following the toppling of the Shah of Iran in 1979, he was not a supreme leader. In the early years following the revolution, he was forced to share power with what he considered to be a blasphemous alliance of secular liberals, nationalists and Marxists. But nothing bothered him more than the power retained by the country's traditional armed forces, who he thoroughly (and correctly) distrusted. So he set about creating a counterweight to their power in the shape of 'a people's army', which he called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. In the decades that followed it morphed into a genuinely elite fighting force with an estimated 190,000 men under its command. And these are not just foot soldiers. The IRGC has its own navy, which patrols Iran's maritime borders –including the now notorious Strait of Hormuz – an artillery arm which runs Tehran's ballistic missile programme and, perhaps most sinister of all, the engine of its global ambitions: the Quds Force. It is this branch of the IRGC that co-ordinates its ties with murderous proxy armies such as Hamas and Hezbollah. And foments unrest in Western capitals. On Monday, Keir Starmer finally summoned up the political will to proscribe this pernicious organisation. It amounts to the most overdue proscription in contemporary global politics. The US took this step in 2019 while the EU followed suit in January of this year. Mourners gather around one of the vehicles in the funeral procession for Iran's slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at Azadi Square in Tehran For Iran's Islamic government is not just a bloodthirsty regime 3,000 miles away on a different continent that we can afford to ignore, but a clear and present danger to our way of life. Only this week, an Iranian newspaper published a 'revenge list' of world leaders to be targeted for the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the late supreme leader who died in an air raid carried out by the US Air Force in February. The so-called 'rogues' gallery', which appeared in a state-run daily called Hamshahri, included pictures of Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with sniper-style targets on their foreheads. And 11 other leaders, all depicted in orange prison uniforms, were featured below them, including Sir Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, France's president Emmanuel Macron and the Italian PM Giorgia Meloni. While we should welcome Starmer's better late than never proscription of the IRGC, it does come with a caveat. That's because the Government chose not to proscribe the IRGC under the Terrorism Act. Instead, it created a new piece of legislation called the National Security (State Threats) Act, which focuses on offences that are directly commanded, financed or materially supported by the IRGC. The problem is these represent only part of the threat. As Kasra Araabi, director of IRGC Research at United Against Nuclear Iran, told me: 'The Terrorism Act contains explicit provisions prohibiting the display of flags, uniforms, official materials and publications of a proscribed organisation... Conservative MPs tabled amendments to incorporate these provisions into the National Security Act, explicitly to fill these gaps. But ministers rejected every one.' That matters because the Iranians are masters of political warfare and the IRGC are their most potent practitioners. Its threat to Western civilisation lies not just in its global army of thugs and crude propaganda but in the charities, schools and religious centres it funds in a bid to form an international ecosystem through which the mullahs shape opinion and build influence. I've seen this process at first hand. In August 2024, I reported on the web of Islamic Republic-linked institutions in London that I christened 'Little Tehran'. With extremist speakers promoting Islamism and children taught to sing songs praising Iran's Supreme Leaders, it is no exaggeration to say that the next generation of the regime's thugs is being incubated right here in our capital city. The truth is that the mullahs of Tehran are not leaders of a nation state in the traditional sense but members of an Islamist vanguard engaged in what they believe to be a perpetual war against the West. Just look at what it's done in Britain alone over the past four years. Since 2022, MI5 says it has foiled at least 20 Iranian-backed plots involving murder, kidnap or serious violence on British soil. Keir Starmer finally summoned up the political will to proscribe the IRGC on Monday Last year, Pouria Zeraati, a journalist with a satellite TV station and digital news operation called Iran International, was stabbed outside his London home in an attack carried out on behalf of the Iranian state. British intelligence has also foiled other attempts by Iranian operatives to target the company's journalists. Emigre Iranians are not the only people at risk, of course. Britain's Jewish community has suffered arson and vandalism attacks on schools, synagogues and charities. A number of these have been claimed by the so-called Islamic Movement Of The Companions Of The Right – another body proscribed by the new legislation – which ministers say acts on behalf of Iran. It is the growing boldness of organisations such as this that shows proscription alone is not enough. The West needs a plan to cripple the IRGC and, to achieve that aim, we need to go after the vast business empire that pays for its guns and missiles and funds its proxies. With Iran, that means starting with its oil. The IRGC sells much of its crude through a network of shell companies, dubious middlemen and a 'shadow fleet' of tankers. It often does this by blending its oil with crude from other states, relabelling it then taking it to market via dodgy firms in the Middle East or Asia. The funds raised are then funnelled through offshore accounts and chains of front companies before landing in IRGC accounts. Pouria Zeraati was stabbed outside his London home in an attack carried out on behalf of the Iranian state It's time to sanction everyone in this malignant chain: above all the tanker owners who move the regime's black gold and the banks and buyers who facilitate the trade. Any refinery caught buying disguised Iranian crude should lose access to Western markets. Let's do the same to the regime's front companies: the construction firms, charities, trading houses, shipping firms and so on. Meanwhile, sanctions have left the regime desperate for Western spare parts. It illegally procures everything from machine tools and sensors to chemicals and drone tech through brokers and small firms in third countries. These are smuggled through free ports or falsely marked as civilian goods. Firms that fail to check where their goods end up must be fined and, in serious cases, face criminal charges. The EU has already barred exports of components used in Iranian drone production – let's widen the net. Finally, we must directly target the money: the offshore accounts, the crypto wallets and the endless dodgy businessmen who launder the regime's cash. Now we have, finally, proscribed the IRGC, it's time to proscribe the regime itself. If we don't, it will only continue to export its sadistic brand of Islamist violence to the streets of Britain. Labour's social media ban a 'dog's dinner' - as curfews only kick in at midnight and can be switched off by kids