The UK government wants credit for finally moving against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It deserves some, though very little.

On Monday, Labour home secretary Shabana Mahmood designated the IRGC as a national-security threat. This decision comes after years of warnings, more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots since 2022 and a recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks in Britain. The lateness of the designation, under the new National Security (State Threats) Act 2026, speaks to Westminster’s paralysis in confronting the Iranian threat.

This is not to say this move has no value. Now that the IRGC has been designated as a national-security threat, prosecutors pursuing cases involving its hired criminals will no longer need to prove a connection to a foreign power in each case. Supporting the IRGC, materially assisting it or receiving benefits from it can now carry a 14-year prison term. Sabotage committed on its behalf may result in a life sentence. Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will welcome these tools.

However, contrary to the government’s spin, the IRGC has not been fully proscribed as a terrorist group. The distinction between this and the national-security designation is substantial. Under the Terrorism Act 2000, mere membership of a proscribed organisation is an offence. So is inviting support for a banned group, recklessly encouraging support and displaying flags or insignia in circumstances that arouse reasonable suspicion of support.

The new National Security Act contains no equivalent membership or insignia offence. And its ‘support’ offence applies only when prosecutors can prove a ‘prohibited purpose’ prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK. Ministers rejected amendments that would have removed that extra hurdle and captured self-directed acts inspired by a designated body like the IRGC.

Iran will find plenty of room to manoeuvre in that gap. The IRGC is a military force, an intelligence service, a patron of foreign terrorist groups and an ideological movement – all rolled into one. Its work in Britain extends beyond contracting an arsonist or scouting a journalist’s home. IRGC commanders have given speeches to British students using the language of martyrdom and apocalyptic war. Iran-linked centres and networks transmit the regime’s anti-Semitism and Islamist revolutionary politics into communities here. A law written around commissioned hostile acts struggles to address, say, the volunteer who absorbs that ideology and promotes it without receiving an order from Tehran.

The practical target is even narrower. Iranian intelligence officers posted under diplomatic cover may enjoy immunity from criminal jurisdiction, and the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS) expressly exempts foreign officials acting in their official capacity. Britain can expel these officials, refuse replacement diplomats and close facilities that are used as operational bases, but designating their parent organisation does not remove diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention.

At the other end of the chain, Tehran’s disposable recruits could already face the Terrorism Act, the National Security Act and ordinary criminal law. The CPS can charge them for arson, surveillance, foreign interference or assistance to a foreign intelligence service. The new designation makes some cases easier to prosecute, but does not transform the playing field.

Paper powers also depend on someone using them. Iran and all its agencies have been on the ‘enhanced tier’ of FIRS since March 2025. Unless exempt, anyone directed by Tehran must register relevant activity or risk five years in prison.

There is also one glaring omission to the government’s announcement: Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). It already falls within FIRS and existing spying offences, while its Internal Security Directorate is subject to UK counter-terrorism sanctions. Yet the entire ministry is somehow absent from the new state-threat designation.

This is a significant failure. The MOIS is one of the Middle East’s largest intelligence services, staffed in the low tens of thousands, with overseas stations housing both declared and undeclared officers. It is likely more experienced than the IRGC in less violent environments.

It’s the MOIS that is particularly dangerous in Britain. It operates through diplomats, cyber teams, narcotics traffickers and hired gangsters. Its officers can steal travel data, map a dissident’s movements, recruit an intermediary and wait. The IRGC gets the headlines, but MOIS has superior tradecraft for European streets.

Ministers should place MOIS under the same designation as the IRGC. It should also close the prohibited-purpose loophole, publish FIRS enforcement figures and better fund the people tasked with turning statutes into criminal convictions.

None of this is to say that the Revolutionary Guards are not a threat. But this much-hyped crackdown will do little to curb Iran’s influence, and just as little to stop the terror and extremism that have plagued the UK in recent years. Labour’s tough talk is too little, too late.

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