Britain WILL ban Iran’s Revolutionary Guard but won’t fast track the move – as EU label Ayatollah’s private army a terrorist group

Ministers will introduce new laws allowing them to ban Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, but will not speed up the process because the EU has also labeled America a terrorist organisation.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has led a deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters that has killed more than 30,000 people in recent weeks, two Iranian health ministry officials estimated.

Yesterday the EU added the IRGC to its list of designated organisations, alongside Al Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic State, citing its role in brutal crackdowns.

As pressure mounts for Britain to act, the Home Office confirmed it was preparing legislation that would ban hostile state institutions, including the Revolutionary Guard, but said the bill would not be accelerated in response to the bloodshed.

Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said the Iranian regime’s brutality was an ‘insult to humanity’ and called for the ban to be swiftly implemented.

A leading figure in the Conservative Party said: ‘The Labor Government’s silence on the Revolutionary Guard is appalling.

‘We said we would work with them to bring forward legal and legislative mechanisms for the UK to take action.

‘Britain must stand with the people of Iran and oppose this despicable regime with strength and determination.’

Protesters in Tehran set a vehicle on fire. Even by the regime’s own estimates, between 2,000 and 3,000 people were killed; but new figures show the death toll is more than 33,000

The Revolutionary Guard is a violent, Islamist-extremist organization founded by aides of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini to defend the core values ​​of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

He uses a mix of terror, extreme violence, and ideological warfare to protect the Islamic Republic’s revolution and target its enemies. It has been linked to kidnappings, assassinations and terrorist attacks.

Announcing the EU decision yesterday, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said: ‘The pressure cannot go unanswered.

‘EU foreign ministers took a decisive step by defining the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation.’

Government sources said the proposed laws will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows, but no draft has yet been created on which groups could be banned.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy on Wednesday condemned the Iranian regime’s ‘brutal crackdown’ on demonstrators but said it was ‘a long-standing position by successive governments not to comment on whether banning a particular organization is being considered’.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described this statement by the EU as a ‘public relations show’ and said that Europe would be affected if energy prices increased as a result of sanctions.

‘Many countries are currently trying to prevent the outbreak of all-out war in our region. ‘None of them are European,’ he wrote to X.

Kristina Kausch, deputy director of the German Marshall Fund, said the listing was a ‘symbolic move’ for the EU, showing that ‘the path to dialogue has led nowhere and is now primarily about isolation and containment’.

“Defining the military arm of a state, which is the official pillar of the Iranian state, as a terrorist organization is one step short of severing diplomatic ties,” he said.

Edouard Gergondet, a lawyer who focuses on sanctions at the firm Mayer Brown, said the Revolutionary Guard now has time to comment before the list is officially adopted.

An IRGC soldier firing an assault rifle during a military exercise in the Gulf

Regime thugs were seen patrolling in Tehran on Saturday

The EU yesterday also imposed sanctions on 15 senior officials and six entities in Iran, including those involved in monitoring online content; as the country continued to suffer a three-week internet blackout by the authorities.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the sanctions mean that the assets of affected officials and organizations will be frozen and their travel to Europe will be banned.

The Revolutionary Guard has major business interests across Iran, and sanctions could lead to the seizure of its assets in Europe.

The Guard emerged from Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution as a force aimed at protecting its government, overseen by Shiite clerics, and was later incorporated into the constitution.

It operated in parallel with the country’s regular armed forces and grew in importance and power during the long and devastating war with Iraq in the 1980s.

The Guard’s Basij force is believed to have played a key role in suppressing demonstrations starting on January 8, when authorities cut off internet and international phone calls for the country of 85 million people.

Videos coming from Iran via Starlink satellite dishes and other means appear to show individuals, possibly members of Iranian forces, shooting and beating protesters.

Iranian men are required to serve up to two years in the military when they turn 18, and many find themselves drafted into the Guard regardless of their own politics.

A government spokesman said: ‘We fully condemn the horrific violence perpetrated by the Iranian regime against those exercising their right to peaceful protest.

‘The government has already fully imposed sanctions on more than 550 Iranian individuals and organizations, as well as the Revolutionary Guard, and has prepared a robust package of measures to combat threats from the Iranian regime.’