The European Union has finally done what it long argued it could not. Yesterday, the bloc formally designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation, placing it in the same legal category as al-Qaeda and Islamic State. The decision was framed by Europe’s foreign ministers as a response to mass repression, extrajudicial killings and the systematic use of terror by the Iranian state against its own population. ‘Repression cannot go unanswered,’ said Kaja Kallas, vice-president of the European Commission, announcing the move.

It was not a symbolic flourish. The designation means the EU can now freeze assets, assign criminal liability and enforce travel bans. It signals, at least on paper, that Europe has accepted a basic reality: the IRGC is not a conventional military force but the Iranian regime’s primary instrument of internal repression, regional violence and transnational intimidation. What took them so long?

Iran’s formal response to the EU designation was delivered through ministries and generals: denunciations, threats of ‘consequences’, and claims that Europe is subservient to Washington and Israel. Meanwhile, Iranian state-aligned media escalated the rhetoric. Kayhan, a mouthpiece closely associated with the so-called Supreme Leader’s office, openly threatened to sink American ships and close the Strait of Hormuz. Days later it announced live-fire naval drills that would disrupt shipping. None of it fooled anyone.

But where does Britain now stand?

The United Kingdom, having left the European Union in order, among other things, to pursue an independent foreign and security policy, remains conspicuously outside this decision. At least ministers are now signalling that the IRGC should be proscribed, with legislation being prepared to facilitate that. Briefings have begun, but the problem is time. The organisation is still legal on British soil. So is the Muslim Brotherhood, by the way. If Brexit was sold as a means of restoring sovereignty and strategic clarity, few of its proponents can have hoped independence........

© The Spectator