Shabana Mahmood will finally proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) following years of assassination plots and kidnap conspiracies on UK soil.

The Home Secretary blamed Tehran for a series of arson attacks on British Jews.

And the Government finally labelled the IRGC a "state-based threat".

Yvette Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, has also called in Seyed Ali Mousavi, the Iranian ambassador, to inform him of the ban.

The move will give counter-terrorism police and MI5 powers to arrest their foot-soldiers operating in the UK, freeze assets, allow the Home Secretary to cancel visas of foreign nationals linked to the IRGC and force social media companies to take down their propaganda.

The Home Office has confirmed petty criminals will be arrested if they receive payment from a designated organisation.

It comes after a spate of arson attacks, kidnap conspiracies and assassination attempts linked to the IRGC.

Enemy intelligence agencies are offering criminals money to give them “plausible” deniability, security chiefs believe.

Zealots who express support for designated groups are set to be arrested, in a similar way to those who support ISIS or Al Qaeda.

The Home Office believes that threatening criminals with 14 years behind bars if they work for a foreign intelligence agency will deter others in the future. The penalties will be harsher than if they carried out the same act without first receiving orders from spies.