After Britain’s landmark exiting of the EU, the UK now needs to form a robust Middle East policy to protect its national interests. Today, the UK’s riddled Middle East strategy, which does not match with its biggest worldwide partnership, the US, can put British interests at serious risk.

Many pundits view Iran as the key player in the region. Thus, the UK needs to change its fruitless approach towards the ruling regime in the country.

Taking British citizens hostage, intimidation campaign against dissidents in Glasgow, I was one of the targets, seizing a British oil tanker and launching cyber attacks on the UK infrastructures and Parliament have been the tip of the iceberg of the theocracy’s hostilities against Britons.

The ruling regime in Iran is known for its hysterical hostility towards Britain as the regime’s supporters burn the British flag along with the US’s and Israel’s.

Early last month, Iranian security forces arrested Britain’s ambassador Rob Macaire for participating in a memorial ceremony of the Ukrainian plane’s victims, which was shot down by the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC).

The plane carried 176 multi-national passengers from Canada, Ukraine, Britain and Afghanistan and Iran.

The Supreme Leader’s envoy in Mashhad, a city in north-east of Iran, demanded Mr Macaire be executed, which convinced him to leave the country in order to cool the aggressive situation. However, he recently returned to Iran.

Imprisoning British and American nationals in hope to get a ransom has become a lucrative business for mullahs.

Since the IRGC jailed the British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was falsely charged for spying in April 2016, does anyone ask what the UK Government has done to compel Iran to release this innocent mother? Any time MPs ask this question, ministers have repeated the same words, and sadly Nazanin’s situation has deteriorated. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, recently met Boris Johnson urging him to solve the problem.

Mr Radcliffe said: “It was definitely more caring than I was expecting. Boris Johnson did care. Dominic Raab did care. But they are still waiting. There was nothing tangible that we could work with.”

Mr Ratcliffe’s wife is not the sole dual citizen being jailed in Iran. Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a British-Australian university lecturer in Islamic studies is another hostage. The IRGC arrested her and later convicted her of espionage in September 2018.

In letters smuggled out of her cell in Evin prison in Tehran, she revealed that the regime attempted to recruit her as a spy. Another disaster of the UK failed Iran policy is its silence on brutal suppression of nationwide anti-regime protests in November last year. Based on reports, at least 1,500 protesters were killed and thousands arrested during these protests.

However, it is worth mentioning that the current British Government is the best option as Corbynism within the Labour party was willing to gift the UK to mullahs if it would have won the last General Election.

In contrast to the passive policy, hundreds of cross-party MPs at Westminster including members of Labour, Conservatives and the SNP have signed at least two Early Day Motions urging the Government to designate the IRGC as a proscribed organisation.

Mr Trump’s administration listed the IRGC as a terror entity in April last year and the Canadian Parliament has passed a bill to do so.

Mr Johnson’s passive approach on Iran has been criticised by other Tories at Westminster. During a rally held by the Iranian resistance -NCRI- at the Trafalgar Square in London on Saturday 8 February, Conservative MP Dr Matthew Offord emphasised on the designation of the IRGC.

Mr Offord represented the British Committee for Iran Freedom (BCFIF), which has about 200 cross-party membership from both Houses of Parliament.

As Mr Johnson starts negotiations with the US for trade deals, getting closer to President Trump’s international policy is sensible. In other words, fulfilling the US’s expectation over Iran is one of the critical issues to get trade deals. On the other hand, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently visited London warning the UK over challenges such as 5G contract with the Chinese Huawei and also encouraging Number 10 to join the US maximum pressure on mullahs regime in Iran.

Pulling the UK out of the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) and then designation of the IRGC can probably soften the US position on some other differences such as Huawei or the UK relationship with the EU.

Expectantly, the UK has indicated a few signals such as taking the lead in Persian Gulf Shipping Protection Mission after the IRGC’s threats to the global oil market.

Moreover, after the Iranian regime announced that it no longer keeps its commitments under the nuclear deal, Britain convinced its EU partners to kickstart the JCPOA’s trigger dispute mechanism, which leads to re-imposing the UN sanctions on Iran if the dispute is not resolved.

However, the EU still hopes to revive the dead deal as its High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell visited Iran, where he extended the timeline for the talks to resolve the dispute.

This is the main reason that listening to the EU is fatal for having a fruitful and strategic UK-US relationship and the UK needs to cumulatively distance itself from the EU’s Middle East policy.

Hamid Bahrami is a former political prisoner from Iran. He is a human rights and political activist and works as a freelance journalist.