According to The Times, a major British daily newspaper, Conservative Party members of the UK parliament have urged the government to take tougher measures to confront the “Iranian shadow fleet,” which helps finance Iran’s regime by evading international sanctions.
According to the report, despite the reimposition of sanctions against the Iranian regime in September, British Conservative politicians consider the existing measures to curb the regime’s oil revenues to be insufficient.
Priti Patel, a British member of parliament from the opposition Conservative Party and a former UK home secretary, has accused ministers of dragging their feet in confronting threats against Britain by failing to follow the United States’ approach toward vessels carrying Iranian regime oil.
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Critics of the government have warned that Iran’s regime can still rebuild its economy and weapons programs through oil exports, particularly to China.
The Times quoted Patel as saying that the Iranian regime exports millions of barrels of oil to China every day. The US government has sanctioned a far greater number of vessels involved than Britain, and the government must explain this discrepancy. Britain should apply snapback sanctions to the fullest extent possible.
According to estimates by The Times, the Iranian regime exported about 67 million barrels of oil in October alone.
According to the newspaper, the bulk of these exports were carried out using tankers known as the “shadow fleet”—vessels specifically designed to evade international sanctions and avoid tracking.
Since Donald Trump returned to power in the United States, Washington has sanctioned more than 180 oil tankers linked to the transport of Iranian oil and petroleum products.
By contrast, The Times wrote that Britain has so far sanctioned only two tankers out of dozens of vessels involved in oil transport in recent months. This difference in approach is the main reason for sharp criticism by Conservatives against the government.
According to The Times, directly sanctioning oil tankers is considered one of the most effective tools for limiting oil exports from countries such as Russia and Iran, as it blocks vessels’ access to ports, maritime services, and international insurance, disrupting their operations.
Meanwhile, the US government announced on Thursday, December 18, that it had sanctioned 29 additional tankers from the shadow fleet and their associated management companies for transporting hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petroleum products.
John K. Hurley, the US Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said that Washington will continue to deprive Iran’s regime of oil revenues that are used to fund military and weapons programs.
