Hezbollah supporters chant slogans during last day of Ashura, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sept. 20, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Aziz Taher / File.

The British government revealed on Monday that it plans to outlaw Hezbollah and designate the group a terrorist organization in its entirety.

The UK, like most European countries, previously limited their terror designation only to Hezbollah’s military wing. The latest announcement suggests that London intends to ban the terror group’s political and other wings as well.

UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid justified the move by citing Hezbollah’s destabilizing interventions and activities throughout the Middle East.

Hezbollah “is continuing in its attempts to destabilize the fragile situation in the Middle East — and we are no longer able to distinguish between their already banned military wing and the political party,” Javid said in a statement, adding that “because of this, I have taken the decision to proscribe the group in its entirety.”

The designation, which has to be approved by Parliament, is expected to prevent Hezbollah “supporters from parading its flag through the streets of Britain,” The Telegraph reported. There is concern that Jeremy Corbyn, the antisemitic leader of the UK’s Labour Party, will oppose this measure. Corbyn once referred to Hezbollah and the Hamas terror group as his “friends.”

The EU designated only Hezbollah’s military wing a terrorist organization in 2013, after the group facilitated the bombing of an Israeli tour bus in Bulgaria in July 2012, which killed five Israelis and a Bulgarian bus driver.

But other major European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, remain reluctant to outlaw Hezbollah entirely, despite the group’s active presence in the region.

There were roughly 250 active Iranian-backed Hezbollah operatives and a total of 950 Hezbollah members throughout Germany, according to a 2014 Berlin intelligence report summarized by the The Jerusalem Post.

Hezbollah is also investing in other realms, including cyber crime, to destabilize the United States and Europe. The terror group dispatches hackers to use catfishing techniques on social media to infiltrate mobile devices worldwide and extract sensitive information.

The United States and some of its allies, including Canada and the Netherlands, do not distinguish between Hezbollah’s military and political wings, and even Hezbollah’s leaders acknowledge that the distinctions are futile. The militant group is hierarchically organized, and each of the group’s specialized wings — including departments devoted to social service provisions or external terrorist attacks — answer to its political leadership.

Steven Emerson is considered one of the leading authorities on Islamic extremist networks, financing, and operations.