London attack: UK election to go on
Political parties suspended campaigning on Sunday but indicated some local campaigning will continue
LONDON: Britain’s political establishment on Sunday resisted calls to postpone Thursday’s mid-term election to deal with the security situation caused by Saturday night’s London terror attack, saying a deferment would be giving in to terrorists.
As Prime Minister Theresa May talked tough on terrorism, political parties suspended campaigning on Sunday but indicated some local campaigning would continue. The national level campaign will resume on Monday.
May said: “As a mark of respect, the two political parties have suspended national campaigns for today. But violence can never be allowed to disrupt the democratic process. So those campaigns will resume in full tomorrow. And the general election will go ahead as planned .”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said, “If we allow these attacks to disrupt our democratic process then we will all lose”.
London Mayor Sadiq Khansaid the terrorists “want to stop us enjoying the freedoms that we have… they want to stop us voting on Thursday in the general election… we can’t allow them to do that”.
May indicated a new tough line on dealing with terrorism: “We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are. Things need to change, and they need to change.
“Since the emergence of the threat from Islamist-inspired terrorism, our country has made significant progress in disrupting plots and protecting the public. But it is time to say enough is enough.
Everybody needs to go about their lives as they normally would. Our society should continue to function in accordance with our values.
But when it comes to taking on extremism and terrorism, things need to change”, she said.