May: Enough is enough, we must unite to defeat this evil
Prime Minister sets out plan involving councils, schools and control orders to stamp out extremism
THERESA MAY rounded on those who “tolerate” extremism yesterday as she told them: “Enough is enough.”
The Prime Minister chided all who provide “safe spaces” for extremists – in real life or online – telling them they must help stamp it out.
She also made clear that councils must play their part by breaking up ghettos where evil ideology can breed and by stopping it spreading in schools.
Mrs May said she would consider longer prison sentences for terrorist offences, as well as reviewing Britain’s entire counter-terrorism strategy in the face of a changing threat.
Insiders said she is expected to consider reintroducing control orders, which were scrapped by the coalition government in 2011 under a policy championed by Nick Clegg.
For the second time in this election campaign, Mrs May stood in Downing Street yesterday to address the nation after a deadly terrorist attack.
Having just led a meeting of the Government’s Cobra emergency committee, she said Britain was experiencing “a new trend in the threat we face”.
She said: “Terrorism breeds terrorism, and perpetrators are inspired to attack, not only on the basis of carefully constructed plots after years of planning and training, and not even as lone attackers radicalised online, but by copying one another and often using the crudest of means of attack.
“We cannot and must not pretend
1. Persuading potential extremists that pluralistic British values are “superior to anything offered by the preachers and supporters of hate”.
2. Regulating the internet through international agreements to prevent spread of extremism and terrorism planning.
3. Being “far more robust” in identifying extremism and integrating communities.
4. Reviewing the counterterrorism strategy to make sure it “keeps up” with terrorist methods, making sure the security services have “all the powers they need” and increasing prison sentences for terrorist offenders. that things can continue as they Things need to change.”
She said the recent attacks were all connected by “the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism”.
Setting out a four-point plan to tackle extremism, she said: “While we have made significant progress in recent years, there is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.
“So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out across the public sector and across society.
“That will require some difficult and often embarrassing conversations.
“But the whole of our country needs to come together to take on this extremism, and we need to live our lives not in a series of separated, segregated communities, but as one truly United Kingdom.”
Sources said her reference to the public sector meant that schools and other public bodies had to adopt a much stricter approach to extremism, while councils had to make sure they did not create ghettos by housing Muslims in areas where they became concentrated together.
She added: “Defeating this ideology is one of the great challenges of our time… it will only be defeated when we turn people’s minds away from this violence and make them understand that our values – pluralistic British values – are superior to anything offered by the preachers and supporters of hate.”
Mrs May said the internet provided a safe space for extremists to spread their creed and plan attacks, and said it was time to “regulate cyberspace” through the sort of agreements she reached at the G7 summit in Italy last week, when are. leaders agreed to pile pressure on social media companies to block extremist material.
As well as reviewing counter-terrorism strategy to “keep up” with technology, she said it was vital to make sure the police and security services “have all the powers they need”.
“And if we need to increase the length of custodial sentences for terrorist-related offences – even apparently less serious offences – that is what we will do.”
Election campaigning by the Conservatives and Labour was suspended for most of yesterday as a mark of respect, but resumed yesterday evening, and Thursday’s election will go ahead.
The Conservative manifesto promises an integration strategy to teach people English and “help people in more isolated communities to engage with the wider world”.
It also promises to establish a Commission for Countering Extremism.
Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said tougher sentencing sent a message “to those who sympathise or encourage or harbour or aid or abet these killers in any way”.
“Your time is up. The wells of tolerance are running empty,” he said. “In
Combatting terrorism The PM’S 4-point plan
‘We cannot and must not pretend things can continue as they are. Things need to change’
the week of this General Election, millions of people need to hear the arguments on either side. They cannot have that fundamental right taken away by terrorists.”
A spokesman for Google said: “Our thoughts are with the victims of this shocking attack, and with the families of those caught up in it.
“We share the Government’s commitment to ensuring terrorists do not have a voice online. We are already working with industry colleagues on an international forum to accelerate and strengthen our existing work in this area.”
‘If we need to increase the length of custodial sentences, even less serious ones, that is what we will do’