Ex-MI5 chief: We mustn’t over-react to terrorists

LONE wolf terror attacks should not deter Britons from their normal way of life, says the former head of MI5.

Lord Evans of Weardale said atrocities such as the knife rampage in London Bridge last year are not a ‘strategic threat’ and we should not ‘play up’ to terrorists by over-reacting to them.

His comments risk upsetting victims and relatives of the most recent terror attack in the UK which, although unsophisticated, left two young people dead.

In an interview with the journal CTC Sentinel, Lord Evans, who was Director General of the Security Service from 2007 to 2013, said it was ‘surprising’ terror groups had taken so long to switch from complex plots to simpler attacks. ‘Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened, but what I would say – and this sounds rather a harsh point…we can, if we choose to, continue with normal life relatively unaffected by occasional stabbings and vehicles being driven into the general public.’

He described as ‘atrocious’ the events of November 29 last year when Usman Khan stabbed several people in Fishmongers’ Hall, killing Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones. But he continued: ‘We give the terrorists something of what they want in the way in which we react to their terrorism. We need to think about how we respond to this and just not play up to what the terrorists are trying to get us to do.’