Decision time
“The attacks in Manchester and London forced a serious end to a frivolous, and weirdly content-free, election campaign”
With just five days to go before the election, Britain was struck by another terrorist attack – the third in three months. “Enough is enough,” declared the Prime Minister, Theresa May, after the atrocity, carried out by three extremists who used a rented van to mow down pedestrians on London Bridge before attacking the crowds enjoying a balmy Saturday evening in the adjacent Borough Market. The attackers were shot dead by police within eight minutes of the first call to the emergency services, by which time they had killed seven people, many of whom were stabbed to death, and wounded 48 more ( see page 20). The main political parties suspended their national campaigns for a day, but agreed that the election, which polls suggested would be much tighter than previously predicted, should go ahead as planned.
Theresa May vowed to step up the fight against jihadism in response to Saturday’s attack. Declaring that Britain had been too tolerant of extremism, she outlined a series of policy measures, including more powers for the security services, longer prison sentences for extremists, fresh efforts to tackle segregation in Britain’s cities, and further regulation of the internet. But May came under fire over her record on security as PM and as home secretary. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called on her to resign for presiding over cuts to police numbers and funding, accusing the Tories of trying to “protect the public on the cheap”. Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor, also accused May of failing to provide enough security funding for the capital.
May has “serious questions to answer”, said Owen Jones in The Guardian. She presents herself as tough on security, but the statistics tell their own story. Between September 2010 and September 2016, the number of police officers in England and Wales fell by 13% – 18,991 officers. Between March 2010 and March 2016, the number of armed police officers fell by 19%, to 5,639. May is also vulnerable over her general approach to counterterrorism as home secretary, said Rachel Sylvester in The Times. Many of her colleagues were frustrated by her department’s “snail-like implementation” of antiterror measures, and by the way it only appeared to be interested in dealing with Islamists once they were an imminent threat to the public, rather than trying to prevent them from becoming radicalised in the first place. When he was education secretary, Michael Gove likened May’s approach to “waiting to shoot the crocodiles when they neared the boat, rather than seeking to drain the swamp in which they bred”.
The row over police cuts is a “red herring”, said The Times. While it’s true that overall police numbers and spending have fallen since 2010, the resources devoted to counterterrorism have risen. As for the drop in the number of armed officers (currently being reversed), it’s more important that officers are “trained and mobile than that they are numerous”. Besides, said Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, May, for all her flaws, is surely a safer bet on this front than her rival. Does anyone seriously think Corbyn is a “fit and proper person to entrust with our national security – let alone management of the economy or leading the Brexit talks”? This is a man who has “never met a terrorist he doesn’t like”, and who has “voted against every single antiterrorism measure which has come before Parliament during his time as an MP”. Having consistently opposed any kind of shoot-to-kill policy by the police, Corbyn is now claiming to have changed his mind on the issue. If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.
May was wrong this week to pledge a raft of new antiterror measures, said The Guardian. Leaders should, of course, provide reassuring guidance to the public on matters of national security. “But they should do so in an atmosphere becalmed by reasoned debate; not in the frenzy of the final days of a general election.” Some accused May of politicising the attack by using such strong rhetoric, said Jane Merrick in The Independent, but she would have been damned by others had she reacted in milder terms. Downing Street may have been mindful of the fate of former Spanish PM José María Aznar, whose party lost a general election in 2004 after being criticised for his weak response to the Madrid bombings, which happened three days before the vote. It’s no bad thing if counterterrorism strategy does become politicised, said Janan Ganesh in the FT. For too long, discussion of the issue has been left to a “closed world of security think tanks, consultants and journalists”. The attacks in Manchester and London “forced a serious end” to a “frivolous”, and weirdly content-free, election campaign.