Police cuts ‘disaster’ for national security

CUTS to local policing risk a “disaster” for maintaining national security, one of the country’s leading counter-terrorism officers has reportedly warned.

Neil Basu, the senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing, said teams tackling Islamist and neo-Nazi extremists become “divorced from the frontline” when bobbies are taken off the beat.

Two decades of work in neighbourhood policing, a vital source of intelligence on terrorist plots, is “in danger of disappear- ing”, he told The Guardian.

“For me that is a national security issue,” he said.

Mr Basu’s comments come after Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said the UK’s largest police force is under “unprecedented” pressure.

The UK has experienced five terror attacks this year when the threat “went absolutely stratospheric”, Mr Basu said.

At least one plot was reportedly foiled hours before an attack was put into action after police received a community tip-off.

“When we don’t have those people we will become so divorced from the frontline, and the frontline of communities, that will be a disaster for policing in this country,” Mr Basu said.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The public can be assured that this Government will do what it takes to keep families, communities and our country safe. That is why we have ploughed extra funding into counter-terrorism and given the police, intelligence and security agencies the powers they need to protect us.”