Playing politics is a win for terrorists

Terrorists seek to undermine our democratic norms and liberal values by sowing fear and hatred. The horrific scenes from London Bridge on Friday (local time) were a chilling echo of the attack that happened there two years ago. In the immediate aftermath of such an attack, attention inevitably turns to how it could have been avoided. The danger of this debate happening during a general election campaign is that, rather than being open to cool-headed, evidence-based analysis, politicians seek to advance solutions that will achieve electoral advantage. There is no other way to read prime minister Boris Johnson’s response. His calls to ‘‘end the automatic early release system’’ and ‘‘break with the failed system of the past’’ represent a rank politicisation of these tragic events.

Today’s terror attacks are more likely to be carried out by lone actors using low-grade weapons, inspired by, but not connected to, organised extremism, making them more difficult for our security services to predict. Johnson’s cynical focus on sentencing reform is surely a ploy to deflect from the sweeping cuts and botched reforms that have hampered the ability of the police force, and the prison and probation services, to manage the risks of terrorism. Who wins if our leaders take a reductive, populist approach to preventing such hateful attacks from happening again? Terrorists like Usman Khan.