‘Lone wolves’ radicalised online in lockdown
THE radicalisation of ‘lone wolf’ terrorists has been fuelled by Covid lockdowns, the security minister said yesterday.
Damian Hinds said: ‘During the lockdown periods there have been more people spending more time in front of computer screens and we know that when that happens for a very small minority there can be radicalisation with very bad consequences.’
The minister told Sky News the pandemic had ‘changed modus operandi’ for self-radicalisation on the internet as it ‘will have exacerbated and increased’ the amount of time people spend online. He added: ‘We’ve seen a move over time, a shift from what we call directed attacks – part of a bigger organisation where people are following instructions, sometimes quite complex in their organisation – and move from that to more self-directed, some self-radicalised individuals or small groups, rarely totally, totally alone.’
Former housing secretary Robert Jenrick told the Commons: ‘We have a significant problem in this country with extremism, and extremist ideologies, and one which we need to confront with renewed seriousness.’
And Labour’s home affairs spokesman Nick Thomas-Symonds suggested yesterday there should be a judge-led inquiry into socalled ‘lone wolf ’ attackers.
He told BBC Breakfast: ‘We need to be looking at the attacks that have taken place. Do we need something like a judge-led inquiry to look at the issue of lone attackers?
‘And we need now, as I say, to get this investigation concluded as swiftly as possible, and then to look at the wider conclusions that perhaps we need to draw.’ Crime and policing minister Kit Malthouse told MPs: ‘We are working through the implications of the lockdowns and the impact of Covid on particular individuals who may be susceptible to having spent time in confinement and been exposed to material that they otherwise wouldn’t have been as a result.’
He said the Government was ‘constantly paying attention to where we believe the threat is coming from and refining our ability to both identify it and prevent it emerging in the first place.’