This is what we all need to hear: it’s time to wake up to the threat
Theresa May makes robust case for the Tories to keep country safe in war against Islamist-inspired terrorism
THERESA MAY’S declaration that “enough is enough” in the wake of the third terrorist attack to hit the UK in as many months shows encouraging signs that the Conservatives will be prepared to take the gloves off in the war against Islamist-inspired terrorism if they win the General Election.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a keen supporter of Islamist terror groups like Hamas and Hizbollah, has spent much of the election campaign arguing that talking to groups such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) – which is most likely to be behind Saturday’s horrific violence in central London – is the answer to preventing such horrific attacks.
Mrs May’s forthright declaration that we need to combat Islam istinspi red terrorism with more robust measures suggests she will preside over a far more effective counterterrorism policy for protecting Britain and its allies from further acts of extremist violence. The disclosure that the armed response teams sent to tackle the three terrorists carrying out the attacks on London Bridge and Borough Market on Saturday night fired an estimated 50 rounds to disable them shows that the security services are fully prepared to meet fire with fire.
As the investigation continues into how the attack was planned and executed, Mrs May’s warning that the country “cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are” should act as a wake-up call to everyone involved in the war against the modern curse of Islamist terrorism.
No longer should radical preachers be allowed to use mosques in Britain to peddle their warped ideology. Tougher measures need to be put in place to prevent known Islamist sympathisers from travelling freely to Islamist-controlled areas in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Libya, and to stop them from planning terror attacks when they are resident in the UK.
And, as Mrs May warned yesterday, effective sanctions need to be put in place to persuade social media platforms to prevent the dissemination of Islamist material that helps to radicalise young Muslims, and provide them with instructions on how to carry out attacks on innocent civilians.
Also, the security and intelligence services, as well as the police and military, must be given any extra resources they need to make sure they are fully equipped to deal with any future threat we may face.
On the credit side, the efforts of the British agencies responsible for counter-terrorism, such as MI5 and specialist police units, have succeeded in reducing the number of attacks against British targets by disrupting active terror cells: the authorities have foiled five potential attacks in recent weeks.
And apart from last month’s Manchester attack by Salman Abedi, who managed to detonate a suicide bomb in the arena of the Manchester Foyer, other terrorists have had to rely on low-tech methods. The fact the London Bridge attackers were wearing mock suicide vests suggests they were frustrated in their efforts to acquire real ones.
The Abedi attack, however, highlights some worrying shortcomings in the ability of British counter-terrorism officials to monitor and disrupt Islamist terror plots.
Early indications, for example, suggest Abedi travelled freely between Britain and Libya as he prepared to carry out his deadly attack, and even managed to call two contacts in Libya moments before detonating his device.
One of the next government’s priorities must therefore be to introduce measures to ensure that people like Abedi and the London attackers are no longer able to carry out their diabolical acts of hatred.
‘No longer should radical preachers be allowed to use mosques in the UK to peddle their warped ideology’