A growing level of terror threat - UK warning on extremists threats

The warning from the UK’s Home Office that Britain faces a severe threat from Islamist terrorism for at least another two years — and that the threat could grow — seems particularly relevant as Brexit negotiations reach what might be called the end of the beginning. That feeling is deepened by a further warning from UK policing agencies around the rising risk from extreme right-wing violence.

It might be cheering but it would probably be unwise to dismiss these warning as yet another instalment in a round of public negotiations between security agencies who believe themselves under-resourced and a government reluctant to spend more on security, but that ignores recent history.

It is just a year since the London and Manchester attacks. As importantly, it is less than a week since the European Court of Auditors said it could not establish beyond doubt that the money being spent by European governments to prevent the radicalisation of young immigrants and, in some instances, young Europeans was having a positive impact.

British security agencies and counter-terror policing say they have have foiled 12 Islamist and four extreme right-wing plots since March of last year. MI5 and police are running more than 500 live operations involving roughly 3,000 “subjects of interest” at any one time. These figures are worrying and should provoke a level of vigilance not needed since our own terrorists “put their weapons beyond use”.