Most pressing … are the security concerns raised, both in terms of dealing with The Independent’s extremists and keeping MPs safe. The Telegraph splashes on fears among Britain’s intelligence agencies that the country faces. A new threat of lone wolf attackers radicalized while at home during lockdown. A security source tells the paper: “Counter-terror police and gambling database MI5 have been concerned. For some time that once we emerged out of lockdown there would be more people out on. The streets and more targets for the terrorists. Combined with the fact that lots of young people have been spending so much time online, it makes for a very worrying mix and there is a real concern about the possible rise of the bedroom radicals.”
Prevent not preventing: The Independent’s
These apparent concerns of an increased terror threat are all the more worrying given the failings in the U.K.’s counter-extremism strategy at all levels outlined over the past 48 hours. The main focus is on the controversial Prevent program, to which Ali was apparently referred. Former Justice Secretary Robert Buckland tells Times Radio’s Tom Newton Dunn that Prevent needs reform: “It could do with much more inter-agency cooperation. We need to join this up much more effectively, and make sure every arm of the state is working together. Says the government has failed to act on recommendations to improve the government’s counter-extremism strategy following the Manchester Arena attack.
What are the police doing?
There also appear to be very serious problems with how the police are handling threats made to MPs. Sky’s Joe Pike has a genuinely astonishing interview with former Labour MP Paula Sherriff in which she difficulties at the level of large companies reveals the “ambivalent” response of West Yorkshire Police to her own experience, including officers laughing following a global seo work death threat, telling a man accused of harassing Sherriff that they sympathized with him, and taking weeks to view CCTV footage when swastikas were left at her office.
