‘Time to change counterterror strategy’, says British PM Theresa May, following London Bridge Attack

While people should go about their lives as they ‘normally would’ when it came to tackling terrorism, things needed to change: says Theresa May

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May addresses the media as she makes a statement, following a COBRA meeting in response to last nights London terror attack, at 10 Downing Street on June 4, 2017 in London, England.

For the third time in three months, British Prime Minister Theresa May, clad in black, stood before Downing Street to address the nation, after a terrorist attack had taken place — first in Westminster, then in Manchester and late this Saturday night by London Bridge and neighbouring Borough Market.

However, the tone struck by Ms. May on Sunday afternoon was new, as she declared that “enough is enough.” While people should go about their lives as they “normally would” when it came to tackling extremism and terrorism, things needed to change, she said, as she attacked the “evil ideology of Islamist extremism,” and warned of a new trend in the threat level, as terrorists copied acts carried out by others in the past. “Terrorism breeds terrorism,” she said.

 

Better values

Counterterrorism alone could not tackle Islamist extremism, which would only be defeated by persuading people that our values were better, she said. The ideology should not be given a safe space, whether it was in the country, abroad, or online, via social media channels that could be used to propagate their ideology. Military action to destroy IS in Syria and Iraq was a necessary component of this, she said. Action would also need to be taken domestically to stamp out tolerance of extremism. “The whole country needs to come together to take on extremism.”

In pictures: seven killed in central London terror attacks

Emergency personnel tend to wounded on London Bridge on Saturday. Metropolitan Police Service Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley (not in picture) said “At 22:08hrs yesterday [June 3] evening we began to receive reports that a vehicle had struck pedestrians on London Bridge.”

People are lead to safety on Southwark Bridge away from London Bridge after the attack. After mowing down pedestrians, the van drove from London Bridge to Borough Market.

In this image made from PA Video footage, people receive medical attention in Thrale Street near London Bridge. Streets around London Bridge and Borough Market, fashionable districts packed with bars and restaurants, would have been busy with people on a Saturday night out.

Police officers clear the area near Borough market at London Bridge. A taxi driver told the BBC that three men got out of the van with long knives and "went randomly along Borough High Street stabbing people."

Counter-terrorism special forces are seen at London Bridge late on Saturday night.

Armed police officers patrol in Borough Market, in London on Sunday. Police rushed to the scene and shot dead the three male attackers in the area near the bridge.

This photo taken by photographer Gabriele Sciotto shows a man, foreground, one of the suspects, wearing what appear to be canisters strapped to his chest lying on the ground after being shot by police outside Borough Market in London on June 3, 2017.

Authorities urged Londoners on Twitter to "run, hide, tell" if they were caught up in the violence. In this picture police officers with riot shields are seen on Borough High Street after the terror attack.

Guests from the Premier Inn Bankside Hotel are evacuated and kept in a group with police on Upper Thames Street. The BBC showed dozens of people, evidently caught up in the attack, being escorted to safety through a police cordon with their hands on their heads.

Similar attacks, in Berlin, Nice, Brussels and Paris, have been carried out by militants over the past two years. In this picture police respond to reports of a van hitting pedestrians on London Bridge in central London.

A police officer clears people away from the area near London Bridge. The incident bore similarities to a March attack on Westminster Bridge, west of London Bridge, in which a man killed five people after driving into a crowd of pedestrians before stabbing a police officer in the grounds of parliament.

People run down Borough High Street as police deal with the terror incident at London Bridge. The Manchester bombing on May 22 was the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, when four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on London's transport network.

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Britain would also need to review its counterterrorism strategy, and if necessary the powers to those involved in that strategy should be increased, including potentially the custodial sentences for those involved in supporting or promoting terrorism, she said. Her message contrasted with those following previous attacks, which had focussed on continuing existing counterterrorism strategies, and stressing the unity of the country against the threat.

Campaign pause

While the electoral campaign paused for several days after the attack on Manchester, local campaigning by political parties continued, with only the big campaign events suspended on Sunday, and only by the largest political parties, the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party.

This time round, U.K. Independence Party declined to halt its campaigning at all, saying it would be giving in to the terrorists to do so. “Democracy must prevail,” said Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, of the decision by the other parties to resume campaigning quickly.

While the impact that the attacks will have had on Britain’s capital city, known for its embrace of diversity and multiculturalism, and its ability to resume “normal” life swiftly after an atrocity, will become evident in the days and weeks to come, a wider debate is raging on what the appropriate action is so close to an election. The BBC faced criticism for cancelling its influential Sunday morning television programme, the Andrew Marr Show. “The country’s leading TV current affairs programme should not be cancelled on Sunday before gen. election,” tweeted political commentator Tim Montgomerie.

Some senior figures criticised the government’s strategy more swiftly than had been the case following the previous attacks.