This speech has been edited to take away political content material.
Good morning all people,
On the twenty second Could 2017, 1000’s of individuals descended on Manchester Area for a pop live performance.
In contrast to a sporting contest, the place half the members and most of the spectators will seemingly depart feeling disillusioned, live shows are moments the place all people can come collectively as every person go residence comfortable.
Many people have some exceptionally joyful reminiscences of such events.
Large crowds, so intimidating in different circumstances really feel welcoming and thrilling and individuals are united in pleasure.
However that night time in Manchester, the purest of pleasures was become a nightmare past creativeness. 22 souls murdered, over 1000 injured in one of many deadliest acts of terrorism since 7/7.
The nation got here collectively as one, united in sorrow and anger, and resolve that extremism and terrorism won’t ever win.
Such occasions are all the time a deeply sobering reminder of the risk we face.
It’s ever-present, it’s evolving and extra complicated than ever, and we can not take our eyes off it for a second.
Yesterday I visited the world-leading Counter-Terrorism Operations Centre (CTOC). It’s phenomenally efficient, and I pay tribute to the dedication of our employees and consultants who work there.
Opened in 2022, it’s a direct response to the teachings learnt from the horrific occasions in Manchester, bringing collectively companions from counter-terrorism policing, the intelligence companies and the felony justice system – permitting minute-by-minute collaboration between groups.
We are going to realise the total potential of CTOC, bringing collectively the appropriate groups, knowledge, and expertise extra successfully to determine, examine, and disrupt terrorists.
Likewise, we’ll preserve funding in important risk evaluation capabilities, by means of our world-class Joint Terrorism Evaluation Centre – JTAC.
However studying from the experiences of victims and survivors, a few of whom are right here with us at this time, shall be proper on the coronary heart of our counter-terrorism coverage.
I’m so grateful to all of you for having the braveness to be right here.
Victims want compassionate and well timed help. And we all know there’s extra to do which is why the Dwelling Workplace has been finishing up an inner evaluation, now in its last levels, to make sure the appropriate help is obtainable.
This wants to enhance victims and survivors’ entry to psychological well being and monetary help and strengthen the help obtainable for youngsters and younger folks.
Now, the UK is an excellent place and I’ve no time for many who sneer at anybody who proclaims their love for it.
There’s a lot that makes us particular, our historical past, our tradition, establishments, and liberties, however above all it’s the rights and freedoms which lay the inspiration of our society.
Democracy, the rule of regulation, sexual equality, freedom of faith, freedom of expression and freedom of inquiry.
These freedoms aren’t loved universally. We’re reminded of that daily by Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, Iran’s repression of protest, and China’s horrendous remedy of Uyghur folks and its draconian legal guidelines in Hong Kong.
These treasured rights and freedoms kind the idea of our shared values, which weave our folks collectively and create our nation.
We should cherish these values, argue for them, defend them, battle for them robustly – as a result of there is no such thing as a scarcity of people that wish to undermine them by means of extremism and terrorism.
Assaults lately, corresponding to in Westminster, Manchester Area, London Bridge, Finsbury Park, Fishmongers’ Corridor, Forbury Gardens, and the murders of MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess have taken lives in murderous circumstances within the title of extremist ideology.
Extremist actions, each violent and non-violent, search to radicalise others into becoming a member of their mission. This threatens our safety and our freedom.
These actions are rising in significance and complexity – whether or not it’s Islamism or the acute proper wing.
We mustn’t ever be detached about extremist or grievance-driven rhetoric – which creates a permissive setting for terrorist and different criminal activity to happen.
Non-violent extremism is the local weather through which violence is cultivated. Our work with former extremists of various stripes makes it clear that ideology is of central significance.
So, the concepts and beliefs driving terrorist actions should be tackled.
That’s why I used to be so horrified by the atrocious overreaction to a Qur’an being scuffed in a college in Wakefield, and by occasions in Batley, the place a trainer who confirmed pupils an image of Muhammad was hounded out.
Anti-blasphemy protests, whether or not its exterior faculties or cinemas, are in my opinion a risk to nationwide safety. Every little thing should be completed to forestall such intimidation. {That a} trainer stays in hiding in Batley is unacceptable.
We shouldn’t have blasphemy legal guidelines, as I reminded all people earlier this yr. And we can not settle for their de facto enforcement by mob intimidation.
Radical anti-blasphemy clerics want a strong response, and that’s why I’ve tasked officers to develop coverage choices throughout authorities in order that we get this delicate difficulty completely proper.
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The UK is just not a racist, bigoted society. We’re the exact reverse: an extremely cohesive and profitable multi-racial, multi-faith, multi-cultural democracy.
However we’ve to guard and renew this continuously.
Nor can we be complacent about international actors.
Russia, China, and Iran have all proven themselves to be all too prepared to use and destabilise our nation.
Essentially the most urgent nationwide safety precedence is now the risk from Russia to European safety, however China poses an epoch-defining and systemic problem.
The brand new Nationwide Safety Act, led by my colleague – the Rt Hon Safety Minister, will assist to maintain the UK secure by making it even more durable for these states to hunt to conduct hostile acts towards the UK.
However the traces between the threats we face – terrorism, state threats, critical and organised crime – have gotten more and more blurred and can usually overlap. We should use all of the instruments and assets at our disposal.
And that brings me to CONTEST.
So, on the subject of counter-terrorism, we do that by means of CONTEST – our counter-terrorism technique.
CONTEST has a transparent mission: to cut back the danger from terrorism to the UK, its residents, and its pursuits abroad, so that individuals can go about their lives freely and with confidence.
The final formal replace of CONTEST was 5 years in the past. Since then, we’ve seen 9 declared assaults and 39 disrupted assaults. The terrorist risk is enduring.
Whereas Islamist terrorism stays the predominant risk, the important thing level at this time is that terrorist assaults have gotten more and more unpredictable, making them more durable to detect and examine.
In the present day not like in earlier years, terrorist actions are more and more fragmented and disparate, and there are rising threats from the acute proper and from overseas.
Regardless of the prevalence of decrease sophistication assaults within the UK, the risk at this time is extra various, dynamic, and complicated.
Consequently, we choose that the danger from terrorism is rising, albeit from a decrease base, and never as excessive as a couple of years in the past.
By far the largest terrorist risk comes from Islamism. It accounts for 67% of assaults since 2018 and about three-quarters of MI5’s caseload.
Islamist terror teams, together with Daesh and al-Qaida, proceed to hunt to plan and allow assaults in international locations such because the UK.
The risk has developed within the face of our counter-terrorism stress and is now made up of looser and extra fragmented terrorist networks – however these nonetheless include many people of concern, together with these with the coaching and motivation to conduct assaults.
Together with terrorist propaganda supplies designed to encourage assaults, we additionally see extra focused efforts to encourage and advise people who could already be current in a goal nation.
The rest of the UK home terrorist risk is essentially pushed by excessive right-wing terrorism, which quantities to roughly 22% of assaults since 2018, a few quarter of MI5 caseload, and 28% of these in custody for terrorism-connected offences.
It’s not the identical in scale or nature as Islamism.
These ideologies help the usage of violence to additional the safety or preservation of race, id, tradition, or nation from a perceived existential risk.
In contrast to Islamist terrorist teams, excessive right-wing terrorists aren’t sometimes organised into formal teams with management hierarchies and territorial ambitions, however casual on-line communities which facilitate worldwide hyperlinks.
These terrorist narratives are additionally exploited by hostile actors corresponding to Russia and Iran, which is searching for to advertise the divisive and polarising narratives within the west. That is prone to enhance sooner or later.
Northern Eire-related terrorism stays a critical risk, notably in Northern Eire itself.
CONTEST covers the risk from Northern Eire-related terrorism in mainland Nice Britain. Nonetheless, the threats to Northern Eire and to Nice Britain aren’t thought of in isolation.
Regardless of the numerous progress within the final 25 years, some dissident republican teams proceed to hold out terrorist assaults. Between 2018 and April 2023, there have been eight nationwide safety assaults in Northern Eire.
Police and jail officers, in addition to members of the armed forces, proceed to be targets of dissident republicans. They’re prone to retain an ambition to conduct assaults in Nice Britain, too.
So, before everything in response to those threats, we should pay tribute to the brilliance and heroism of execs who work tirelessly to maintain us secure.
Its due to them that we shouldn’t have an amazing many extra damaged hearts in our nation.
And I’m happy with what this authorities has completed within the final decade to help these frontline professionals to maintain the British folks secure.
Because the Manchester Area bombing in 2017, the Authorities opened theCTOC – Counter-Terrorism Operations Centre. Legislation enforcement and intelligence companies have improved powers.
We’ve got toughened controls round entry to explosives precursors and strengthened the administration of terrorist and terrorist-risk offenders in jail and on licence.
We’ve got additionally ended the automated early launch of terrorist offenders in England, Scotland, and Wales and improved the instruments for monitoring harmful folks in the neighborhood.
Final yr Particular Department was built-in into the nationwide counter-terrorism policing community.
Going ahead, I’ll make it possible for counter-terrorism investigations draw on an elevated vary of interventions – and higher join the counter-terrorism system with experience in healthcare, schooling, social providers, and the felony justice system to reply to the total complexity of the terrorist risk.
I’ve set a really clear expectation that we should not focus solely on stopping assaults. It’s critical – actually important – that we assault the risk at its supply, by taking up and disrupting the radicalising affect of those that unfold extremist ideology.
I’ll proceed to make sure we maintain ourselves to account in getting this proper.
Unbiased and exterior scrutiny – corresponding to from the Manchester Area Inquiry, the Unbiased Overview of Forestall, and the work led by the Fee for Countering Extremism – is totally important.
A key aspect of the CONTEST refresh is a larger effort to make use of each lever to determine after which intervene towards terrorists.
And naturally, we should harness the alternatives offered by new expertise – corresponding to AI – simply as terrorists are searching for to do.
CONTEST is now 20 years outdated. It has grow to be world-leading, and our allies look to our instance, however it must be below fixed evaluation and recurrently up to date.
CONTEST will preserve its 4 pillars: Forestall, Pursue, Shield, and Put together. These pillars assault each stage of the risk – from stopping folks changing into terrorists by means of to mitigating the influence of terrorist assaults.
So first to Forestall.
Forestall is at its core an early intervention programme. Its mission is to cease folks changing into terrorists or supporting terrorism within the first place.
It depends on frontline professionals throughout society – working in healthcare, schooling, native authorities, and the police.
Sir William Shawcross led a radical, unbiased evaluation of Forestall, which confirmed that the programme required main reform to higher perceive the threats that we face – specifically the ideology underpinning them.
Terrorists search to recruit or affect those that have signed-up for, or are inclined to, extremist concepts and rhetoric.
As CONTEST references some teams, for instance Cage, publicly display behaviours that oppose the values and ideas that underpin our society.
Cage’s leaders have excused and legitimised violence by Islamist terrorists. For instance, in 2015, Cage’s analysis director acknowledged that the ISIS executioner Mohammed Emwazi was “extraordinarily mild and type” and a “stunning younger man”.
We work very carefully with Muslim consultants and practitioners, who inform me they respect our work to name out these whose phrases may hijack the lives and minds of British Muslims.
This should proceed to be a joint effort, the place we stand collectively and face not solely the terrorist risk, but additionally these whose statements can contribute to a permissive setting for radicalisation and recruitment.
We should not draw back from difficult a hard-line ideology which has completely nothing to do with the vast majority of British Muslims who’re peaceable and make a worthwhile contribution to our nation.
We should cease trying to these teams who declare to signify “their neighborhood” for approval, as if it had been a homogeneous bloc.
These teams merely don’t and can’t signify them.
To counsel in any other case is lazy and insulting to the varied combine of individuals, concepts, and beliefs we have fun on this nation.
In 2015, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, mentioned this:
“Islam is a faith noticed peacefully and devoutly by over a billion folks. Islamist extremism is a political ideology supported by a minority. On the furthest finish are those that again terrorism to advertise their final purpose: a complete Islamist realm, ruled by an interpretation of sharia. Transfer alongside the spectrum, and you discover individuals who could reject violence, however who settle for varied components of the extremist worldview, together with actual hostility in the direction of western democracy and liberal values.”
I wholeheartedly stand by his phrases.
Sir William recognized a cultural timidity inside Forestall and an institutional hesitancy to deal with Islamism for concern of costs of so-called ‘Islamophobia’.
It was due to this fact not a shock, however extraordinarily regarding, {that a} mere 16% of Forestall referrals in 2021 associated to Islamism.
Alongside understanding the motivations which make folks inclined to embracing extremist ideology, we’ll perceive the ideology itself.
Whereas psychological healthis a possible issue that makes somebody extra inclined to excessive ideology, ideology is the lens by means of which terrorists see the world. And psychological sick well being can not absolve particular person duty.
So we’re enhancing Forestall, to be higher at recognizing terrorists earlier than they act, by creating a extra nuanced and evidence-based strategy to identification and evaluation.
In the meantime, Forestall elided fascists with completely respectable centre-right figures, whereas inadequate consideration was paid to the racism and bigotry of antisemitism.
The strategy Forestall was taking was totally unsustainable and I’ve acted.
I’m already implementing all the Unbiased Overview’s suggestions and I’ve issued an instruction that Forestall focus solely on safety, not political correctness.
Forestall goes again to first ideas and reasserting its total goal of stopping folks from changing into terrorists or supporting terrorism. In any case, it’s a safety service, not a social service.
I’ll make it possible for we ship each facet of Forestall to a constant threshold that’s proportionate to the risk. I’ll replace the general public on our progress within the autumn.
It’s important that we proceed to put money into the identification of future threats and alternatives that derive from expertise – working with worldwide companions, the non-public sector, assume tanks, and academia.
Terrorists exploit expertise – together with end-to-end encryption – to cover their networks, unfold propaganda, and allow assaults. That’s the reason CONTEST commits to enabling authorized entry to the information we have to examine and disrupt terrorist exercise.
And naturally, expertise additionally permits our counter-terrorism efforts – and cutting-edge methods can considerably enhance our response.
Furthermore, there’s a co-ordinated worldwide effort to supress terrorist exploitation of the web, together with co-operation with corporations on a bilateral foundation and partnership with non-governmental organisations and multilateral boards.
The second pillar is Pursue, which goals to detect, examine, and disrupt the actions of those that have crossed that threshold into the world of terrorism.
At any given time, Counter Terrorism Policing has round 800 ongoing investigations. These get increasingly complicated because the risk diversifies.
There have been 166 arrests for terrorism-related exercise in 2022. Over the identical interval, 232 folks had been in custody for terrorism-connected offences in Nice Britain.
The federal government has taken sturdy motion towards terrorist teams, limiting their entry to finance, disrupting their exercise, and banning them from the UK.
A number of teams have been proscribed since 2018, together with excessive right-wing terrorist teams corresponding to Feuerkrieg Division, Atomwaffen Division and its UK Sonnenkrieg Division, and the Base, in addition to the so-called political wing of Hamas and Hezbollah.
A terrorist risk can spring up in locations the place we’ve not beforehand had counter-terrorism relationships.
We’re due to this fact constructing relationships with extra international locations’ counter-terrorism methods, and I’ll proceed to make sure that the community evolves to match and anticipate threats.
This abroad community will act as a tripwire ought to the risk develop. It’s a sturdy basis upon which we will quickly construct upon if mandatory.
And I cannot hesitate to guide legislative modifications each time we conclude that the regulation is just not updated with the risk we face.
For instance, we’re rigorously contemplating Lord Anderson’s unbiased evaluation of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.
The third pillar of CONTEST, Shield, is about strengthening our defences towards terrorist assaults.
As with every part else, we repeatedly evaluation our protecting safety approaches. We’ve got to take account of the very newest analysis and intelligence about terrorist targets and assault methodologies.
An instance of that is analysis into the usage of autos as a weapon. This has been knowledgeable by the event of the Rental Car Safety Scheme, a voluntary programme which helps rental corporations to cease their autos from getting used for terrorist functions.
In direct response to the Manchester Area bombing, we’ll guarantee public venues are higher ready and guarded towards terrorist assaults. In honour of Martyn Hett, who was tragically killed within the assault, we’ll move Martyn’s Legislation to enhance safety at public venues.
To help these defending their premises towards terrorism, the Dwelling Workplace and companions will proceed to make free steering, recommendation, and coaching obtainable by means of ProtectUK.
I would like everybody to really feel secure within the UK. I’ve given further funding to each the Locations of Worship Protecting Safety Funding Scheme and the Jewish Neighborhood Protecting Safety Grant, which offer protecting safety measures at locations of worship and religion neighborhood centres.
Antisemitism is an historical evil that we should vanquish. Final month, I chaired the primary Jewish Neighborhood Crime, Policing and Safety Taskforce with representatives from the Neighborhood Safety Belief; the Division of Levelling Up and senior police leaders.
We agreed to work collectively on higher enforcement towards antisemitic offences, resulting in extra arrests and prosecutions, and the taskforce will meet once more later within the yr.
We’ll additionally guarantee safety on the border: enhancing screening; deploying new expertise; and enhancing radiological and nuclear detection capabilities.
And the fourth and last CONTEST pillar is Put together. It seeks to minimise influence of an assault and cut back the chance of additional assaults.
A accountable Dwelling Secretary must be trustworthy about the truth that we can not cut back the danger completely – however we’ll take each proportionate motion attainable to take action.
Each time there’s a critical occasion, the entire nation marvels at how readily courageous women and men within the emergency providers put themselves at risk to save lots of lives. And for this reason implementing the teachings of the Manchester Area Inquiry – to make sure they work most successfully collectively – is so essential.
And so to conclude, the risk continues to evolve and is growing – which means that we should additionally evolve, quicker and higher, to remain forward of it and to maintain the British folks secure.
And partnerships are extra essential than ever, in a world the place we face a broader vary of threats. We should work and can work collectively as one system, with the general public and our worldwide allies to cut back the danger from terrorism.
The place states make use of terrorist teams as proxies we’ll use our counter-terrorism powers, capabilities, and experience to guard the UK.
Alongside our counter-terrorism toolkit, the powers within the Nationwide Safety Act will assist to maintain the UK secure by making it even more durable for these states who search to conduct hostile acts towards the UK.
We are going to use all the instruments and assets at our disposal. And we’ll confront each problem fearlessly and actually. There isn’t a room for complacency, political correctness, or cultural timidity.
There isn’t a larger responsibility for this authorities than to maintain the British folks secure, and I cannot relaxation in delivering that mission.
