Russia is trying to create “mayhem” on the UK’s streets, the head of the MI5 has warned.
In a wide-ranging speech, the organisation’s director general Ken McCallum said Britain faces an increased threat from “Putin’s henchmen” and “plot after plot” from Iran.
He also revealed a growing number of children are being investigated for terrorism in the UK.
It comes as Islamic terrorism is also re-emerging, with Mr McCallum saying “the trend that concerns me most [is] the worsening threat from Al Qaeda and in particular from Islamic State“.
“After a few years of being pinned well back, they’ve resumed efforts to export terrorism,” he added.
Over the last month, more than a third of MI5‘s top priority investigations have had links to organised overseas terrorist groups.
Mr McCallum revealed that, overall, MI5 and the police have disrupted 43 “late-stage” terrorist plots since March 2017.
He said some plotters planned mass murder through the use of firearms and explosives.
Image: Ken McCallum, director general of MI5, spoke of the threats facing the UK. Pic: PA
The split of MI5’s counter-terrorism work is roughly 75% Islamist and 25% extreme right-wing, although Mr McCallum described a “dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies” as people access a range of online hatred, conspiracy theories and disinformation.
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In his first speech of its kind in two years, Mr McCallum said his team had “a hell of a job on its hands” and painted a picture of a multifaceted threat facing the UK, with resurgent terrorist organisations such as Al Qaeda and IS, in addition to state terrorism from countries such as Iran and Russia.
Mr McCallum said state threat work has risen 48% in a year, revealing that since January 2022, MI5 and the police have responded to 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots.
He said the threat from Iran has increased “at an unprecedented scale”, warning that it – along with Russia – were “using proxies” such as organised criminals to “do their dirty work”.
While this has dented Russian intelligence services, Mr McCallum said they are on a “sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets” with “arson, sabotage and more”.
He had a message to criminals considering taking on work for hostile states, saying: “If you take money from Iran, Russia or any other state to carry out illegal acts in the UK, you will bring the full weight of the national security apparatus down on you. It’s a choice you’ll regret.”
UK faces ‘most complex threat environment we’ve ever seen’
Today’s speech from MI5’s boss doesn’t just lay out the range of threats to the UK, it makes clear how dramatically the job of protecting Britain has changed in recent years.
Ken McCallum talks of an early career “crammed full of terrorist threats” but says, while that hasn’t gone away, they now sit alongside “state-backed assassination and sabotage plots,” and on top of this there is a major European land war that is pulling on resources.
It all adds up to “the most complex and interconnected threat environment we’ve ever seen” and without saying it, one could take from this speech that the director general wants all the resources he can get from this new government’s spending review.
That said, the current terror level threat remains at “substantial” – two points below its highest level. Events in the Middle East have spilled over into hate crimes, but not yet a major act of terrorism – no significant plots are detected on this front.
But another element, not to be underestimated, is the far-right, which filled the gaps in MI5’s work when Islamic terrorism was receding. It remains a big factor, 25% of the threat, particularly when it comes to young people being radicalised.
I asked Mr McCallum about this in an off-camera briefing. Whereas Islamic terrorism takes its inspiration from extremist preachers or propaganda from terrorist groups such as Islamic State, where are these far-right extremists drawing their inspiration from?
The MI5 boss answered: “We don’t tend to see prominent radicalisers [among this group]”. He described a “pick-n-mix ideology” and a “crowd-sourced model” where people pull on hatred and misinformation from a multitude of mostly online sources.
That one in eight of the people his organisation investigates are under 18 years was, he said, “not something I expected to see”.
What’s clear is that it is hard to overstate how significant the online world is in enabling and inspiring today’s terrorists, and it seems to be getting to them at a younger age.
Mr McCallum says that in all forms of extremism “lone individuals indoctrinated online continue to make up most of the threats”.
But he added: “Sorting the real plotters from the armchair extremists is an exacting task.”
Mr McCallum also offered counter-sabotage support to businesses through MI5’s protective security arm, the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA).
But the statistic that 13% of people under investigation were children was one of the most unexpected developments – it is a three-fold increase in three years.
Mr McCallum said MI5 is seeing “far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism”.
He added: “Extreme right-wing terrorism in particular skews heavily towards young people, driven by propaganda that shows a canny understanding of online culture.”
Speaking later in an off-camera briefing, Mr McCallum said the fact that one in eight of the people his organisation investigates are under-18 was “not something I expected to see”.
As yet, the conflict in the Middle East has had little impact on UK terrorism.
Mr McCallum referenced last October’s knife attack in Hartlepool but said: “We are powerfully alive to the risk that events in the Middle East trigger terrorist action in the UK… [but] thus far, while our police colleagues have responded to rising public order, hate crime and community safety challenges, we haven’t – yet – seen this translate at scale into terrorist violence.”
A 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy have been found guilty of the manslaughter of an 80-year-old dog walker who was attacked in a Leicestershire park.
Bhim Kohli was found lying on the ground in Franklin Park in Braunstone Town, near Leicester, on 1 September last year and died the next evening of a spinal cord injury.
The grandfather, who was attacked just yards from his home, suffered a broken neck and rib fractures consistent with “something heavy striking the rib cage”, the trial heard.
Image: Bhim Kohli
The boy, who was 14 at the time of the attack, and the girl, who was 12, cannot be named because of their ages.
During a six-week trial at Leicester Crown Court, jurors heard that Mr Kohli was racially abused before the incident.
The girl had also taken a photograph of Mr Kohli in Franklin Park a week before, the court heard.
The jury deliberated for almost seven hours before reaching unanimous verdicts on the pair, who will be sentenced next month.
Mr Kohli was shoved to the ground and slapped in the face with a shoe by a boy wearing a balaclava, the trial heard.
Image: Police at the scene in Franklin Park last September. Pic: PA
A police report into the incident included a statement from a witness who described “seeing the boy forcefully pushing the old man on to his back”.
The jury heard the witness described the old man as “ending up on the floor screaming”.
A statement from PC Rachelle Pereira said: “Mr Kohli was repeatedly screaming out in pain, shouting out ‘My neck’.”
Her statement said the witness told the police officer she saw a young white boy wearing a black balaclava “shove the old man to the floor and sprint”.
The boy, who denied inflicting the fatal injuries, told a friend he would go “on the run” to Hinckley, in Leicestershire, the day after the attack but was arrested by police minutes later while hiding in a bush, the court heard.
In a letter written two months after the attack, the court heard the boy said “I did it and I accept I’m doing time” and “I kinda just needed anger etc releasing”.
Mr Justice Turner remanded the boy in custody and granted the girl bail, but told her his decision “should not be taken as any indication as to the sentence when the time comes”.
The boy had also been charged with murder, but was found not guilty by the jury on that count.
The defendants, who sat in the dock for the first time since their trial began, appeared upset as the verdicts were given.
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Donald Trump’s tariffs could disrupt the supply of medicines into the UK, the health secretary has warned.
Wes Streeting said the government was “constantly watching and acting on this situation” after the US president refused to back down from the punitive policy, despite turmoil in the markets.
His actions have sparked fears of a global trade war, with the UK’s benchmark stock market index, the FTSE 100, only just witnessing a slight rise this morning after three days of steep losses.
While the reciprocal tariffs have not yet included pharmaceutical products, there are concerns this could change in the near future.
Speaking to Wilfred Frost on Sky News Breakfast, the health secretary said that even before the US president’s tariff agenda – which has seen him impose a 10% baseline tax on imports from all nations – there had been “issues with medicines production and supply internationally”.
“We are constantly watching and acting on this situation to try and get medicines into the country, to make sure we’ve got availability, to show some flexibility in terms of how medicines are dispensed, to deal with shortages,” he said.
“But whether it’s medicines, whether it’s parts for manufacturing, whether it’s… the ability of businesses in this country to turn a profit, this is an extremely turbulent situation.”
Mr Streeting, who was speaking following the announcement that the government has recruited more than 1,500 new GPs since 1 October, said the steps taken by Mr Trump were “unprecedented in terms of global trade”.
“As ever in terms of medicines, there’s a number of factors at play,” he said.
“There have been challenges in terms of manufacturing, challenges in terms of distribution, and if we start to see tariffs kicking in, that’s another layer of challenge, but we watch this situation extremely closely.
“We work on a daily basis to make sure that we have the medicine supply this country needs.”
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Trump’s tariffs: What you need to know
Sir Keir Starmer had been seeking to secure an exemption for the UK from Mr Trump’s punitive tariffs.
But last week, the UK was hit with both the 10% baseline tariff on all imports and the 25% tariff on all cars imported to the US.
The latter tariff could prove particularly damaging for the UK, owing to the fact that the US is the car sector’s largest single market by country – accounting for £6.4bn worth of car exports in 2023.
While the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars remains in place, regulations around manufacturing targets on electric cars and vans will be altered to help firms during the transition.
Luxury supercar firms such as Aston Martin and McLaren will still be allowed to keep producing petrol cars beyond the 2030 date, while petrol and diesel vans will also be allowed to be sold until 2035, along with hybrids and plug-in hybrid cars.
Prince Harry has arrived at court for the start of a two-day hearing about his security arrangements.
The Duke of Sussex is appealing a ruling dismissing his challenge to the level of police protection he receives in the UK, and his case will be heard in front of three judges across Tuesday and Wednesday.
The prince’s dispute goes all the way back to 2020, and is one of several high-profile legal battles he has brought to the High Court in recent years.
So what is the case about, what has happened in the courts so far and what’s happening now?
What is the dispute over?
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Harry’s legal battle over security
Harry received full, publicly funded security protection until he stepped back from royal duties and moved to America with wife Meghanin March 2020.
Once he moved away, the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) – which has delegated responsibility from the Home Office for royal security – decided he would not receive the same level of protection.
But Harry has argued that his private protection team in the US does not have access to UK intelligence information which is needed to keep his wife and children safe.
He therefore wants access to his previous level of security when in the country, but wants to fund the security himself, rather than ask taxpayers to foot the bill after he stepped down as a senior member of the Royal Family.
Image: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex in Canada in February. Pic: Aaron Chown/PA Wire
The duke’s legal representative said in a previous statement: “The UK will always be Prince Harry’s home and a country he wants his wife and children to be safe in.
“With the lack of police protection comes too great a personal risk.
“In the absence of such protection, Prince Harry and his family are unable to return to his home.”
The legal representative added: “Prince Harry inherited a security risk at birth, for life. He remains sixth in line to the throne, served two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan, and in recent years his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats.
“While his role within the institution has changed, his profile as a member of the Royal Family has not. Nor has the threat to him and his family.”
What’s happened in court so far?
He filed a claim for a judicial review of the Home Office’s decision shortly after it was made, with the first hearing in the High Court coming in February 2022.
At the start of that hearing, Robert Palmer QC, for the Home Office, told the court the duke’s offer of private funding was “irrelevant”, despite his safety concerns.
In written submissions, he said: “Personal protective security by the police is not available on a privately financed basis, and Ravec does not make decisions on the provision of such security on the basis that any financial contribution could be sought or obtained to pay for it.”
He added Ravec had attributed to the duke “a form of exceptional status” where he is considered for personal protective security by the police, “with the precise arrangements being dependent on the reason for his presence in Great Britain and by reference to the functions he carries out when present”.
The barrister added: “A case-by-case approach rationally and appropriately allows Ravec to implement a responsive approach to reflect the applicable circumstances.”
The case didn’t conclude until 28 February 2024, when retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane ruled against Prince Harry.
Image: The Duke leaving a service at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in May 2024. Pic: AP
He ruled the decision to change his security status was not unlawful or “irrational”, and that there had been no “procedural unfairness”.
The judge added: “Even if such procedural unfairness occurred, the court would in any event be prevented from granting the claimant [Prince Harry] relief.
“This is because, leaving aside any such unlawfulness, it is highly likely that the outcome for the claimant would not have been substantially different.”
Following the ruling, a Home Office spokesperson said: “We are pleased that the court has found in favour of the government’s position in this case and we are carefully considering our next steps.
After the ruling, a legal spokesperson for Harry said he intended to appeal, adding: “The duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec’s own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec’s own written policy.
“In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to the Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis.
“The duke’s case is that the so-called ‘bespoke process’ that applies to him is no substitute for that risk analysis.
“The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.”
Prince eventually gets green light to appeal against High Court ruling