UK’s counter-terror chief warns of ‘unprecedented’ rise in terrorism threat since Israel-Gaza war started

Published

10 months ago

January 20, 2024

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Police have seen an “unprecedented” rise in the threat from terrorism following the conflict in Gaza, which has become a “radicalisation moment”, Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer has said.

Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Matt Jukes said there had been a 25% increase in intelligence coming into counter-terrorism police, “a significant increase on our usual levels”.

“In simple terms, that means more intelligence about potential terrorism and violent extremism, flowing through our systems than in recent years, from online reports, public reports and from MI5,” Mr Jukes told a briefing of journalists.

Having previously served as chief constable for South Wales Police, Mr Jukes has been head of specialist operations at Scotland Yard for the last two years, and said Islamist extremists had been “energised by this conflict”.

“It’s hard to remember a more unstable, dangerous and uncertain world. I have not seen the conditions collide in the way we have in the last months during my tenure,” he said.

“The speed and the scale of the impact of global events are extraordinary, even in the context of our experience.

“If events happen around the world, they will invariably pull a thread in the UK, and particularly in its very diverse city communities, but what we have seen clearly is fear, anxiety, uncertainty, a whole range of very significant reactions amongst UK communities.”

‘Surge’ in calls to anti-terrorism hotline

Since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October there have been 33 arrests for terrorism offences – 19 related to protests, 13 to social media and one to an alleged attack. Seven people have been charged as a result of the arrests and the rest remain on bail or under investigation.

There has been a “surge” in calls to the anti-terrorism hotline and in the two weeks after the initial attack, the number doubled.

The counter-terrorism internet referral unit received over 3,000 referrals for “objectionable” material, 700 of which have been identified as having a link to the UK and potentially breaching legislation.

Of those recently arrested, 20% have been children under the age of 18 and children as young as 11 have been involved in “very troubling conversations” online.

“That is extraordinary and, I think, demonstrates the volume and the intensity of online rhetoric around the ongoing conflict,” Mr Jukes said.

“We always see spikes after terrorist incidents but what we’ve seen since 7 October has been a spike which is higher and more sustained than ever before. This is playing out online in a way which is, in our experience, unprecedented.

“All of that online extremism is part of a dangerous climate. I think that puts us at a point which we would describe as a radicalisation moment.”

‘Most acute period since Cold War’

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre run by MI5, which assesses the UK threat level, has kept the level at “substantial” meaning an attack is “likely” but “continues to review all of this information”, Mr Jukes said.

Scotland Yard has also opened a unit to deal with “hostile state actors”, mainly related to the “triple threat” from Iran, Russia and China.

In the last five years there have been 20 arrests under the Official Secrets Act, but half of those were in 2023, which Mr Jukes described as “the most acute period since the Cold War”.

It comes as Defence Secretary Grant Shapps warned that the world could be engulfed by wars involving China, Russia, North Korea and Iran in the next five years, adding the “era of the peace dividend is over”.

In a speech on 15 January, Mr Shapps spoke directly to NATO allies, urging them to grow their defence budgets, insisting that the UK would strive to reach its own goal of 2.5% “as soon as possible”.

On Friday he added that “it is vital that we continue to lead, deter hostile states and act to defend our country whenever and wherever we need”.

“I would also say that nothing is inevitable. We can deter such threats by being prepared and standing strong with our allies. That is why we are investing in our armed forces and our allies,” he told The Telegraph.

“This is not about being alarmist. It’s about being ready and being in the right place to defend our interests.”

His warning was echoed by German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, who said on Friday that Russia could attack NATO within five years.

‘Danger of history repeating itself’

Despite the looming international threat, the size of the British Army is shrinking, and fast, according to one former chief of the general staff.

Under government proposals, the size of the regular army will be cut from 82,000 troops to 73,000 by 2025, but analysis by The Times newspaper suggested numbers could drop below that as soon as next year and continue on a steep downward trajectory.

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General Lord Dannatt warned of a “serious danger of history repeating itself” unless more is invested in Britain’s armed forces.

He called for pay and conditions to be “urgently reviewed” and drew parallels with the 1930s when the “woeful” state of the UK’s armed forces failed to deter Hitler.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: “Whilst there are undoubted challenges to military recruitment, people are at the heart of the military and the MoD is taking tangible and concrete steps to address shortfalls. More widely the UK is spending more than £50bn on defence this year to protect our interests wherever they are threatened.”

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps will be appearing on Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday Morning programme tomorrow from 8.30am.

UK

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September – slower than expected

Published

2 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September - slower than expected

The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the quarter.

The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.

Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.

And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Improving economic growth is at the heart of everything I am seeking to achieve, which is why I am not satisfied with these numbers.

“At my budget, I took the difficult choices to fix the foundations and stabilise our public finances.

“Now we are going to deliver growth through investment and reform to create more jobs and more money in people’s pockets, get the NHS back on its feet, rebuild Britain and secure our borders in a decade of national renewal,” Ms Reeves added.

The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.

The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.

The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.

It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.

The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.

The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.

UK

Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is ‘growing in popularity’

Published

2 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is 'growing in popularity'

“If you are a member of something, it means you’ve accepted membership. Anything with ‘ship’ on the end, it’s giving you a clue: it’s telling you that’s maritime law. That means you’ve entered into a contract.”

This isn’t your standard legal argument and it is becoming clear that I am dealing with an unusual way of looking at the world.

I’m in the library of a hotel in Leicestershire, a wood-panelled room with warm lighting, and Pete Stone, better known as Sovereign Pete, is explaining how “the system” works. Mr Stone is in his mid-50, bald with a goatee beard and wearing, as he always does for public appearances, a black T-shirt and black jeans.

With us are six other people, mainly dressed in neat jumpers. They’re members of the Sovereign Project (SP), an organisation Mr Stone founded in 2020, which, he says, now has more than 20,000 paying members.

As arcane as this may sound, it represents a worldview that is becoming more influential – and causing problems for authorities. Loosely, they’re defined as “sovereign citizens” or “freemen on the land”.

Their fundamental point is that nobody is required to obey laws they have not specifically consented to – especially when it comes to tax. They have hundreds of thousands of followers in the UK across platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Telegram.

Increasingly, they are coming into conflict with governments and the law. Sovereign citizens have ended up in the High Court in recent months, challenging the legalities of tax bills and losing on both occasions.

In October, four people were sentenced to prison for the attempted kidnapping of an Essex coroner, who they saw as acting unlawfully. The self-appointed “sheriffs” attempted to force entry to the court, one of them demanding: “You guys have been practising fraud!”

The Sovereign Project is not connected to any of those cases, nor does it promote any sort of political action, let alone violence.

Instead, they are focused on issues like questioning the obligation to pay taxes, as Mr Stone explains, referencing the feudal system that operated in the Middle Ages.

“Do you know about the feudal system when people were slaves and were forced to pay tax?” he asks.

“Now, unless the feudal system still operates today, and we still have serfs and slaves, then the only way that you can pay taxes is to have a contract, you have to agree to it and consent to it.”

Another member, Karl Deans, a 43-year-old property developer who runs the SP’s social media, says: “We’re not here to dodge tax.”

Local government tends to be a target beyond just demands for tax. Mr Stone speaks of “council employee crimes”.

I ask whether, considering the attempted kidnapping in Essex, there is a danger that people will listen to these accusations of crimes by councils and act on them.

“Well that’s proved,” Mr Stone says. “We only deal with facts.”

Evidence suggests this approach is becoming an issue for councils across the UK, as people search online for ways to avoid paying tax.

Sky News analysis shows that out of 374 council websites covering Great Britain, at least 172 (46%) have pages responding to sovereign citizen arguments around avoiding paying council tax. They point out that liability for council tax is not dependent on consent, or a contract, and instead relies on the Local Government Finance Act 1992, voted on by Parliament.

But the Sovereign Project’s worldview extends beyond council tax. It is deeply anti-establishment, at times conspiratorial. Stone suggests the summer riots may have been organised by the government.

“The sovereign fraternity operates above all of this,” he says. “We look down at the world like a chessboard. We see what’s going on.”

He explains that, really, the UK government isn’t actually in control: there is a shadow government above them.

“These are the people who control government,” he explains.

“A lot of people say this could be the crown council of 13, this could be a series of Italian families.”

Professor Christine Sarteschi, an expert in sovereign citizens at Chatham University, Pittsburgh, says she’s worried about the threat sovereign citizens may pose to the rule of law, especially in the US where guns are readily available.

“The movement is growing and that’s evidenced by seeing it in different countries and hearing about different cases. The concern is that they will become emboldened and commit acts of violence,” she says.

“Because sovereigns truly believe in their ideas and if they feel very aggrieved by, you know, the government or whomever they think is oppressing them or controlling them… they can become emotionally involved.

“That emotional involvement sometimes leads to violence in some cases, or the belief that they have the power to attempt to overthrow a government in some capacity.”

Much of this seems to be based on an underlying and familiar frustration at the state of this country and of the world.

Mr Stone echoes some of the characteristic arguments also made by the right, that there is “two-tier policing”, that refugees arriving in the UK are “young men of fighting age”, that the government is using “forced immigration to destroy the country”.

Another SP member, retired investment banker David Hopgood, 61, says: “I firmly believe it is the true Englishman – and woman – of this country – that has the power to unlock this madness that’s happening in the West.

“We’ve got the Magna Carta – all these checks and balances. We just need to pack up, go down to Parliament and say: It’s time to dismiss you. You’re not fit for purpose.”

The members of the Sovereign Project are unfailingly patient and polite in explaining their understanding of the world.

But there is no doubt they hold a deeply radical view, one that is apparently growing in popularity.

UK

Wes Streeting ‘crossed the line’ by opposing assisted dying in public, says Labour peer Harriet Harman

Published

2 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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Wes Streeting 'crossed the line' by opposing assisted dying in public, says Labour peer Harriet Harman

Wes Streeting “crossed the line” by opposing assisted dying in public and the argument shouldn’t “come down to resources”, a Labour peer has said.

Speaking on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Baroness Harriet Harman criticised the health secretary for revealing how he is going to vote on the matter when it comes before parliament later this month.

MPs are being given a free vote, meaning they can side with their conscience and not party lines, so the government is supposed to be staying neutral.

But Mr Streeting has made clear he will vote against legalising assisted dying, citing concerns end-of-life care is not good enough for people to make an informed choice, and that some could feel pressured into the decision to save the NHS money.

He has also ordered a review into the potential costs of changing the law, warning it could come at the expense of other NHS services if implemented.

Baroness Harman said Mr Streeting has “crossed the line in two ways”.

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“He should not have said how he was going to vote, because that breaches neutrality and sends a signal,” she said.

“And secondly… he’s said the problem is that it will cost money to bring in an assisted dying measure, and therefore he will have to cut other services.

“But paradoxically, he also said it would be a slippery slope because people will be forced to bring about their own death in order to save the NHS money. Well, it can’t be doing both things.

“It can’t be both costing the NHS money and saving the NHS money.”

Baroness Harman said the argument “should not come down to resources” as it is a “huge moral issue” affecting “only a tiny number of people”.

She added that people should not mistake Mr Streeting for being “a kind of proxy for Keir Starmer”.

“The government is genuinely neutral and all of those backbenchers, they can vote whichever way they want,” she added.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously expressed support for assisted dying, but it is not clear how he intends to vote on the issue or if he will make his decision public ahead of time.

The cabinet has varying views on the topic, with the likes of Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood siding with Mr Streeting in her opposition but Energy Secretary Ed Miliband being for it.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is being championed by Labour backbencher Kim Leadbeater, who wants to give people with six months left to live the choice to end their lives.

Under her proposals, two independent doctors must confirm a patient is eligible for assisted dying and a High Court judge must give their approval.

The bill will also include punishments of up to 14 years in prison for those who break the law, including coercing someone into ending their own life.

MPs will debate and vote on the legislation on 29 November, in what will be the first Commons vote on assisted dying since 2015, when the proposal was defeated.