There will be questions about prevention... and they will be answered

The attack on London Bridge yesterday is a vivid reminder that the UK continues to face an enduring and long-standing threat from terrorists.

The brave, fast response by the public and the firearms officers of the Metropolitan Police is likely to have saved lives, just as it did two years ago in June 2017 when armed police shot dead three Islamist terrorists in under eight minutes after they had driven at and killed pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing to death more civilians in Borough Market.

This attack has a sense of déjà vu in terms of modus operandi (knife, fake suicide vest, location) and police response, but it is different in one notable respect; only a single perpetrator appears to have been involved, a hallmark of the most difficult types of terrorist attacks to prevent. While other suspects may still be at large, radicalised individuals operating alone are notoriously difficult to monitor and it is extremely difficult to understand their mental state – presenting unique challenges to MI5 and counter-terrorist police who run live operations against them.

Just three weeks ago, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, announced that the independent Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre (JTAC) had reduced the UK’S terrorism threat level from “severe” to “substantial” in acknowledgement that terrorist attacks across the globe had significantly reduced since the military defeat of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), which had been fomenting most Islamist attacks over the past five years. This mirrored observations by senior detectives from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) that the number of covert terrorist investigations has been declining, despite concern that some British “foreign fighters” might return from Syria posing a new threat.

It is noteworthy, however, that most UK terrorist attacks in recent times have been carried out by British-born and educated Muslims who have become radicalised while living in the UK, mostly through the influence of local charismatic extremists and consumption of online Islamist propaganda. The demise of Isil is not necessarily going to affect the threat these individuals continue to pose, which is why the Government’s Prevent strategy is so important.

The inquest into the London Bridge attack of 2017 finished in June with the Chief Coroner publishing his Prevention of Future Deaths report just four weeks ago. This made a number of recommendations relating to the co-working between MI5 and counter-terrorism police officers working on the same investigation and questioned the validity of the “lone actor” tool being used by MI5 to assess the risk that individuals posed after it became known that MI5 downgraded the threat assessment against the main attacker, Khuram Butt, just weeks before he carried out that attack.

All terrorist attacks of this nature result in lengthy in-depth reviews of the available intelligence in the leadup. Questions will be asked about whether it could have been prevented. The men and women who work tirelessly to prevent these attacks are extremely self-critical; if there are lessons to be learnt in this case, MI5 and the Counter Terrorism Command will learn them very quickly indeed.