In the video below, Prime Minister Theresa May gives an update on the London Bridge terrorist attack that occurred last night which killed 7 people and injured at least 45. She commends the Metropolitan Police for their rapid response to the attack which resulted in the three terrorists being shot and killed. May stated that this is the third terrorist attack in the past three months and does not believe they are directly related but rather broadly related through the “evil ideology of Islamist extremism.” PM May mentioned a growing trend of terrorism breeding terrorism online.

“Perpetrators are inspired to attack not only on the basis of carefully constructed plots … and not even as lone attackers radicalised online, but by copying one another and often using the crudest of means of attack.”

She said the series of attacks were not connected in terms of planning and execution, but were inspired by what she called a “single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism” that represented a perversion of Islam and of the truth. She said this ideology had to be confronted both abroad and at home. Reuters

After listening to her address, it appears she is blaming social media and companies with internet-based services for allowing terrorists to maintain space spaces online. Even though she stated there is too much tolerance of terrorism in the UK, she failed to offer a plan to stop terrorism in the future other than cracking down on cyberspace and continuing the same counter-terrorism operations.

“We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed. Yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services, provide. We need to work with allied democratic governments to reach international agreements that regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremism and terrorism planning.”- PM May

Many have criticized the UK leadership’s response to terrorist attacks in the recent months. With the upcoming national election on June 8, many voters are looking for their candidates to take a tougher stance on terrorism. Political campaigning has been suspended until Monday by all parties except the anti-European Union UK Independence Party.

Phil Campion, former British SAS and SOFREP writer, recently appeared on Sky News to discuss the growing need to do more to counter terrorism in the UK than simply using pen and paper to fix the problem.

Editorial Cartoon courtesy of Robert L. Lang