Right-wing extremism fastest-growing threat in UK, counter-terror chief warns

Right-wing extremism is the fastest growing terrorist threat in the UK, police have said.

The UK head of counter-terrorism Neil Basu said seven of the 22 plots foiled since March 2017 have been linked to far-right ideologies.

About 10% of more than 800 live terror investigations were linked to right-wing terrorism while the Government’s controversial Prevent programme has seen referrals nearly doubling since 2015/16 to 18%.

The Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner said at a briefing on Thursday: “It’s small but it’s my fastest-growing problem.”

But Mr Basu said the biggest threat still comes from Islamist and Jihadist terrorists.

“Despite the increases, right-wing terrorism remains a relatively small percentage of our overall demand, but when nearly a third of the plots foiled by police and security services since 2017 relate to right-wing ideology, it lays bare why we are taking this so seriously,” he said.

“As a proportion of our overall threat it’s definitely increasing, whereas the Islamist threat is staying the same, albeit at a very high level.”

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