the far-right into national terror assessments for the first time and given MI5 an increased role. Five right-
wing terror plots have been foiled in the UK since March 2017, including a neo-Nazi’s plan to murder his
local MP.
A spokesperson for UK Counter Terrorism Policing said: “We are committed to tackling any form of
extremist ideology that has the potential to threaten public safety and security. The overriding threat to the
UK remains from Isis-inspired groups and individuals, but rising numbers of arrests and Prevent referrals
relating to right-wing ideology demonstrates that we are alive to that threat and are working tirelessly with
our partners to confront it.”
Conversations are ongoing between social networks, internet firms and security services for a renewed
push against far-right platforms. Experts caution that shutting down individual sites such as 8chan can
disperse users into even more hardcore places that are more difficult to monitor. But many also argue the
move is necessary to prevent new followers from being drawn along the same path of radicalisation, either
through landing on violent propaganda via Google searches, or drawn in by social media algorithms.
Professor Feldman said the internet had become a “one-stop shop” for terrorists – from radicalisation to
sourcing weapons and bomb manuals. He warned that far-right forums have been becoming more overtly
violent over the past three years, with extremists shifting from “claiming they say stuff ironically to telling
people they actually believe it”.
Mr Hermansson suggested that post 9/11 political rhetoric on Muslims and immigration had engendered a
“boldness” on the far-right, even as faith in Western political systems wanes.
“There is a feeling of political depression and that non-violence isn’t working,” he said. “The people
committing the attacks had possibly thought about it before, and then they saw how Tarrant was elevated to
a god-like figure. They look for meaning and this is a way of finding it.”