Section:GDN 1N PaGe:6 Edition Date:190807 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 6/8/2019 21:22 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian Wednesday 7 August 2019
(^6) National
Counter-terrorism
Security
Hard Brexit
would ‘harm
UK ability to
fi ght crime’
Vikram Dodd
Police and crime correspondent
The UK’s safety and security would
suff er from a no -deal Brexit and no
amount of planning and preparation
can erase the risk, Britain’s head of
counter -terrorism has said.
The Scotland Yard assistant com-
missioner, Neil Basu, said key
crime -fi ghting tools would be lost
and their replacements would not be
as good.
In a wide-ranging interview in
which he also warned that boosts to
police and security service numbers
were no longer enough to combat ter-
rorism, he said: “We can make them
[the damaging eff ects] less, but they
would be slower systems.
“Those systems and tools were
developed in the EU for very good rea-
son. They were very good. We had just
signed up to biometric sharing.
“In a no deal we’d lose all that. We’d
have to renegotiate it.”
The three key measures are fast
access to intelligence and data through
the Schengen Information System II
database, as well as passenger name
records, and the ability to use Euro-
pean arrest warrants.
Basu said: “ There is no contingency
planning for not being given passen-
ger name records.
“It would create an immediate
risk that people could come to this
country who were serious off enders,
either wanted or still serial and seri-
ous off enders committing crimes in
this country, and we would not know
about it. It creates that risk.
“With my police leadership hat on
there would still be deep concern.
There would be some damage to our
safety. I can’t put a scale on that.”
Basu said politicians had listened
to and understood police advice on
the operational eff ect of Brexit. “Their
fi rst responsibility is the security of
the nation. I think they absolutely get
what needs to be done.”
A no-deal Brexit would mean the
return of Interpol alerts and the UK
relying on the 1957 European con-
vention on extradition , under which
it could take years to return a suspect,
instead of the current six weeks with
the European arrest warrant.
the post-Brexit referendum rise in
nationalism could fuel violence.
Describing his comments on the
best ways to reduce terrorism as a
personal view, Basu said: “ Policies that
go towards more social inclusion, more
social mobility and more education
are much more likely to drive down
violence ... than all the policing and
state security apparatus put together.
It is much more likely to have a posi-
tive eff ect on society.”
He called for help from academics,
and defi ned social inclusion as mean-
ing “you have a stake and voice in the
society in which you live”.
Basu said counter-terrorism oper-
ations had increased by 50% between
2015 and 2017, and had remained high
since. The threat of attack is still seen
as severe despite Isis losing its lands
in Iraq and Syria.
Basu outlined his views at a time
when both Islamist and extreme
rightwing terrorists have continued
to recruit Britons, despite eff orts to
thwart them. “Nothing I am saying
remotely excuses these heinous acts
of criminal violence,” he said. “But
the deeper causes need examining.
My teams are world-class at stopping
attacks and locking terrorists up. But
we need to stop the fl ow of recruits.
“Don’t forget that 70-80% of the
people we arrest, disrupt or commit an
attack here, are born and raised here.
That has got to tell us something about
our society – that we have got to look at
why they would be prepared to do that.
“I want good academics, good
sociologists, good criminologists ...
to be telling us exactly why that is.”
▲ Neil Basu said police and security
services alone were not enough
Continued from page 1
Social inclusion key
to extremism fi ght,
warns police chief
He accepted that many people went
through bad experiences without ever
dreaming of committing violence.
But he said some people were more
“malleable” than others to terrorist
recruitment and there were common
themes: “It might be everything from
high anxiety, to lack of confi dence,
lack of education, things that may
have happened to them when they are
young, bullying, racism, bigotry, lack
of opportunity, early experiences with
law enforcement , domestic violence.”
The counter-terrorism network
Basu heads had been stretched by the
high volume of terrorist activity from
Islamists, which was never expected
to be so intense or to endure for so
long. On top of that , he said there was
a rising threat from the extremist right
and from states such as Russia.
There was no one path that led to
terrorism, he said.
The policies were up to the gov-
ernment, he said, but it must tackle
“education, access to health, not
disproportionate outcomes in crimi-
nal justice, feeling like you’ve got an
opportunity to get on in life”.
These were “wider societal prob-
lems”. Paying more police and more
security services to stop more terrorist
attacks was not the cure. “Like every
other aspect of law enforcement we
(counter-terrorism policing) are a sup-
pression tool for a problem,” he said.
“We are dealing with the symptom
and we need to deal with root causes .”
Basu said while the majority of the
terrorism threat was from Islamist
extremists, far-right propaganda could
help create a permissive environment
for some to commit violence. Society
needed to determine how much of that
rhetoric was acceptable.
“At the moment we seem to be
accepting a level which I think is
potentially breeding some intoler-
ance,” he said. “That intolerance, for a
small number , can spin up very quickly
to a violent act .”
He said that despite its importance,
Prevent ha d been the least success-
ful part of the UK’s counter-terrorism
strategy , compared with the other
three strands: pursue, protect and pre-
pare, which were all “outstanding”.
Prevent, viewed as a “toxic brand”
by critics , needed “better communic-
ation, more transparency an ability not
to create a vacuum for people to attack
it, by not actually trying to defend it.”
Basu rejected notions that Brit-
ish Muslims should “assimilate” and
defended the rights of religious con-
servatives: “Assimilation implies that
I have to hide myself in order to get on.
We should not be a society that accepts
that.” He added: “ You should be able to
practise your culture or religion openly
and still be accepting of others, and
others be accepting of you. That is a
socially inclusive society.”
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