For the third time in three months, Britain is grappling with the fallout from an appalling terrorist attack. Late on Saturday, as people were enjoying a night out in bars and restaurants in the popular Borough Market area of central London, a van mounted the footpath and mowed down whoever stood in its way. Three men with long knives, and what turned out to be fake explosive vests, then got out and stabbed people at random. The rampage lasted just eight minutes, but the attackers killed seven and injured another 48 before being shot dead by police.
The crude, low-tech attack came just over a week after the bombing that killed 23 adults and children at a concert in Manchester – the worst terrorist incident in Britain in a decade. That bombing showed evidence of planning and advanced bomb-making techniques. By contrast, the attack on Saturday night had more in common with an incident near the Palace of Westminster in March, when a 52-year-old Briton drove a car into pedestrians before fatally stabbing an unarmed police officer. Taken together, the three attacks show the range of threats facing British security services, who have had a strong record of averting terrorist attacks over the past decade. The tactics used in the attacks in Westminster and Borough Market, while claiming fewer lives, are if anything more difficult to prevent than Manchester-style bombings. Nearly every terrorist attack prompts debate about how much freedom society is willing to sacrifice for security, but if a cruel, deluded individual chooses to weaponise a vehicle, that threat cannot be eliminated entirely.
British Prime Pinister Theresa May was correct to say the terror threat cannot be defeated through military intervention alone. Nor can security policies remove the threat entirely.
But the fact that living with some level of risk is the price to pay for living in a free society does not mean we should have no response at all. May was right to strike a note of defiance but wrong to set out within hours a series of measures aimed at curbing extremism, including longer prison sentences and more internet controls. In doing so with less than a week to go to the general election, she risked accusations of political campaigning. She also risked making the same mistake as Tony Blair, who responded quickly to the 2005 London attacks with a 12-point security plan, large parts of which were never implemented.
:fill(white):background_color(white)/static.themebuilder.aws.arc.pub/irishtimes/1647534191476.png)
The most effective security response is the slow, unseen and properly-resourced work of police and intelligence services, and investment in schemes aimed at identifying and preventing radicalisation early on. The most effective public response is to say what Londoners have often said when faced with dark moments such as this: that the life of the city will go on just as before.