Focus on police cuts as UK campaign resumes
Print Edition
BRITAIN’S election campaign resumed in earnest yesterday with Prime Minister Theresa May’s opinion poll lead narrowing and the focus firmly on her security record after an attack by marauding jihadis killed seven people in the heart of London.
In Britain’s third Islamist attack in as many months, three men rammed a van into pedestrians on London Bridge on Saturday night before running into the bustling Borough Market area, where they slit throats and stabbed people indiscriminately.
All three attackers were shot dead by police, who made at least a dozen arrests in east London on Sunday and carried out further raids yesterday morning.
The attackers’ identities are known but have not been disclosed, with British media refraining from publishing names at the request of police.
According to a report by RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, one of the attackers was carrying an Irish identity card and had lived in Dublin. Citing police sources, RTE said the man is believed to have been from Morocco and married to a Scottish woman.
A Canadian and a French national were among those who died in the attack, while the 48 injured included people of many nationalities.
The national health authority said 18 people remained in a critical condition.
May’s spokeswoman said yesterday that the government was working closely with police on security for Thursday’s general election.
With the London attack dominating attention, a reduction in the number of police officers in England and Wales by almost 20,000 during May’s six years as home secretary from 2010 to 2016 shot to the top of the election agenda.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan was among those who raised the issue. “It’s just a fact that, over the last seven years, we as a city have lost 600 million pounds (US$776 million) from our budgets. We have had to close police stations, sell police buildings, and we’ve lost thousands of police staff,” he said.
May did not answer repeated questions on the cutbacks but said counter-terrorism budgets had been protected and police had the powers they needed.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn backed calls for her resignation over police cuts.
He said many people were “very worried that she was at the Home Office for all this time, presided over these cuts in police numbers, and now is saying that we have a problem.”
May’s Conservative Party’s lead over Labour has narrowed markedly from 20 points or more when she called the election in April to a range between one and 12 points now, though the Conservatives are still expected to win a majority.
The pound rose on currency markets, which favor May over Corbyn, after the latest ICM poll, taken between Friday and Sunday and published yesterday, suggested the Conservatives were ahead by 11 points.
After chairing a meeting of the government’s crisis response committee yesterday, May said the official threat level remained at “severe,” meaning an attack was highly likely, and additional security measures were in place.
Christine Archibald, a 30-year-old Canadian who had moved to Europe to be with her fiance, was the first of those who died to be named. In a statement, her family said she had worked in a shelter for the homeless.
“Please honor her by making your community a better place. Volunteer your time and labor or donate to a homeless shelter,” they said. “Tell them Chrissy sent you.”
A vigil to honor the victims was due to take place last night at Potters Fields Park near London City Hall, which stands by the River Thames, a short walk from London Bridge.
The rampage came less than two weeks after a suicide bomber killed 22 children and adults at a pop concert in Manchester. In March, five people died after a man drove a van into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge and stabbed a policeman.
The Islamic State group, which is losing territory in Syria and Iraq to an offensive backed by a US-led coalition, claimed responsibility for the London Bridge attack, though it is unclear whether the attackers had links to the group.
London police chief Cressida Dick said that, while some of the recent attacks in Britain had international dimensions, they had a largely domestic “center of gravity.” Both the Westminster and Manchester attackers were British-born.
The police response, which saw officers shoot dead the attackers within eight minutes of the first call, has been widely praised.
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