What can be done to stop terror attacks?

Since 2005, Britain has been a relative safe haven from violent extremists.

While security services have foiled countless attack plots, the UK had been a relative safe haven from large-scale terrorist attacks.

Now we are reeling after three deadly incidents in the space of just three months.

Theresa May, speaking outside Downing Street yesterday, explained that “we are experiencing a new trend in the threat we face”.

• Star comment: We must all stand together

Terrorism is breeding terrorism, she said. Perpetrators are being inspired to launch crude, barely-planned attacks using the most basic and simplistic means by watching what is being done by other terrorists.

The means of defeating terrorism lies in “turning people’s minds away from this violence and making them understand that pluralistic British values are superior to anything offered by the preachers and supporters of hate”, she said.

It is unlikely to be a coincidence that these attacks have taken place so soon after Isis lost control of key ground in Syria, driving many fighters back to Britain.

Radicalised, wounded and angry, these people – many of them young and some who were even born under Isis rule – were driven out as Isis strongholds crumbled in March.

Security sources were quoted at the time as saying: “It is possible they are going to return indoctrinated, deeply dangerous and damaged.”

That theory is now apparently being borne out on the streets of Britain.

There are dangerous people living in our midst, holding British passports, and nursing a furious grudge against the country and its people.

Turning people’s minds against preachers of hate will mean identifying them first, but what then? An arm around the shoulder to entice them back into a society of innocence and goodwill? Deportation of British citizens? To where?

What can you actually do to bring radicalised individuals back into the fold of British society, and would doing so even be welcomed by the public?

Mrs May also warned that the internet was a breeding ground for such activity.

“We need to work with allied democratic governments to reach international agreements that regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning,” she said.

“And we need to do everything we can at home to reduce the risks of extremism online.”

These three crimes have all taken place since the advent of the Investigatory Powers Act – popularly known as the Snooper’s Charter – in November, however.

That act requires web and phone companies to store everyone’s web browsing histories for 12 months, and to give the police, security services and official agencies access to the data.

It was heavily criticised at the time for encroaching into the public’s life, and one must ask whether it has had the desired impact in preventing terror.

We live in a time when Britain’s international relations are uncertain and fractured – and enticing our allies overseas to join us in introducing a controversial online power would be difficult at the best of times.

We also must wonder what powers would help the Government to prevent these crimes – and then to prove the guilt of their plotters in a court of law.

Mrs May’s third call was to deprive terrorists of their “safe spaces at home”, on top of the overseas military efforts to destroy Isis.

She said that there was “far too much tolerance of extremism in our country”, and that we must be “robust” in identifying it and stamping it out.

“That,” Mrs May said, “will require some difficult, and often embarrassing, conversations.”

We must not live our lives in segregated communities, she said, but as one United Kingdom.

How do we achieve that? One suspects that she is indirectly appealing to other mosque-goers – ordinary, decent people – to turn in any suspected extremists.

That surely demands bridge-building between communities, guarantees of safety for those who may be turning in their former friends and acquaintances, and a huge shift in attitudes all across British society.

Mrs May also pledged to review Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy to make sure the police and security services have all the powers they need.

Questions have persisted over the course of the election campaign about whether the police are adequately supported by the Government, and whether the decline in the number of police officers has affected the country’s ability to handle the terror in our midst.

An assessment of the capabilities of the security services would seem a sensible move for any incoming Government, and the response must not be lip service.

Mrs May stood on the steps of Downing Street as Prime Minister and said what we were all thinking – that something needs to be done.

Nobody else seems particularly sure about what exactly that should be – and until we hear more detail we may assume that the PM is on the same page as the rest of us there as well.