Theresa May: London terror attack shows Britain too tolerant of extremism

The attack on London Bridge shows there is “far too much tolerance” of Islamist extremism in Britain today, Theresa May has said.

The Prime Minister made the comments outside Downing Street on Sunday morning in the aftermath of the van and knife attack that saw seven people killed and dozens injured.

She said rooting out terror would require “some difficult and often embarrassing conversations”.

The PM warned there was “a new trend in the threat we face” and that while the three recent terror attacks in the UK were not linked by “common networks”, they were “bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamic extremism”.

She added that things could not “continue as they are” and suggested that “pluralistic British values” should be established as superior and that “safe spaces” for terror planning on the internet should be stamped out through new “international agreements that regulate cyberspace”.

The Prime Minister said: “While we have made significant progress in recent years there is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.

“So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out across the public sector and across society.

“That will require some difficult and often embarrassing conversations, but the whole of our country needs to come together to take on this extremism we need to live our lives not in a series of segregated, separated communities, but as one truly United Kingdom.”