The Head of Counter Terrorism Policing has declared Britain is facing a “worrying situation” as new figures revealed almost 1,000 live terror investigations are ongoing.
Speaking to GB News following a national briefing, Laurence Taylor told Home and Security Editor Mark White that investigators are increasingly encountering “significant complexity”.
Counter terrorism still remains the largest proportion of the caseload facing terror police.
In April, the terror threat level was raised from “Substantial” to “Severe”, meaning an attack is “highly likely”.
Speaking to GB News following the briefing, the Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner said: “There is significant complexity volume in our casework going across everything from Islamist terrorism, extreme right-wing terrorism to foreign state interference.
“Also to young people who are involved in extremist material online. It is a worrying situation, but one that we are working hard to address.”
Questioned on how many potential terror plots they have blocked over the past year, Mr Taylor revealed: “We are currently dealing with a volume, I’m not going to go into specific numbers, but a number of live investigations that we and intelligence partners are actively engaged in addressing.
“We have stopped a number of attacks over the past few years, 19 late stage attacks have been stopped, but they continue.”
Laurence Taylor has said that it is ‘very worrying’ that counter terror police are investigating 800 cases
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Mr Taylor stressed: “And of course, we will do everything we can to keep the public safe, but we can’t stop everything, which is why we ask for vigilance.”
Asked by Mark if the counter terror police are “seeing a resurgence of ISIS and Al-Qaeda”, Mr Taylor argued that they have “never gone away”.
He said: “They have been challenged in the past, but their ambition is growing and we are certainly seeing an ambition to influence activity in the UK.
“Yes, Islamist terrorism within our terrorist casework is the biggest proportion. But the threat level increase was driven by an increase in extreme right-wing and other activity.
Counterterrorism still remains the largest proportion of the caseload facing terror police | GETTY
“And that doesn’t include the foreign state interference that we’re having to address.”
Questioned on the use of proxies in the UK by foreign state actors, Mr Taylor made clear that anyone found to be acting as a proxy will “go to prison for a very long time”.
He told GB News: “Of course, the proxies are working on behalf of these foreign states, and they may not even realise that.
“But let me be clear that the potential sentence you will get for working on behalf of a foreign state is huge. You will go to prison for a very long time.
Mr Taylor told GB News that acting as a proxy will result in a ‘huge’ prison sentence
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“You will not get paid, and that foreign state will not be stood next to you in the court. So I would urge people not to accept potential small amounts of money to commit criminality. This is very serious offending.”
In the briefing, Mr Taylor also warned: “It feels very much like we’re on a knife-edge of extremism and polarising language that’s cutting through society, and that is leading to our doorstep in counter-terrorism policing.
“To be really clear, we do not and will not tolerate those involved in terrorism in any form, or working on behalf of a foreign state, whether they know it or not.
“And we will do all we can to stop them and bring them to justice.”