Terrorism In The UK: Policy Dilemmas And Recommendations

Terrorism can be referred as undiscriminating violence, which is performed intentionally to spread terror among citizens of a country. Terrorists apply this strategy for fulfilling their demand from the financial, religious, political or ideological perspectives. In recent world, reducing terrorism has become an important issue for policy makers of both developed and developing countries (Frey 2018). This phenomenon is also true for the United Kingdom as well. The country has faced enormous terrorists attack for different reasons, for instance, the Northern Ireland conflict and the Arab-Israeli conflict. For this, the concerned country has formed the National Counter Terrorism Policing Network, a collaboration of police forces, which perform various counter terrorism strategy and operations (Whelan 2017). Moreover, the government of U.K has indentified 58 organisations as terrorists and has banned them as well (Spiller, Awan and Whiting 2018). As a result, the government has taken various policies to deal with the specified issue that has affected the socio-political and economical conditions of this country, adversely.

Hence, this report has also intended to focus on the problems related to terrorism of the U.K. Being one of the strongest countries with largest economics share, this country has earned enough power to control international market, politically and economically (Balaam and Dillman 2015). For doing so, this report has discussed about some problems related to terrorism and has tried to analyse those concepts briefly. Moreover, some recommendations have been discussed at the end of those analyses.

According to the Guardian, a leading international newspaper, the number people, who have been arrested for the terrorism related activities, has increased by 54% in Britain in recent years. In this context, attacks in London and Manchester can be mentioned. The government has arrested 64 terrorists from these two attacks (Travis 2018). This number of arrests has represented the highest one since 2001. Consequently, it can be stated that the number of threats from terrorists has increased significantly in the U.K.

The above figure has represented total number of people arrested as terrorist in 2017. In this year, the country has arrested 224 terrorists and the number has increased by 24% compare to 2016 (Kirk 2018). Moreover, this number can increase further in the upcoming years. Among those people, 12 have arrested as terrorists for the Westminster Bridge attack, while the number of Manchester Arena and London Bridge attack have remained 23 and 21, respectively (Travis 2018).

According to the quarterly Home Office bulletin related to police, who are using counter terrorism power, has represented that among 400 arrested people, 115 have been charged while 213 have been released without charge (Martins and Ziegler 2018). Moreover, 60 have been released on bail. In the Manchester Arena attack, 23 people have lost their life while 500 have injured deeply (Craigie et al. 2018). Moreover, in Westminster Bridge, a car has killed four people. Hence, terrorism has become the second important issue among the people of Britain after healthcare. 

The London attack of 2017 has affected the country’s election procedure adversely. The U.K economy has also affected through this attack. In 2005, the tourism sector of this concerned country has lost almost £750 million (Gill and Corner 2017). However, the overall economy of this country has not affected by large extend.  

To prevent terrorism, the United Kingdom is presently using the CONTEST, which is the counter-terrorism strategy of this country. The chief aim of this strategy is to reduce risks related to terrorism in the U.K and to focus this outside the country so that people can move anywhere freely (Martins and Ziegler 2018).  The CONTEST has divided its activity into four parts, which are, prevent, pursue, prepare and protect. Through the process of prevent, this strategy has intended to stop people to become terrorists or any agent of the terrorist group. Pursue, on the other side, has tried to prevent terrorist attacks through detecting, prosecuting or disrupting people, who try to attack the concerned country or make plan to do this (Thomas 2017). To mitigate the impact of terrorist attack on some places, where this activity cannot not be prevented, the strategy applies prepare activity. Through this activity, CONTEST tries to stop this terrorist attack completely and to enhance resilience of the U.K to bring the citizens of this country is a normal life after any attack. The last activity of this Counter-terrorism strategy of this country is to protect itself strongly from any attack or interests to attack of terrorists. To make this strong, this strategy has chiefly focused on the country’s border security, infrastructural facility and public places, and transport systems, which are considered as main target of terrorists.

However, this strategy has criticised by enamours people, especially the prevent activity has earned huge debates as it has brought religious issues within the country. Hence, the country can apply other strategies to defeat the terrorism within country through an efficient way so that it cannot affect any people, religion or country personally.

To prevent any activity or to deal with it, each country has formed some policies. This situation is also true for the United Kingdom, where through CONTEST the country has tried to prevent attacks from terrorism or interests associated with it (Heath-Kelly 2017). However, this current strategy has earned debates from various aspects. For this, the country can implement another strategy. However, before implementing any strategy, the policy makers of this country can analyse the after affect that whether this policy is going to affect any country or religion particularly or not.

Spreading violation is the chief motto of any terrorists group. However, the country can apply some anti-violent activities to protect them. For doing so, the government can allow members of those groups to meet and to discuss about their wants from the Great Britain through negotiation. Through this meeting, the government can overcome the problems, which the country is facing (Spiller, Awan and Whiting 2018). Moreover, if the country can successfully fulfil the requirements of the country, then the national property may remain safe from any destruction. On the other side, the policy makers can provide financial and military assistance to those countries, which have targeted to attack the U.K. as said before, each terrorist group has some motto regarding financial, political and from other perspectives, it can be beneficial for the concerned country focus on this chief issues.

In addition to this, the United Kingdom can start a free trade relation with those courtiers after Brexit (Lulle, Moro?anu and King 2018). This in turn can help the country to make a good relationship with underdeveloped or developing co countries and consequently can help them to improve their economical conditions through export and import with minimum tariff. Moreover, employment generation can also be created by large extend through this process. Hence, the chief concern of this country can be to focus on the basic needs of those countries from where those groups are raised. Income inequality, lack of public facility, dominance of developed countries and lack of basic needs can be described as some of the chief reason behind those attacks.

However, this step towards abolition of terrorism may take some problems, as people of terrorist groups do not declare their wants always. Moreover, they do not always want to negotiate anything peacefully Rather, they like to spread violation for destroying the national property of this country. In this context, the government can also take destructive steps to protect them through implementing good strategy. By applying modern technologies, the military force can track those groups and their activities so that the military force can remain able to prevent an upcoming attack from those groups.

In conclusion, it can be said that the terrorism has become an important issue like global warming, which is increasing day by day and has led the life of people in danger. Many groups within this world perform terrorism activities and can attack any country, whether it is developed or developing one. The United Kingdom has captured significant market share in international market and this in turn has helped the country to enjoy strong political and economical power. This can be the chief reason behind the enormous number of terrorists attack in this country.  To prevent this, the government has prepared taken some strategies, like CONTEST. However, this it has earned some criticism. As a result, the country can impose some other steps to prevent this attack. This can be taken in a peaceful way. However, this negotiation my not always help the country to control terrorism successfully. In this context, the country can take some other steps to prevent the country from terrorists attack. For instance, the United Kingdom may take apply new technologies for tracking activities of terrorists groups. This in turn can help the government and police force to control this situation for protecting the country by large extend. Without violating public interest and cultural reputations, the country can take any steps to prevent this violation. If the U.K or any other countries remain unable to doing this, then those terrorist groups can become more powerful and this in turn can lead the public life in danger.

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