Society ‘struggling' to respond to link between smartphones and youth extremism
Suicide bombers Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19, set off bombs on three Tube trains and a bus, killing 52 people in the single worst terrorist atrocity on British soil.
Ringleader and recruiter Khan appeared to be a pillar of the community, steering local youths away from crime and drugs by organising outdoor activities and helping to set up a gym in a mosque basement, but was in reality a fanatic.
The wreckage of the bus that was blown up in Tavistock Square (PA)
Mr Hall told the PA news agency the wide availability of smartphones has transformed radicalisation since then.
'The principal distinction from the era of 7/7 is the smartphone era,' Mr Hall said.
'That has changed the landscape. It has led to a different model of radicalisation.
'With 7/7 the indications were that Mohammad Sidique Khan was grooming people, there was a youth club, they went and did rafting together.
'Those sorts of outdoorsy, in person, group grooming activities, those feel a million miles away from the online world of radicalisation.
'I'm not aware of any sane person who seeks to argue the current wave of very young people becoming involved in terrorism, or extreme violence where it's not ideological, that that's not related to the internet and to the ready availability of smartphones.
'There's a very live debate about the ethics, the legality and the practicalities of which response is best.
'But we are absolutely grasping at straws and struggling, at the moment, as a society to work out what the correct response is.
'No one in their right minds would allow their children to allow a stranger into their bedroom, but that's what we've done with phones.'
The attacks exposed the deadly threat from homegrown terrorists with 'appalling clarity', Mr Hall said.
'What 7/7 did, is it revealed with appalling clarity that our fellow citizens are willing to kill us.
'That very unsettling insight is as true today as it was back then, except you now have to bring in British citizens who have been inspired by extreme right-wing ideology to join the predominant Islamist threat.
'But that was the real kicker from 7/7. I think it really brought home this idea of the homegrown threat.'
A police officer with a leaflet at Kings Cross station, London appealing for information into the bombings (PA)
Commander Dominic Murphy said July 7 was 'a seminal moment' for counter-terrorism policing, leading to a series of changes that continued after the five terror attacks in the UK in 2017.
He said that while Islamist groups are still the main threat to the UK, right wing terrorism is a growing problem, and there is concern that younger people are being drawn into extremism.
In 2024, 39 of the 248 people arrested for terrorism offences were aged 17 and under, while children aged 11 to 15 made up the largest proportion of those referred to anti-extremism scheme Prevent (2,729 out of 6,884).
'Islamist remains our main threat. We do see a growing right-wing terrorist problem,' Mr Murphy said.
'We're increasingly seeing younger people involved in that right-wing threat as well, which is deeply concerning for us.
'But of course, we also see people that don't have a clear or fixed ideology.
'We can't say clearly that they're an Islamist terrorist, we can't say clearly that they ascribe to a right-wing ideology.
'Nonetheless, they're consuming large amounts of violent media online, and they might have a mixed or unclear ideology – that means, of course, we still need to be concerned about the threat to the public.
'It's diversified a lot even since 2017 and I think the online environment and the world environment adds a whole new layer of challenge to the threat that we face.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Herald Scotland
27 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
So this is what it's come to: arresting pensioners and priests
That was made abundantly clear when we were treated to the sight of elderly women being bodily carried away by police, arrested under the Terrorism Act, and taken into custody. Their crime was to hold placards reading: 'I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.' Among the 29 arrested was 83-year-old Reverend Sue Parfitt, taken away by police while wearing her dog collar. Palestine Action is now proscribed as a terror organisation. Members broke into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed two military planes red. For that, it is now on an equal footing with the IRA. The terror label means that even showing support for Palestine Action can lead to 14 years in prison. Our Government has gone through the looking glass when it comes to Gaza. Read more from Neil Mackay To stand in the street and protest what you believe to be genocide, to offer support to an organisation which has been labelled a terror gang itself for protesting what it believes to be genocide, is now enough to get you carted away by the police in Britain in 2025. There's a craziness about this. Rather than discuss what is happening in Gaza, rather than debate how our Government is behaving regarding Gaza, rather than focus on the death, the bombing, the hunger, we're fixated on sideshows about singers causing outrage at Glastonbury, and arresting old ladies. The wilful blindness is absurd. The silencing runs deep. The BBC refused to air one of the most important documentaries of recent years, the film Gaza: Doctors Under Attack. Channel 4 stepped in after the BBC claimed the documentary could create 'a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect'. Channel 4 said the film was 'meticulously reported' and 'deserves to be widely seen'. It was, according to the channel's head of news and current affairs, subject to 'rigorous fact-checking' and presented an 'impartial view'. The channel had a 'duty to tell important journalistic stories – especially those that aren't being told elsewhere'. The film was among the most harrowing and horrifying ever aired on British television. Yet our national broadcaster chose to keep it from public sight. Instead, Channel 4 assumed the mantle of national broadcaster. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy wants BBC staff fired over the decision to air a separate Gaza documentary narrated by the child of a Hamas official. The Mail on Sunday ran a front page headline reading "Now arrest punk band who led 'Death to Israelis' chants at Glastonbury". The band in question is Bob Vylan. It's important to note – in these days of silencing – that the band did not chant "death to Israelis", but "death to the IDF". Accuracy matters, as does the deliberate elision. Perhaps musicians court controversy simply for controversy's sake, perhaps they speak out as they have deeply-held beliefs they wish to tell the world. Either way, the thoughts, words and deeds of minor celebrities should not be given greater importance in our news agenda that the reality of what is happening in Gaza. Reports about Bob Vylan jostled alongside reports of starving Palestinians shot at food distribution centres. There should be no such equivalence. At times, the average citizen must doubt their sanity. Why are we talking about punk bands when Francesca Albanese – who holds the post of United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories – is talking about the need for global corporations to be held accountable for 'profiting from genocide' in Gaza? Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, says Gaza is 'hell on Earth', and 'humanity is failing'. She added that 'the fact that we are watching a people entirely stripped of its human dignity, it should really shock our collective conscience.' In Britain, though, it seems we wish either silence or distraction. Our Government and our media have lost all sense of reality when it comes to Gaza. The public simply wants honest reporting, political and moral decency, and an open debate. These are not dangerous nor difficult requests. There is an historic duty on humanity right now. If we cannot find a moral and peaceable solution to what's happening in Gaza then we open the door to a monstrous future for ourselves and our children. If the rules of war can be rewritten in Gaza, they can be rewritten anywhere. If, in the future, some conflict should break out in Europe with Russia, or in the Pacific involving China, then what is happening now in Gaza becomes a template for the rules of engagement in years to come. Our behaviour today shapes tomorrow. Indeed, we are reminded of that truth this week, as we mark the 20th anniversary of the 7-7 London terror attacks. There have been calls for Bob Vylan to be arrested (Image: PA) At the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, anyone with a brain was predicting that this illegal war would bring terror to British streets. The 2005 attacks proved those fears valid. As the 20th anniversary rolled round, the former head of counter-terrorism with the Met Police, Neil Basu, said the Iraq war 'made extremists of people who might not have been radicalised'. Foreign policy and Iraq was a 'driver of the 7-7 attacks', he said. The act of silencing is itself radicalising. Anger and fear are bottled up and become channelled in dangerous ways. By telling people not to speak – on an issue as deeply felt as Gaza – the Government risks creating a pressure cooker of rage. It's notable that many now keen on silencing portrayed themselves as champions of free speech for years. They were never interested in the free speech of others, only themselves. Gaza is the greatest test our Government and media face. Trust is on life support in this country. If the Government and media cannot deal honestly with Gaza then trust will die. Once all trust is gone, then we have nothing to hold us together. Neil Mackay is The Herald's Writer-at-Large. He's a multi-award-winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics.
The Herald Scotland
27 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
How Scotland's satnav socialists abandoned working-class people
The Tories' worst nightmare was the egalitarian society imagined by the early socialist thinkers and Labour leaders. It was where good health, a long life, decent housing and a high-quality education could be accessed by those whom they'd always viewed as the lower orders. After two world wars in which the mass sacrifice of those lower orders had preserved Britain's way of life, the Tories and the UK Establishment which relied on their protection had been forced to concede the territory they'd fought to keep for themselves. Inevitably, that also meant accepting other little improvements in the lives of ordinary people: maternity leave, paid holidays, sickness benefits and the right to withdraw your labour in pursuit of fair pay and conditions. Read more by Kevin McKenna It was only when Margaret Thatcher gained power that the British Establishment began to recoup some of its historical losses. Even then, the fightback had to rely on several lies. The assets of North Sea oil were used to find the billions to pay off the miners. MI5 agents infiltrated the leadership of the NUM. The right to buy your council house was portrayed as a means of social mobility for the working-class instead of the greatest confidence ever played on them and one which would haunt their descendants a generation later. Corporate predators were invited to first prey on Britain's public assets and then enrich themselves rather than invest in infrastructure. Mrs Thatcher's ruinous legacy would even contaminate the early years of Tony Blair's government when the Bank of England was gifted ultimate control of the UK economy by being appointed to set interest rates. However, the genie released by the post-war socialist reformers could never fully be recaptured. The class struggle was still being fought and won at a local level by the children and grandchildren who had benefited from the post-war social improvements. They had become lawyers, doctors, journalists and politicians and retained many in their ranks who could achieve small victories on behalf of disadvantaged communities. The struggle for working class dignity was evident in thousands of local collectives: the housing associations; the women's health groups; the community action forums; the sports organisations. It was reinforced by publicly-funded initiatives to help those whom multi-deprivation had left on the margins: the drug addicts; the elderly and infirm; vulnerable young people. Crucially, working-class children were given free access to art and culture and encouraged to seek full expression of their experience. Those seeking refuge here from lands British had ransacked and rendered unstable were much more likely to be welcomed in places where social activism and human compassion had replaced ancient suspicions. And then something curious happened. Without having to move a muscle or deploy any of its old, dark stratagems, the British right and its corporate acolytes are once more dreaming of establishing the world of their dreams. They have looked on in delighted wonder as the left in Scotland and the UK has begun to implode. The seemingly never-ending struggle for social justice has been replaced by Pride flags and workplace witch-hunts. The new left loathes working-class people more than the Tories ever did. Your progressiveness is now measured by the number of colours you can cram into a flag. Scotland leads the world in vexillologist activism. These affluent frauds couldn't locate an authentic working-class community without the aid of a geo-positioning device. They are satnav socialists. They spend so much time on the Buchanan Street steps that they'll soon be getting their own Council Tax band. A cohort of boutique young reactionaries who benefited directly from the activism of older feminists and trade unionists are using the tactics of the right wing that their grandparents had fought: cancelling, no-debate, hounding and intimidation. It's as though the struggle for working-class rights is too much like hard work and risks interrupting their TikTok activity. Much easier to get yourself a pair of pronouns and fish for likes on BlueSky. The Scottish Trade Union Congress is led by Roz Foyer, a millionaire property tycoon. No one in the STUC thinks her position is untenable. It means no Scottish union official can speak with any authority about homelessness or wealth re-distribution. The movement she leads and the Labour Party and the Scottish Greens and the Liberal Democrats have created a hostile environment for older feminists and real working-class activists. 'The popularity of Reform UK in Scotland is the inevitable consequence of abandoning real working-class people' (Image: PA) This is the principal cause of all the civic failures for which the Scottish Government is responsible: the vast overspends, the spiralling waiting-lists, the incalculable reputational damage of their persistent refusal to accept biological reality. If you've hounded a large number of talented people from your organisation because they speak the truth about men and women then you're left with scarecrows and rockets. Being authentically Catholic in public life is once more a risky enterprise: just as it was in the 18th century. Their loathing of the people they pretend to represent is evident in their response to Scotland's appalling drugs death crisis. They spend millions on a facility that feeds addicts more drugs instead of trying to help them fully recover. They actually believe that killing them slowly in a room with designer wallpaper is progressive. They locate this walk-in mortuary in a neighbourhood miles away from where they or their apologists live. When local people complain about the inevitable scenes of desolation in their neighbourhood they get accused of being right wing by the satnav socialists. The popularity of Reform UK in Scotland is the inevitable consequence of first abandoning real working-class people; then excluding them; then telling them they're bigots for asking too many questions. Next year, Reform will have several MSPs after the Holyrood elections. Not all of them will be as reasonable as Thomas Kerr and Ross Lambie. Inevitably, there will be far-right, British supremacists in their number. And the blame for that is all on Scotland's new, indolent boutique left. Kevin McKenna is a Herald writer and columnist. He is Features Writer of the Year and writes regularly about the working-class people and communities of Scotland.
The Herald Scotland
40 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Ireland can teach us valuable lessons on tax and prosperity
Besides, the evidence of 'over-reliance' on inward investment in Ireland is sparse. On the contrary, Ireland's success in attracting inward investment has had a transformative effect on the country's economy, by building the productivity of its workforce, its entrepreneurial flair and its supply chains. The Ireland of the time when both our countries joined the EU depended on the UK for 60% of its foreign trade; now it's well under 10%. The Ireland of today has produced two to three times as many companies worth over $1 billion than Scotland. It enjoys higher average earnings, lower overall and youth unemployment and lower poverty and child poverty levels than Scotland. And here's where the connection to independence, which as Ewen pointed out to Jackie Kemp (Letters, July 4), he didn't mention, comes in. Ireland was able to generate these fruits from inward investment to a greater degree than Scotland quite simply because Ireland attracted much more inward investment than Scotland. And it was able to do so because, as an independent country, it was able to maintain for many years a corporation tax regime designed to make it attractive to the inward investment it decided it needed to transform its economy. That's a luxury we chose to deny ourselves in Scotland. Martin Togneri, Linlithgow. Read more letters It's all about the economy Many of us write in on all sorts of topics: unionism, nationalism, the NHS, various conflicts, immigration and so on. In terms of priorities every government over the past 20 years or more has failed on the most vital task of all: the economy. It's a strong, healthy economy that creates the wealth needed to fund housing, health, education, transport, pensions, defence et al. We have squandered billions with abandon on crazy bottle deposit schemes, ferries that are half-built, cycle lanes that are empty, over-management in the Civil Service and on and on. A healthy economy depends on reasonable tax, high employment, lower red tape and entrepreneurship coupled with a social conscience. The sooner our headlines are highlighting the economic performance of the Government the sooner we will be able to address these issues and clean up our filthy road signs, the illegible road signs, the ferries in dry dock et al. It's the economy, first, last and always, stupid. John Gilligan, Ayr. Important visitors Further to Dr Ibiyemi Omeihe's article ("Do you want thriving universities in Scotland? Then we need immigration", The Herald, July 5) she is right to emphasise what international students bring, but I think it's even more important to remember what they take home with them. The cost of a British university degree to these students is so high, most of them will already be funded as future leaders at home – teachers, doctors, scientists, lawyers, politicians. Who knows how important the countries they are running in 25 years' time may be to us – politically, economically, scientifically? The opinions of this country's attitudes and values which they form now could influence all our futures. Carol Primrose, Bishopbriggs. Net zero claim is wrong Gillian Martin, the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy, recently stated that "we are over halfway on our journey to net zero". This claim is is wrong. Net zero is achieved by a combination of reducing emissions and then balancing the remaining emissions by the removal of an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by using "carbon sinks", like forests for example. Net zero is accounted for on an annual basis. At the end of a year you calculate your emissions and removals and if your removals are the same or more than your emissions then you have achieved net zero for that year. In following years you may not achieve net zero because of an increase in emissions or a reduction in removals, obviously. By how much you have reduced your emissions from 1990 is not included in the formula to calculate net zero. The year was proposed by the UN so countries could compare how well they were doing in reducing emissions. Scotland's greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 were gross 54.4 million tonnes, though this figure is not stated in the published statistics as far as I could see. The figure used is net 39.6 million tonnes which is after deducting the removals of 14.8 million tonnes of emissions estimated to have been sequestered by Scottish forests. So in 2023 Scotland removed 14.8 million tonnes of the 54.4 million tonnes of greenhouse gases it produced, which is 27.2%. To claim "halfway to net zero" we would have to have removed 50%, ie 27.2 million tonnes. So based on the latest figures we have – for 2023 – Scotland has net 39.6 million tonnes of emissions to remove by 2045 by a combination of reductions and removals to "carbon sinks". Because of the length of time it takes to compile the emissions statistics we do not know even what has happened in the past two and a half years, let alone trying to predict emissions for the next 20 years which many people are forecasting will increase. Also trying to increase the amount of carbon sinks will be extremely difficult: we cannot double Scotland's forests. When net zero was first proposed it was envisioned that countries would employ direct air capture, which is using very large fans to suck in air from which CO2, the main greenhouse gas, could be extracted and this would count towards their removals to help achieve net zero. CO2 is very dilute in the atmosphere, only 429 parts per million which is a ratio of 2,331 to 1. So if you want to find one tonne of CO2 you need to suck in 2,331 tonnes of air, which uses a lot of electricity, the production of which would, they say, create more than a tonne of CO2, so that is not going to work. Hugh McAdams, Bearsden. Should Donald Trump press for more sanctions on Russia? (Image: PA) Trump should get priorities right In a review of its military support, the White House says it must 'put America's interests first', and still seems ambiguous in its attitude to Vladimir Putin's war. But in a meeting last week with Kaja Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission, China's foreign minister Wang Yi said Beijing does not want Russia to lose the war, as the USA would then be able to focus more directly on China. That plausible (albeit surprising or even unintended) admission surely makes President Trump's priorities straightforward. He should immediately support the pro-Ukraine Republicans in Congress, enforce with the European and other allies the maximum economic and financial sanctions against Russia, impose stronger penalties on those countries that finance Vladimir Putin by their purchase of Russia's oil, gas and minerals, and supply Ukraine with the intelligence data and hardware needed for swift military success – which many experts have thought feasible since late 2022, with the right support. That would then allow the USA to pass the Ukraine baton safely and effectively to Europe, and to concentrate on confronting China globally – politically, diplomatically, economically and militarily – which President Trump has for years asserted is their greatest competitor and enemy. John Birkett, St Andrews. • On Donald Trump's visit to Scotland, nothing could deflate his huge ego more than for no-one to turn up. Let him see empty pavements. Let's ignore him and his cavalcade. Eileen Stables, Paisley.
