Far-right terror threat 'more significant' than public realizes, British police official warns

—LONDON -- Britain is facing an increased threat from far-right terrorism, the outgoing head of U.K.’s counterterrorism command said.

In a Monday valedictory speech a few weeks before he leaves his post, Mark Rowley, London’s assistant commissioner for specialist operations of the Metropolitan Police Service, said police have foiled four such plots by right-wing extremists in the past year.

One-third of referrals to the government’s anti-radicalization program are now related to far-right terrorism, he added.

“The right-wing terrorist threat is more significant and more challenging than perhaps public debate gives it credit for,” Rowley said.

He said, “For the best part of 18 months in the U.K., we have a homegrown, white supremacist, neo-Nazi terrorist organization that is pursuing all of the ambitions of any other terrorist organization committed to violence … that should be a matter of great concern for all of us.”

There were five deadly attacks in the U.K. last year, including a terror attack against a crowd of Muslims leaving a mosque in Finsbury Park. The man who carried out the attack by driving a van into pedestrians, injuring at least eight people, was jailed for life this month and will spend at least 43 years behind bars.