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

“There are many Western countries that have extreme right-wing challenges."

ByABC News
February 27, 2018, 10:19 AM

—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.

PHOTO: Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley speaks to the media outside New Scotland Yard, giving a statement about the investigation following a terrorist attack at Parsons Green subway station in London, Sept. 15, 2017.
Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley speaks to the media outside New Scotland Yard, giving a statement about the investigation following a terrorist attack at Parsons Green subway station in London, Sept. 15, 2017.

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.”

PHOTO: Candles surround a photo of Labour MP Jo Cox before a vigil in her memory as the Leader of Scottish Labour party Kezia Dugdale holds a rose in George Square, June 17, 2016, in Glasgow, Scotland.
Candles surround a photo of Labour MP Jo Cox before a vigil in her memory as the Leader of Scottish Labour party Kezia Dugdale holds a rose in George Square, June 17, 2016, in Glasgow, Scotland. The Labour MP for Batley and Spen was about to hold her weekly constituency surgery in Birstall Library yesterday when she was shot and stabbed in the street on June 16.

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.

PHOTO: People walk past Finsbury Park Mosque during a mosques open day in London, Feb. 1, 2015.
People walk past Finsbury Park Mosque during a mosques open day in London, Feb. 1, 2015.
PHOTO: Forensic officers move the van at Finsbury Park in north London, where a vehicle struck pedestrians in north London, June 19, 2017.
Forensic officers move the van at Finsbury Park in north London, where a vehicle struck pedestrians in north London, June 19, 2017.