Older men are now the main perpetrators of extreme rightwing terrorist attacks, the UK’s independent reviewer of terrorism has said, after the firebomb attack on an immigration centre.
Jonathan Hall KC’s observation came as Rishi Sunak said tackling Channel crossings by people seeking asylum was his “key priority”.
In his first comments since the attack by Andrew Leak, 66, who is believed to have thrown three incendiary devices at a Dover migration centre before killing himself, Hall wrote that it was “consistent with a recent pattern. That is, the most recent completed Extreme Right Wing Terrorist [ERWT] attacks all being carried out by older men”.
In a Twitter thread on Monday, Hall pointed out that the attempted murder of Dimitar Mihaylov, 19, in Stanwell, Surrey, was carried out by Vincent Fuller, 50; the Exeter Synagogue arson attack of 2018 was carried out by Tristan Morgan, 51; the 2017 Finsbury Park murder of Makram Ali was carried out by Darren Osborne, 48; while Thomas McNair, 52, was found guilty of the 2016 murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox.
...Stanwell stabbing 2019 (Vincent Fuller, 50), Exeter Synagogue arson 2018 (Tristan Morgan, 51), 2017 Finsbury Park murder (Darren Osborne, 48), 2016 murder of Jo Cox MP (Thomas McNair, 52) .../3
— Independent Reviewer (@terrorwatchdog) November 7, 2022
He said the last rightwing terrorist attack by a younger man was in 2015, when Zack Davies, 25, tried to kill a shopper in a branch of Tesco in Mold, Wales.
“There *are* more recent ERWT plots by younger (sometimes much younger) people, but for some reason do not lead to completed attacks,” he wrote.
“There are various possible explanations: more likely to give away their plans, leading to detection and frustration; less capable; lack of intent to go through with attack; lack of access to ideal weapons.”
The prime minister plans to press Emmanuel Macron for a new deal to curb Channel crossings, reports have claimed.
Sunak and the French president were expected to discuss the issue at the UN climate change conference in Egypt on Monday.
Sunak wants to agree on targets for stopping boats and a minimum number of French officers patrolling beaches. The government also hopes Border Force officers can be deployed to French beaches, but this has been resisted by French authorities.
Sunak told the Sun newspaper: “I have spent more time working on that in the last few days than anything else other than the autumn statement.
“We have to get a grip, do a range of things to stop it from happening, return people who shouldn’t be here in the first place.”
During a visit to Imperial College London, the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, urged Sunak to discuss how to “work upstream” to bring down the people smugglers behind the crossings.
Almost 40,000 people have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in small boats so far this year. But there were no crossings in the first six days of November amid bad weather conditions, meaning the provisional total for 2022 to date still stands at 39,913.
In a further development, the government hopes to revive plans for a bill of rights to overhaul human rights laws as part of its plans to address the migration crisis.
Dominic Raab’s proposals, which aim to give UK courts supremacy over the European court of human rights, will return to parliament “in the coming weeks” after being shelved by Liz Truss’s administration, although they are expected to face opposition in the Commons and the Lords.
