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| Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson |
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday he would strengthen prison sentences, vowing to boost security after an attack in the British capital by a man convicted of terrorism who was released early from prison.
With less than two weeks before Britain heads to the polls, law and order has raced to the top of the election agenda after Usman Khan, wearing a fake suicide vest and wielding knives, killed two people on Friday before being shot dead by police.
Johnsonโs Conservatives have long championed tough police and prison measures, but opposition parties have criticised the governing party for overseeing almost a decade of cuts to public services.
Trying to distance himself from those cuts, Johnson said if he won the Dec. 12 election he would invest more money in the prison system and make sentences tougher.
โWe are going to bring in tougher sentences for serious sexual and violent offenders and for terrorists,โ he told the BBCโs Andrew Marr show.
โI absolutely deplore the fact that this man was out on the street, I think it was absolutely repulsive and we are going to take action.โ
He was keen to portray his rival for prime minister, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, as being weak on crime, blaming the opposition party for bringing in a law that automatically released some prisoners early when it was in government.
Corbyn, a veteran peace campaigner, said he believed convicted terrorists should โnot necessarilyโ serve their full prison terms, suggesting it would depend on the nature of their sentence and also how they had behaved in prison.
โIt depends on the circumstances, it depends on the sentence, but crucially it depends on what theyโve done in the prison,โ Corbyn told Sky News.
Despite criticising cases where police and the army were accused of operating a shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland, the Labour leader said the police had no choice but to shoot the attacker dead.
Khanโs attack on a Friday on London Bridge stirred memories of Britainโs last election in 2017, when three militants drove a van into pedestrians in the same part of the capital and attacked people, killing eight and injuring at least 48.
Khanโs rampage was brought to an end, in part, because of bystanders, who wrestled him to the ground before the police shot him dead. So far the police have found no evidence to suggest Khan was working with others.
Queen Elizabeth expressed her โenduring thanks to the police and emergency services, as well as the brave individuals who put their own lives at risk to selflessly help and protect othersโ.
Three people remain in hospital, two of them in a stable condition, after Fridayโs attack. The third person is suffering from less serious injuries.
The attack brought a sombre tone to what has often been an ill-natured election campaign, which is presenting voters with a stark choice โ Labourโs promise to raise taxes on the rich and businesses to fund a much expanded state or the Conservativesโ pledge to โget Brexit doneโ and move onto other issues.
While Corbynโs team struck a moderate tone, with his top legal policy adviser Shami Chakrabarti questioning whether it was the time to make โknee-jerkโ policy changes, Johnson again said only he could deliver Brexit, allowing Britain to move on to reforms such as to the criminal justice system.
โObviously, I think we should be investing more in the criminal justice system,โ said Johnson.
โWhat we are doing now, under this new one nation Conservative administration, (is) we are investing โฆ It is new in our approach and it is new in the way we will tackle the issue of public services.โ
REUTERS
