London has faced another attack but nothing has been confirmed and ISIL have yet to claim responsibility. It is being talked about as Islamist terrorist incident along London Bridge and Borough Market, with earlier reports that the police were attending an unconnected Stabbing in the Vauxhall area. The news broke of two incidents shortly after 10pm but with little information so far, what do we know of the incident at present?
Police have confirmed that 7 people have been killed and so far, 48 others have been injured, however, that number is still rising.
Three terrorists have been shot dead by police, who believed that they had explosive vests on but they turned out to be fake.
Information is limited
There is little information flying around and most media outlets tend to be repeating the same old news over and over. They will also make ‘news’ out of essentially nothing to try and grab your attention. But this incident is deplorable by any standards and whilst we don’t know what motivated the individuals to commit such a crime, it does share the same tactics previously used by those who have been radicalised.
This will mean most outlets will assume that they were three individuals who have been radicalised by ISIL or affiliates and the public will jump to that conclusion.
However, whilst this hasn’t been confirmed, we cannot jump to conclusions. It is understandably frustrating because after every incident people are told not to jump to conclusions, even though those conclusions are almost right every time. But we must remain calm and vigilant because jumping to conclusions can lead to knee-jerk reactions that exacerbate the situation further.
What next for the UK?
Major parties have temporarily suspended their national campaigns to respect those who have lost their lives in the incident. With Theresa May confirming the general election will go ahead on Thursday, both Labour and the SNP have stated that this will not affect national campaigning for long, after some people have questioned whether it’ll affect the election process.
Labour said that the terrorists want to derail the democratic processes of the country because that is what they dislike, with the SNP stating something similar.
The messages of hope and unity will be flooding in, along with the similar anti-immigration, Islam is evil and all refugees are terrorists’ rhetoric. But you cannot discount British history in the making of any terrorist, as we have played a significant role in the last 100 years in cultivating the environment in which they were able to thrive. Most of these extremists we see are born within the nation they commit the atrocity and tend to be individuals who have felt disillusioned and unwanted by the nation they call home.
Life will find the way
The British have had a long history of cultivating the environments that terrorists are born, the last 30 years of foreign policy has failed. The last 100 years of foreign policy has failed. Our government needs to act upon this and change the very nature in which we conduct ourselves in the world. The UK will remain sarcastic and largely unaffected but this is designed to further divide us, which it will not because of the British humour that is brutal, sarcastic and wonderful. Already an image is circulating of people running away, with one man, pint in hand and not spilling drop.
We must look at ourselves and the problems we have caused in the world but also it took 8 minutes for the police to respond to the initial incident on London Bridge, it was then essentially over by that point however, they had to keep area cordoned off in case of further incident.
The response of the security services, medical staff and everyone who helped has been on point and as always, they are doing a fantastic job, keeping most of us safe in these troubled times. Remember those who help and those who save lives, because it is those individuals that deserve our attention from now on.
