British PM vows to strengthen prison sentences after London attack

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Home Secretary Priti Patel and City of London Commissioner Ian Dyson arrive at the scene of a stabbing on London Bridge, in which two people were killed, in London, Britain - Reuters

LONDON (Reuters): Prime Minister Boris Johnson said yesterday 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.

Johnson’s 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 12 December election he would invest more money in the prison system and make sentences tougher.

“We are going to bring in tougher sentences for serious sexual and violent offenders and for terrorists,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.

“I 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.”

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 “not necessarily” serve their full prison terms, suggesting it would depend on the nature of their sentence and also how they had behaved in prison.

“It depends on the circumstances, it depends on the sentence, but crucially it depends on what they’ve done in the prison,” 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.

Khan’s attack on a Friday on London Bridge stirred memories of Britain’s 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.