Prevent referrals:

• In Prevents own statistics from April 2021 – March 2022, for the second year in a row referrals because of extreme right-wing radicalisation (20%) were higher than Islamist referrals (16%).
  
• In statistics from April 2021 – March 2022Of the 804 Channel cases, the most common were from extreme right-wing sources (42%), followed by Islamist extremism (19%).   

Far-right terrorism arrests and convictions in the UK: 

• 49% of terrorism arrests in the year to September 2022 were linked to suspected extreme right-wing terrorism.  
  
• Over the last six years, 96 people with far-right sympathies have been convicted for terror-related offences in the UK. Of these 96, 27 have been teenagers.  
  
• Over the last 25 years, the average age of far-right sympathisers convicted of terrorist or terror-related offences has fallen. Between 2002 and 2006, the average age of those convicted was 38. Between 2017 and 2021 the average age was 28.  
  
• Four people were convicted for attempting to make napalm and guns on a 3D printer.
  
• In 2023 Oliver Lewin was convicted for planning a terrorist attack on vital national infrastructure, including communications masts.  
  
• Terrorist videos made by 19-year-old Daniel Harris were shared by Payton Gendron, who killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York and watched by Anderson Lee Aldrich, who is accused of killing five people and wounding 17 others in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in the US last November. 

Threat of far-right terrorist plots in the UK and worldwide: 

• On 30 October 2022, Andrew Leak threw firebombs at a migrant processing centre in Dover. The police have confirmed the attack was of extreme right-wing motivation.   
  
• In 2017, a plot by National Action to murder MP Rosie Cooper was foiled.  
  
• According to Sir Peter Fahy, Former Police Lead for Prevent, “The most devastating terrorist attack in Europe was perpetrated by far-right terrorist Anders Brevik”.  
  
• Since March 2017, counter-terrorism police and the intelligence services have stopped 32 late stage terror plots. Of these they assess 18 were Islamist related, and 12 were triggered by extreme rightwing terrorist ideology.  

What counter terrorism, police and politicians say about the threat of the far-right: 

 
Jonathan Hall QC, Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation in his 2020 report: 

In my view it is implausible that investigative work is distorted in the interests of balance. Experience shows that CT Police and MI5 are ruthless in prioritising threat and it is far-fetched to believe that counter-terrorism investigative resources are deployed away from the most pressing threats to life.  

 
Suella Braverman MP in the Government response to Jonathan Hall’s 2020 Report: 

“As you note, Islamist terrorism continued to be the primary threat. Sadly, 2020 saw three terrorist attacks in the UK – the HMP Whitemoor attack in January, the Streatham High Road attack in February, and the Forbury Gardens attack in June. Each of these attacks were conducted by self-initiated terrorists using low-sophistication methodologies such as bladed and blunt force weapons. There was an ongoing threat from extreme right-wing terrorism and to a lesser extent from left-wing anarchist and single issue terrorism.”  

 
Sir Peter Fahy, Former Police Lead for Prevent:   
Previous leaks of Shawcross’s findings were an unwarranted attempt to "politicise counter-terrorism policing" and it was "quite dangerous to play off one ideology against another.” 

“There is a danger of policing thought as opposed to the risk of violence. It is not about ideology but about the risk someone will cross into violence. It is about threat, risk and harm. We know there has been an increase in far-rightwing extremism in the UK. The worst terrorist attack in Europe was by a rightwing terrorist, Anders Breivik."  

 
 Neil Basu, then Met Police Assistant Commissioner, in 2019: 

“We are seeing more young people being drawn towards terrorist activity. [Far right terrorism] is my fastest growing problem. Some of the criticism that we did not look at white supremacist rightwing violence as terrorism is probably justified criticism. When nearly a third of plots foiled by police and security services relate to rightwing ideology, it lays bare why we are taking this threat so seriously.”