Terrorism in the United Kingdom: Issues and Recommendations

This report focuses on the problems related to terrorism in the United Kingdom and analyzes those concepts briefly. It discusses the National Counter Terrorism Policing Network, the CONTEST counter-terrorism strategy, and the impact of terrorism on the country's economy and politics. The report provides recommendations to deal with the issue, including negotiation, financial and military assistance, and free trade relations.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
International Relations
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Author Note

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Terrorism can be referred as undiscriminating violence, which is performed
intentionally to spread terror among citizens of a country. Terrorists apply this strategy for
fulfilling their demand from the financial, religious, political or ideological perspectives. In
recent world, reducing terrorism has become an important issue for policy makers of both
developed and developing countries (Frey 2018). This phenomenon is also true for the United
Kingdom as well. The country has faced enormous terrorists attack for different reasons, for
instance, the Northern Ireland conflict and the Arab-Israeli conflict. For this, the concerned
country has formed the National Counter Terrorism Policing Network, a collaboration of
police forces, which perform various counter terrorism strategy and operations (Whelan
2017). Moreover, the government of U.K has indentified 58 organisations as terrorists and
has banned them as well (Spiller, Awan and Whiting 2018). As a result, the government has
taken various policies to deal with the specified issue that has affected the socio-political and
economical conditions of this country, adversely.
Hence, this report has also intended to focus on the problems related to terrorism of
the U.K. Being one of the strongest countries with largest economics share, this country has
earned enough power to control international market, politically and economically (Balaam
and Dillman 2015). For doing so, this report has discussed about some problems related to
terrorism and has tried to analyse those concepts briefly. Moreover, some recommendations
have been discussed at the end of those analyses.
According to the Guardian, a leading international newspaper, the number people,
who have been arrested for the terrorism related activities, has increased by 54% in Britain in
recent years. In this context, attacks in London and Manchester can be mentioned. The
government has arrested 64 terrorists from these two attacks (Travis 2018). This number of
arrests has represented the highest one since 2001. Consequently, it can be stated that the
number of threats from terrorists has increased significantly in the U.K.

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Figure 1: Total number of total people arrested due to terrorism attack
Source: (Travis 2018)
The above figure has represented total number of people arrested as terrorist in 2017.
In this year, the country has arrested 224 terrorists and the number has increased by 24%
compare to 2016 (Kirk 2018). Moreover, this number can increase further in the upcoming
years. Among those people, 12 have arrested as terrorists for the Westminster Bridge attack,
while the number of Manchester Arena and London Bridge attack have remained 23 and 21,
respectively (Travis 2018).
According to the quarterly Home Office bulletin related to police, who are using
counter terrorism power, has represented that among 400 arrested people, 115 have been
charged while 213 have been released without charge (Martins and Ziegler 2018). Moreover,
60 have been released on bail. In the Manchester Arena attack, 23 people have lost their life
while 500 have injured deeply (Craigie et al. 2018). Moreover, in Westminster Bridge, a car
has killed four people. Hence, terrorism has become the second important issue among the
people of Britain after healthcare.

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The London attack of 2017 has affected the country’s election procedure adversely.
The U.K economy has also affected through this attack. In 2005, the tourism sector of this
concerned country has lost almost £750 million (Gill and Corner 2017). However, the overall
economy of this country has not affected by large extend.
To prevent terrorism, the United Kingdom is presently using the CONTEST, which is
the counter-terrorism strategy of this country. The chief aim of this strategy is to reduce risks
related to terrorism in the U.K and to focus this outside the country so that people can move
anywhere freely (Martins and Ziegler 2018). The CONTEST has divided its activity into
four parts, which are, prevent, pursue, prepare and protect. Through the process of prevent,
this strategy has intended to stop people to become terrorists or any agent of the terrorist
group. Pursue, on the other side, has tried to prevent terrorist attacks through detecting,
prosecuting or disrupting people, who try to attack the concerned country or make plan to do
this (Thomas 2017). To mitigate the impact of terrorist attack on some places, where this
activity cannot not be prevented, the strategy applies prepare activity. Through this activity,
CONTEST tries to stop this terrorist attack completely and to enhance resilience of the U.K
to bring the citizens of this country is a normal life after any attack. The last activity of this
Counter-terrorism strategy of this country is to protect itself strongly from any attack or
interests to attack of terrorists. To make this strong, this strategy has chiefly focused on the
country’s border security, infrastructural facility and public places, and transport systems,
which are considered as main target of terrorists.
However, this strategy has criticised by enamours people, especially the prevent
activity has earned huge debates as it has brought religious issues within the country. Hence,
the country can apply other strategies to defeat the terrorism within country through an
efficient way so that it cannot affect any people, religion or country personally.

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To prevent any activity or to deal with it, each country has formed some policies. This
situation is also true for the United Kingdom, where through CONTEST the country has tried
to prevent attacks from terrorism or interests associated with it (Heath-Kelly 2017). However,
this current strategy has earned debates from various aspects. For this, the country can
implement another strategy. However, before implementing any strategy, the policy makers
of this country can analyse the after affect that whether this policy is going to affect any
country or religion particularly or not.
Spreading violation is the chief motto of any terrorists group. However, the country
can apply some anti-violent activities to protect them. For doing so, the government can
allow members of those groups to meet and to discuss about their wants from the Great
Britain through negotiation. Through this meeting, the government can overcome the
problems, which the country is facing (Spiller, Awan and Whiting 2018). Moreover, if the
country can successfully fulfil the requirements of the country, then the national property
may remain safe from any destruction. On the other side, the policy makers can provide
financial and military assistance to those countries, which have targeted to attack the U.K. as
said before, each terrorist group has some motto regarding financial, political and from other
perspectives, it can be beneficial for the concerned country focus on this chief issues.
In addition to this, the United Kingdom can start a free trade relation with those
courtiers after Brexit (Lulle, Moroşanu and King 2018). This in turn can help the country to
make a good relationship with underdeveloped or developing co countries and consequently
can help them to improve their economical conditions through export and import with
minimum tariff. Moreover, employment generation can also be created by large extend
through this process. Hence, the chief concern of this country can be to focus on the basic
needs of those countries from where those groups are raised. Income inequality, lack of

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public facility, dominance of developed countries and lack of basic needs can be described as
some of the chief reason behind those attacks.
However, this step towards abolition of terrorism may take some problems, as people
of terrorist groups do not declare their wants always. Moreover, they do not always want to
negotiate anything peacefully Rather, they like to spread violation for destroying the national
property of this country. In this context, the government can also take destructive steps to
protect them through implementing good strategy. By applying modern technologies, the
military force can track those groups and their activities so that the military force can remain
able to prevent an upcoming attack from those groups.
In conclusion, it can be said that the terrorism has become an important issue like
global warming, which is increasing day by day and has led the life of people in danger.
Many groups within this world perform terrorism activities and can attack any country,
whether it is developed or developing one. The United Kingdom has captured significant
market share in international market and this in turn has helped the country to enjoy strong
political and economical power. This can be the chief reason behind the enormous number of
terrorists attack in this country. To prevent this, the government has prepared taken some
strategies, like CONTEST. However, this it has earned some criticism. As a result, the
country can impose some other steps to prevent this attack. This can be taken in a peaceful
way. However, this negotiation my not always help the country to control terrorism
successfully. In this context, the country can take some other steps to prevent the country
from terrorists attack. For instance, the United Kingdom may take apply new technologies for
tracking activities of terrorists groups. This in turn can help the government and police force
to control this situation for protecting the country by large extend. Without violating public
interest and cultural reputations, the country can take any steps to prevent this violation. If the

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U.K or any other countries remain unable to doing this, then those terrorist groups can
become more powerful and this in turn can lead the public life in danger.

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