A couple of days before Theresa May’s ill-judged ultimatum in her Article 50 letter over trade and security, Brian Paddick wrote for the Guardian about how hard Brexit could damage our security. That’s right. If Theresa May gets her way, we will be less safe.
He started off by talking about last week’s attack at Westminster in which 4 people, PC Keith Palmer, Aysha Frade, Leslie Rhodes and Kurt Cochran were murdered. How do we balance the need to keep Parliament accessible with the safety of those in and around it?
That security must be balanced with an obligation to keep parliament open to the people. We shouldn’t turn Westminster into Fort Knox, even if such a thing were possible. But we can improve security, for politicians, staff and, crucially, police on the frontline.
Those officers are not armed. Armed support is a distance away. No one wants an ostentatious display of force, which would only increase that sense of alienation many feel about “Westminster”. But this attack shows, alas, that armed officers should be directly behind that frontline. Otherwise lives will be lost that could be saved. In this attack, I gather, it was only because a minister’s armed close protection officer happened to be close by that the assailant was stopped.
While millions are spent on surveillance powers and the security services, over the past six years £1bn has been cut from the Metropolitan police budget. That’s huge.
He went on to talk about how a hard Brexit could compromise our security effort both in cost and co-operation.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
My tweets
UK Government must step up to protect the Amazon
Weekly Road Report - West End Ward #dundeewestend
Who would have thought that dancing could be so controversial-blogging from Las Vegas
Birtley eFocus edition no. 5
Aspley Guise: The least used station in Bedfordshire
There's just one good thing about Donald Trump!!
David Allen 24th Aug - 12:30pm
Laurence Cox 24th Aug - 12:30pm
Denis Loretto 24th Aug - 12:21pm
Roger Lake 24th Aug - 12:00pm
John Marriott 24th Aug - 11:57am
Katharine Pindar 24th Aug - 11:52am