Britain’s Largest Police Forces Unable to Track Extremist Crimes, Raising Security Concerns

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Two of the UK’s biggest police forces, the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police, have admitted they lack the ability to track crimes linked to extremism, leaving them vulnerable to potential terrorist threats.  

 

Through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, it was revealed that neither force has a system in place to log whether crimes are motivated by Islamist extremism, far-right or far-left ideologies, incel-related violence, or environmental extremism. Critics argue this failure prevents authorities from recognizing patterns that could expose terrorist intent or lead to attacks.  

 

The Metropolitan Police, when asked for data on extremist-related crimes from 2020 to the most recent date available, responded that such information “does not hold centrally in a format that can be extracted.” The force further explained, “There is no flag, no code, or other mechanism that would highlight Islamic extremism, right-wing, incel, environmental, or far-left extremism.” Greater Manchester Police echoed this, stating they “do not have any flags or searchable fields” to identify extremist crimes in their records.  

 

Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has called for all police forces to be required to track and publish data on extremist crimes to better address terrorism threats. “These forces should be mandated to record and publish the data. This is yet another example of the authorities failing to break down crime statistics, and it only breeds distrust and suspicion among the public,” Jenrick stated.  

 

He also pointed to existing statistics, highlighting that Islamists account for 80% of referrals to Prevent, the government’s counterterrorism program. “What is the proportion of offences logged by the police? Policymakers and the public need to know,” he added.  

 

The Met clarified that while extremist offences falling under hate crimes or terrorism are recorded, there is no specific criminal offence for extremism itself. This revelation comes two years after Sir William Shawcross’s review of Prevent, which found that the program had not adequately focused on the scale of the Islamist threat. Shawcross’s report indicated that 75% of MI5’s counterterrorism caseload, 68% of terrorist attacks since 2018, and 60% of imprisoned terrorists were linked to Islamic extremism.  

 

Shawcross also warned that a reluctance to refer Islamic extremists to Prevent, due to fears of accusations of racism, had distorted the program’s effectiveness. Concerns over Prevent resurfaced last month after it was revealed that counterterrorism police repeatedly missed opportunities to stop Axel Rudakubana, the Southport attacker. Despite being flagged three times between 2019 and 2021 for carrying a knife and researching terrorist incidents such as the 2005 London bombings and the Manchester Arena attack, authorities dismissed the threat he posed. Further failures occurred due to his name being misspelled by Prevent officials.  

 

A spokesperson for the Met stated, “The Met records all hate crimes and terrorism-related crimes in accordance with Home Office counting rules, but given there is no criminal offence of ‘extremism,’ we therefore do not record offences under this category. However, there are robust mechanisms in place to ensure that officers can flag any crimes or individuals where there are concerns over extremism or radicalisation into the counterterrorism command.”  

 

The spokesperson added that when such concerns arise, specialist officers assess the situation and take further action, often leading to referrals to Prevent, which aims to steer individuals away from radicalisation. However, critics argue that without a proper tracking system in place, the authorities may remain blind to key warning signs, increasing the risk of future attacks.

 

Based on a report by The Times  2025-03-10