London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Oct 13, 2025

MI5 needs more funds to tackle rightwing terror threat, says watchdog

MI5 needs more funds to tackle rightwing terror threat, says watchdog

Committee says lack of resources affecting other areas of agency’s work and calls situation ‘untenable’
MI5 should be given increased funding to help tackle the rising threat of extreme-right terrorism, which now accounts for approaching a fifth of the spy agency’s investigations, a parliamentary watchdog has said.

MPs and peers on the intelligence and security committee said the agency had been forced to progress other work – almost certainly relating to Islamist terrorism – more slowly and had been unable to expand other activities as it had hoped.

“This situation is untenable,” the committee concluded in a report released on Wednesday. “MI5 must be given additional funding to enable it to conduct these cases without other areas of work suffering as a consequence.”

The domestic spy agency gradually took on responsibility for tackling extreme rightwing terrorism from 2018, after a review in the aftermath of the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016. It rapidly became a significant area of work.

According to the committee report, in July 2020 a fifth of MI5’s investigations in Britain were devoted to extreme rightwing terrorism plus a lesser focus on leftwing, anarchist and single-issue terrorism.

Although the committee was careful to redact from the report which areas of MI5’s work were affected, it is likely to be in areas relating to Islamist terrorism, which shares many of the resources, staffing and techniques used to thwart extreme rightwing attacks.

The MI5 chief, Ken McCallum, told the committee that the agency did “not bid for additional people capacity” during the most recent spending review because he believed savings would accrue when a planned joint MI5 and police counter-terrorism operations centre comes into being.

The committee also said extreme rightwing groups were targeting military personnel as potential recruits, and said the armed forces provided no clear direction about which groups personnel could sign up to.

Policies that do not limit which organisations personnel can join are “somewhat risky”, the committee said, given the sensitive nature of the jobs carried out by service members and their access to weapons.

Members of the now-dismantled and banned extremist group National Action included a British soldier and Afghanistan veteran, the Finnish-born Mikko Vehvilainen, who was jailed in April 2018 for possession of a banned CS gas canister. Guns, knives and crossbow were also found at his home.

MI5 told the committee that “a significant percentage” of extreme rightwing terror suspects were under the age of under 24, and that the equivalent proportion in relation to Islamist terrorism was “much lower”.

But some of the most recent high-profile attacks were carried out by older men, such as the attack on worshippers at Finsbury Park mosque in 2017 in which one person was killed and 12 were wounded. The attacker, Darren Osborne, who was 47 at the time, was jailed for life.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
×