LONDON: The number of white terror suspects arrested in Britain has outstripped that of any other race for the third year in a row.
Official reports show that 89 white people were arrested on terror offenses last year, compared with 63 Asian suspects, 15 black suspects and 18 of other ethnicities.
“The proportion of white people arrested exceeded the proportion of Asian people arrested for the third consecutive year,” a Home Office document said.
“Arrests of persons of white ethnic appearance accounted for 48 per cent of arrests, up seven percentage points on the previous year. Those of Asian ethnic appearance accounted for 34 percent of terrorist-related arrests, down five percentage points.”
The total number of terror arrests in 2020 fell to 185 people, the lowest figure in nine years, though the Home Office said this could be related to the coronavirus pandemic’s restrictions on public life.
The head of UK counterterror policing has described the far right as the fastest-growing terror threat in the country, although the majority of attacks and thwarted plots are still by Islamist terrorists.
The UK has banned various right-wing terror groups, which often align themselves with neo-Nazi ideology and symbolism, and in open disdain of Britain’s Muslim communities.
Since March 2017, 12 terror attacks have occurred in the UK — 10 Islamist attacks and two by the far right, including one in which a white man drove a van into worshippers outside a mosque in London, killing one man and injuring nine.
A number of attacks, often targeting Muslims, have occurred or been narrowly avoided on the European mainland since then.
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