There have been few acts of terrorist violence on British soil as grotesque as the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017. An Islamist extremist, Salman Abedi, detonated a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert killing 22 and injuring 1,017. An evening of enjoyment for hundreds of young people turned into a spectacle of wanton cruelty.
The law does nothing to address the real state failures that have allowed extremism to flourish
One of those who died was 29-year-old Martyn Hett. His mother, Figen Murray, has campaigned ever since for legislation to better protect potential victims of terrorism. This week the Commons debated the measure she has fought for – the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill – to be known as Martyn’s Law. Murray’s immeasurable loss inspires natural sympathy, her tenacity compels admiration. But the law itself is the wrong measure targeting the wrong problem in the wrong way. It is sometimes difficult to see clearly through the tears of grief, but our legislators are paid to assess laws on their merits and efficacy, not use them as messages of condolence.
Martyn’s Law imposes onerous and costly regulatory requirements on civil society, requiring the volunteers who keep places of worship open and local entertainment venues thriving to become policed by another government regulator. Society’s little platoons become conscripts of the state. And the law does nothing to address the real state failures that have allowed terrorists to advance and their extremist allies to flourish. It is at best displacement activity, and at worst a privileging of emotion over reason in the fight against evil.
The bill obliges the operators of venues with a capacity of more than 200 people to take a series of bureaucratic steps to secure their buildings against theoretical terrorist attacks. The sheer number of venues that will be affected is boggling. It is not just major theatres and stadia which will have to comply. Some 800 village halls, 8,000 sports facilities and 33,000 churches will be covered by the legislation, too. In addition to managing the flower-arranging rota and handing round the collection plate during the offertory hymn, churchwardens will now be required to prepare protocols to lock down the nave and put a ring of steel around the font. To ensure they don’t slack, their plans will be signed off by the government’s Security Industry Authority.
The government’s own cost-benefit analysis is admirably candid about the measures. It estimates that in the best-case scenario, Martyn’s Law will impose £595.6 million costs on the entertainment industry and reap £40.9 million in benefits. In the worst-case scenario, the respective figures are £4.9 billion and £8.4 million – i.e. 583 times as much cost as benefit.
In any case, major venues such as the Manchester Arena already have CCTV cameras and guards. Abedi was not able to get away with his murderous plan because of a lack of security kit and personnel.
Abedi was brought up in Manchester by a father who was a Libyan jihadist. Abedi himself fought for an Islamist extremist group in Libya in his gap year, before being evacuated by the Royal Navy. His extremist views were well known within Manchester’s Libyan community and the authorities had been warned. But he was able to walk into the venue, in heavy clothing and with his bomb in an unwieldy bag, untroubled by anyone save a single brave and inquisitive member of the public. Two of the British Transport Police charged with protecting the venue had gone off for a kebab. Another member of the security staff hesitated to stop him for fear of being thought racist.
Abedi’s case exemplifies so much of where the real challenges lie in countering terrorism. These difficulties cannot be solved by installing cameras and metal detectors at the lychgate of St James the Less.
The UK is still under threat because we have an immigration and asylum policy which cannot keep out of the country those who wish us harm. Only luck and the swift actions of a taxi driver prevented the attempted bombing at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Remembrance Sunday, 2021, from turning into an atrocity on the scale of Manchester Arena. The perpetrator, Emad al-Swealmeen, had twice had his application for asylum rejected. Yet he was never removed from the country and was allowed to reinvent himself as a Christian convert and make a further application.
Efforts to establish a robust counter-extremism strategy have been frustrated by an institutionally timid Home Office. Effective reform of the police to ensure sharper accountability has been ducked. The Prevent programme, which is supposed to identify and thwart those whose ideology drives them to violence, was reviewed and found wanting by William Shawcross in February last year. But the follow-up has been feeble and vital recommendations remain to be implemented. In Whitehall, the same fear of being thought racist that held back the security guard in Manchester Arena acts as a brake on necessary change.
The best way of rendering justice and honour to Martyn Hett’s family and his memory is not to put his name on the statute book. It is to put the state’s resources on a proper footing to counter the terrorism which claimed his young life.
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