Jeremy Corbyn rounded on Theresa May today for “presiding over cuts in police numbers” that left the UK more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, and suggested that she should resign.
The row over police cuts, in the aftermath of Saturday’s attack in London, dominated the day’s election campaigning despite attempts by the Conservatives to move the agenda on.
Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, accused Mrs May of presiding over cuts of £600 million to the Metropolitan Police budget while Steve Hilton, a former Downing Street aide to David Cameron, claimed that the prime minister was responsible for security failures surrounding the recent attacks.
In a series of angry tweets, Mr Hilton said that Mrs May should be resigning not seeking re-election and accused her of “blame-shifting” by suggesting that the London Bridge attack should lead to a review of Britain’s counterterrorism strategy.
Asked by ITV News if he backed calls for Mrs May to resign, Jeremy Corbyn said: “Indeed I would.”
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He added: “There’s been calls made by a lot of very responsible people on this who are very worried that she was at the Home Office for all this time, presided over these cuts in police numbers and is now saying that we have a problem — yes, we do have a problem, we should never have cut the police numbers.”
Asked later to clarify his call for Mrs May’s resignation, Mr Corbyn stressed that voters have a chance to remove her from office in Thursday’s election. He denied he was rowing back on his earlier comments.
“I’m not backing away from anything, what I’m saying is there’s an election on now there’s a choice before everybody,” he said.
“[Mrs May] needs to think about what she did while she was home secretary.”
At a campaign event in London Mrs May was repeatedly pressed over whether she would reverse the cuts to police numbers since 2010.
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She said that since 2015 police budgets had been protected “despite the fact that Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench suggested that police budgets should be cut by up to 10 per cent”.
She added: “It is also about the powers you give to the police and I have been responsible for giving the police extra powers to deal with terrorism.
“Jeremy Corbyn has boasted that he has opposed those powers and opposed the powers for anti-terror actions throughout his time in parliament.
“And I also support, absolutely, shoot-to-kill and I think what we saw on our streets on Saturday was how important that was.”
Speaking alongside the Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick, Mr Khan praised officers for doing a “fantastic job” with the resources they had but said it was “a fact that over the last seven years we have had to close police stations, sell police buildings and we’ve lost thousands of police staff”.
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“Over the next four years there are plans to cut a further £400 million from our city’s policing budget,” he said.
“There are plans to change the police funding formula which could mean we lose up to £700 million on top of that, which leads to a total loss of our policing budget of £1.7 billion and we don’t receive the right level of funding as a capital city we should receive. We receive half the funds we should be receiving — £170 million versus £370 million.”
Ms Dick, asked whether she would demand additional officers, told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “Over the last several years, police services have in many respects become, it’s a ghastly phrase, but become very much more efficient, they have managed to do things in a more productive manner.
“We need to go on doing that in the future.
“But in the face of this changing and changed threat, absolutely I will be seeking for London and for policing generally more resourcing, obviously.”
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On the same programme Karen Bradley, the culture secretary, was pressed on whether the number of armed police officers in the country had gone up or down.
She said: “What I’m interested in is making sure that we have the right resources, the right powers, and the right training and capabilities.
“I am assured by the police that they have that to deal with the terrorism threat, but we need to look, learn lessons and make sure that we act where appropriate and we need a leader who is prepared to take those decisions, and that is Theresa May.”
Asked by the presenter Piers Morgan why she did not answer the question, Ms Bradley replied: “Piers, we are here to talk about the attack on Saturday, how we react to that attack, and how we make sure on Thursday that we have the right person elected to Downing Street so that we can deal with it.”
Ben Wallace, the security minister, told BBC Radio 4’s World at One that tackling terrorism was not just about police numbers, with the nature of policing having to adapt to a more sophisticated terrorist threat.
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The police and security services had stopped a number of plots with their present level of resources, Mr Wallace added.
He said: “I’m terribly sorry to say that terrorism is often about being, unfortunately, lucky once or moving with our vulnerabilities.
“That is why I always used to say, and we have said collectively as a government, it is not an if but a when, and we must do everything we can to minimise the impact and catch people when they do it.”
