Responding to terrorism through legislation
Following the worst combination of terrorist attacks in the UK for many years, the Prime Minister announced a review of the Government’s “counter-extremism strategy”, including a review of available terrorism legislation. We do not lack for legal powers to bring terrorism cases to court and a wide range of statutory offences have been deployed in charging recent terrorism cases. Some revision and trimming of the current legislation may be possible but in general we do not need more terrorism offences. Can we legislate to rid ourselves of online terrorism? Parliament has already done so in meaningful ways, including the dissemination offence in section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006. Any new consideration of precursor offending that may emerge from a review of the terrible events during 2017 will need to pass a stiff test, particularly if our legislators attempt to lower the bar for precursor criminality any further than at present.