MI5 moves UK Terrorism threat level to “SEVERE”

https://www.mi5.gov.uk/threat-levels

by neom • 6 years ago

100 75 6 years ago

mi5.gov.uk

jpxw• 6 years ago

Technically it’s set by the JTAC and not MI5: https://www.mi5.gov.uk/joint-terrorism-analysis-centre

silverlight• 6 years ago

Has that happened before? If so when?

akmarinov• 6 years ago

Every year, 2-4 times a year, according to another comment’s historical data.

OJFord2• 6 years ago

It was last 'severe' between 2014 & Nov 2019.

yabones• 6 years ago

Based on their historical data, it seems to happen 2-4 times per year on average. Obviously the situation is very tense right now everywhere in the world but this isn't exactly exceptional.

asdfasgasdgasdg• 6 years ago

Is this actionable in any way? I guess you could just stay inside and be afraid but the silver lining is we were already doing that because of covid!

alasdair_• 6 years ago

It’s actionable to an extent. I once worked on an infrastructure project that increased all security controls based on threat levels, automatically.

A simple example would be cancelling badge access for a janitor to a sensitive area like an engine room, but allowing it if the threat level Was lower.

dheera• 6 years ago

I suppose one could take it to mean avoiding public venues, public transportation, or other potential targets.

kypro• 6 years ago

I think your data might be wrong?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Threat_Levels

Seems to change every year or so. It was at severe a year ago, but was reduced to substantial, now it's back at severe.

cschep• 6 years ago

Please forgive my ignorance, is this based solely on the united states election?

toomuchtodo• 6 years ago

Recent terrorist attacks in a suburb of Paris, France, Nice, France and Vienna, Austria. France also recalled their ambassador to Turkey.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/samuel-paty-teac...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/01/nice-terror-at...

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/03/930721562/at-least-4-killed-b...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/france-teacher-b...

toyg• 6 years ago

No, it’s because of the events in France and Austria.

pskinner• 6 years ago

Why would it be based in that? The USA is not the centre of the universe.

wow_why• 6 years ago

Yes very much so

eblanshey• 6 years ago

A friend in London says it's because they're going into lockdown Thursday, so terrorists will use the last day everyone will be out and about.

ponker7• 6 years ago

Not at all, it’s based on the immigration policies of the European Union over the last 20+ years.

ponker7• 6 years ago

Lot of disagreement with my hypothesis. Anyone care to offer alternative explanations?

jimmydorry• 6 years ago

What the threat levels mean:

Threat levels are designed to give a broad indication of the likelihood of a terrorist attack.

LOW means an attack is highly unlikely

MODERATE means an attack is possible, but not likely

SUBSTANTIAL means an attack is likely

SEVERE means an attack is highly likely

CRITICAL means an attack is highly likely in the near future

LatteLazy• 6 years ago

It's worth noting that the level has literally never been below substantial or above severe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Threat_Levels

mtmail• 6 years ago

The 5 color US equivalent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Terrorism_Advisory_Sy... has never been on the lowest levels either, "high threat level is now considered as the "baseline.""

brainfish• 6 years ago

From the linked wikipedia page: 'It had been raised to "critical" following the Parsons Green bombing on 15 September.' (2017)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41288525

makomk• 6 years ago

Though if you click through to the Wikipedia page for the previous alert scheme it replaced, apparently the lowest "white" no-alert level under that was "known to have been used for periods between the Good Friday Agreement and the 9th of September 2001". Really, it's just a reflection of the times we're in right now.

gsnedders5• 6 years ago

Note that it's gone from tracking one figure (all forms of terrorism), to three figures (international terrorism, NI-related in GB, NI-related in NI), to two figures (all forms of terrorism, NI-related in NI).

While there were three figures, NI-related in GB did reach moderate.

goodluckchuck• 6 years ago

To be fair, a terrorist attack is more than highly likely to occur, it’s a certainty. The only question is when. Near? Distant? Remote? Eventually?

kencausey• 6 years ago

Well, presumably the threat level is meant to apply to the UK specifically, none of which is all that far away from any other part.

NextHendrix• 6 years ago

And the threat level is for 'when'

rmrfstar• 6 years ago

I'm old enough to remember the US "color code" scheme after 9/11.

It was super weird. Any time they would announce some deeply unpopular unconstitutional measure (surveillance, war) they would bang the "CODE RED!" drum for the week running up to to the announcement.

hanoz• 6 years ago

In reality they mean:

LOW (deprecated)

MODERATE (deprecated)

SUBSTANTIAL means an attack has not happened recently

SEVERE means an attack has happened recently

CRITICAL means an attack has happened very recently and may be ongoing

cm2187• 6 years ago

Reminds me of vigipirate (french equivalent alert level). France sends the army on patrol to mitigate the risk of terrorism. A friend in the army told me that when it is at the base level, the troops are patroling with empty rifles and no have bullet on them (basically just a display of force to make the population feel safer). When it is the medium level, they have bullets on them but none loaded in their rifles. When it is at the highest level their guns are loaded.

pizza• 6 years ago

There's a lot going on these days..

yalogin• 6 years ago

Wow this situation escalated quite quickly.

tuckerpo• 6 years ago

Simply part and parcel! /s

Devils-Avocado• 6 years ago

Why do these attacks seem concentrated in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, but rarely or never occur in Czechia, Poland, Hungary?

ponker7• 6 years ago

Hm.....

breakfastduck• 6 years ago

Larger target = bigger news story

baybal22• 6 years ago

Maybe because some places don't panic upon some random murder by a psychical person?

secondcoming• 6 years ago

Random!?

qgrgergfqgfev• 6 years ago

demography is completely different there, there is a large muslim population in Western Europe

gsnedders5• 6 years ago

And many (most?) of these attacks are carried out by natives of the countries in which they occur.

throwawaw• 6 years ago

The current level is "severe", which was set on 3 November 2020, due to a shooting in Vienna by a suspected "Islamist terrorist" in which four people died. It was raised by Home Secretary, Priti Patel, following recent attacks in Europe. It was previously held at 'substantial', set on 4 November 2019. Prior to that it was rasied to "severe" on 17 September 2017. It had been raised to "critical" following the Parsons Green bombing on 15 September. The previous threat level to that was "severe" having been reduced to that level following an increase to "critical" after the Manchester Arena bombing of 22 May 2017.

From the Wikipedia article, which features a Threat Levels Over Time chart that is genuinely funny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Threat_Levels#Changes_to_th...

Why is this a story?

blensor• 6 years ago

I believe they are thinking along the lines,first there was the attack in France which kicked this series off (2 is not yet a series, I know), then here in Vienna, which the attackers seemingly expedited due to the corona lockdown coming into effect today. So changing the schedule gave them a glimpse of what is yet to come elsewhere where they didn't have to change their timeline

ponker7• 6 years ago

Europe gave the world Enlightenment values and then performed a scientific experiment on itself to see what happens when you take those values to an extreme. Thank you, Europe, for everything you gave to civilization and the concept of a rights-based government. Catch ya on the flip side.

freeflight2• 6 years ago

That's not really what happened, but I guess for some people it's easier to just completely forget the US's and UK's role in this whole mess [0] and how this current situation was already rather predictable nearly two decades ago [1].

It was such a predictable outcome that it triggered the largest global protest movement in human history.

Plenty of people saw the long-term consequences of the US invading a Muslim country with heavily laden religious language coming; How the refugee waves would reignite violent European far-right nationalist sentiments, the occasional disgruntled Islamic extremist attack would pour additional fuel into the fire, a violent and hateful circle steadily escalating.

By now we are pretty much exactly where Osama bin Laden wanted everybody to be: In an open and blatant "clash of civilizations" where US presidents can run on a platform of "Muslim bans" and over a billion people get constantly and casually generalized as being some kind of uncivilized subhumans because of their religion.

[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2015/9/9/the-iraq-war-the...

[1] https://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0919/p12s2-woeu.html

ponker7• 6 years ago

You don’t have to be an uncivilized subhuman to be incompatible with Western liberal democracy.

FatDrunknStupid• 6 years ago

More chance of getting run over by a fucking bus. car. bike. But yes sometimes you win the lottery

quickthrower2• 6 years ago

Perhaps this is due to people taking the threat level seriously?

qwerty456127• 6 years ago

I'm curious if many people who have lost their parents to COVID or believe they themselves are close to dying this way are more likely to become terrorists.

Nextgrid• 6 years ago

I'm wondering what is the point of this threat level measurement (other than to say "see? we're doing something"). To me it doesn't seem actionable in any way, and if it was actionable (like significantly raising security), how would that help considering all the terrorists have to do is to wait for the level to go down (thus the security is lowered) before striking again?

Furthermore the threat level has never gone below "substantial" (which signifies that an attack is likely), so it's akin to "cry wolf" all the time - eventually everyone learns to ignore it and it stops being a useful metric (if it ever was one, that is).

colordrops2• 6 years ago

The terrorist threat has always been to scare people into trading freedom for "security", i.e. more control over the populace and more contracts for security subcontractors. You have more of a chance of being struck by lightning.

op03• 6 years ago

Not really. Sometimes it's just a default move leaders have to make to cover their ass.

If you are in a position of responsibility, even for a small group, and the neighbouring building gets robbed or there is physical violence, people are going to start asking you about the security of your building.

You can ofcourse ignore/reassure them if you have built up enough trust or social/political capital. If you haven't and there are a bunch of ambitious people eyeing your chair, good luck showing the group robbery stats.

mellosouls• 6 years ago

It's useful in that it raises the alert level in the general population (in addition to the more cynical motives posited by others).

"crying wolf" or "alertness fatigue" might be an issue if this was a frequent thing, but it isn't.

It also presumably can be timed to coincide with recent attacks when there is genuine intelligence; the events in the news acting as cover for the intelligence which doesn't necessarily need to be acknowledged as a reason for raising the level.

neltnerb• 6 years ago

Am I reading correctly that since 2006 it has never gone below "SUBSTANTIAL"?

From their description:

SUBSTANTIAL means an attack is likely

SEVERE means an attack is highly likely

CRITICAL means an attack is highly likely in the near future

Saying an attack is at least "likely" for 14 straight years is definitely going to cause fatigue. I might be misunderstanding it and hopefully they just mean those specific days there was a risk and every other day they didn't think there was.

But why then would they bother having a level for "LOW means an attack is highly unlikely" if they only flagged risky days? If it weren't constantly elevated wouldn't they flag the vast majority of dates as "LOW"? I think that no, they are flagging every day as having a terrorist attack "likely"!

ATsch3• 6 years ago

It is a pretty good technique for expanding police powers. You allow them to do more stuff, but only when the level is high enough. Nobody will object because objecting to emergency measures looks bad. Then, whenever something bad happens you just increase the threat level. When you reach the top, "reform" the system to add higher levels.

hankchinaski• 6 years ago

”reform” the system to add highet levels

when did this happen exactly?

javajosh2• 6 years ago

I think what it does is raise people's alertness levels for a while, until they regress back toward the mean. That threat level is like a volume knob you can use to make a whole society clench up, sweating out cortisol. I wonder how it is officially announced, and what the physical causal chain is from decision to wide distribution of volume knob state? I wonder how many of these there are, and how closely they are watched and anticipated, and if it wouldn't make a fun website to collect all of them together.

op00to• 6 years ago

You’re just begging to form a data partnership with a Bluetooth buttplug manufacturer.

OJFord2• 6 years ago

Rightly or wrongly it has automatic effects on policies that track it, most obviously # bobbies on the beat around X location, etc.

ponker7• 6 years ago

It’s never gone below substantial because the UK would need to change a ton of things, which are politically, legally, and practically impossible to change, for the threat level to go below substantial.

rodgerd• 6 years ago

It feels as though /r/the_donald refugees have found HN. Can't say it's much of an improvement.

MI5 moves UK Terrorism threat level to “SEVERE”

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