London attacks: Terror is on the ballot this week in Britain

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British police release names of two London attackers

Authorities carry out raids, hunt for info on terror suspects; Mike Tobin reports from London

Remember Brexit?

Everyone thought it would be the key issue in this week’s general election in the United Kingdom. But after last weekend’s London Bridge attacks, Britons will head to the polls with terrorism and security top of mind.

And the choice voters will make between the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party could not be more stark.

“Enough is enough,” Prime Minister Theresa May said firmly. “There is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.”

Contrast that attitude with the Labour Manifesto. It was issued before the attacks, but remains unaltered. “We will always provide our security agencies with the resources and the powers they need to protect our country and keep us all safe. We will also ensure that such powers do not weaken our individual rights or civil liberties.”

Right now, we’d guess British voters are more interested in their own personal security than individual rights, or the civil liberties of the Islamic terrorists living among them.

May is no Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s Iron Lady who teamed up with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to counter the Soviet Union, which in those days posed the greatest threat to our Western way of life. Today, that distinction belongs to rabid groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, which claimed responsibility for Saturday’s vehicular and knife attacks that killed seven and injured dozens more.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn used the massacre as a pretext to call on May to resign. His point: as Home Secretary between 2010 and 2016, before she became Prime Minister, May reduced the number of British police officers by 20,000, as part of the Conservative government’s cost-cutting.

That’s a bit like blaming Donald Trump for climate change because he used to build skyscrapers. Oh, wait – the left does blame Trump for climate change. Never mind.

Corbyn’s far-left philosophy is out of touch with today’s Britain, especially in an era when the country is withdrawing from the European Union and preparing to go it alone. His nanny-state notion – “let the government tell you what to do. You’re too stupid to make your own decisions” – might appeal to some Britons, but it’s not the kind of leadership needed to combat global terrorism.

Labour’s election platform calls for reviewing national crime prevention “and its potential to alienate minority communities.” The thousands of radical Islamists living in Britain are beyond alienation. They hate England, the west and any philosophy that does not comport with their own dark version of Islam. They cannot be converted, only constrained.

Now go vote.