About the UK’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy

Laws alone will not stop terrorism, but since we must be prepared to deal with terrorism, the United Kingdom devised a strategy in 2003 (known within Government as CONTEST) for countering terrorism. With it, the UK aims to reduce the risk from international terrorism, so that people can go about their daily lives freely and with confidence. The strategy affects multiple branches of the UK government.

They base their strategy on four pillars: Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare.

Prevent is meant to show people that Brits are not that bad. They plan to win heart by:

• tackling disadvantage and supporting reform by addressing structural problems in the UK and overseas that may contribute to radicalization, such as inequalities and discrimination
• deterring those who facilitate terrorism and those who encourage others to become terrorists by changing the environment in which the extremists and those radicalising others can operate
• engaging in the battle of ideas by challenging the ideologies that extremists believe can justify the use of violence, primarily by helping Muslims who wish to dispute these ideas to do so

Pursue is meant to take away the option to harm the UK and its interests by:

• gathering intelligence and improving our ability to identify and understand the terrorist threat
• disrupting terrorist activity and taking action to frustrate terrorist attacks and to bring terrorists to justice through prosecution and other means, including strengthening the legal framework against terrorism
• international co-operation by working with partners and allies overseas to strengthen our intelligence effort and achieve disruption of terrorists outside the UK

Protect is meant to reduce the vulnerability within the UK and of its assets by:

• strengthening border security, so that terrorists and those who inspire them can be prevented from traveling here and we can get better intelligence about suspects who travel, including improving our identity management
• protecting key utilities by working with the private sector
• transport; reducing the risk and impact of attacks through security and technological advances
• crowded places; protecting people going about their daily lives
  

Prepare is meant to ensure that the UK can mitigate the effects of an attack and can find the perpetrators:

• identifying the potential risks the UK faces from terrorism and assessing their impact
  building the necessary capabilities to respond to and attacks
• continually evaluating and testing our preparedness, including through identifying lessons from exercises and real-life events

Next week we will report on how innovation and technology fits into this strategy for combating terrorism. To read the full version of the official strategy document, please click here: Countering International Terrorism