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Theresa May’s failed record on policing and tackling foreign funding of extremism

by Steve Beasant on 6 June, 2017

Prime Minister under growing pressure on her track record

Theresa May says “enough is enough” – but she forced through the cuts that lost us thousands of armed police and community officers.

As Home Secretary, she even accused the police of crying wolf over the impact of her cuts – and their fears that the public were being put in danger.

The truth is the Conservatives have failed to properly fund our police. Between 2010 and 2016 19% of Authorised Firearms Officers were cut – that’s more than 1300 officers.

The Liberal Democrats would provide our police with £300m extra funding a year. We’re choosing to fund the police properly, while the Conservatives prioritise a corporation tax cut.

Since the London attacks, Theresa May has accused technology companies of providing a safe space for terrorist ideology online – but by posturing instead of working with companies like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, she’s failing to keep us safe.

Tim Farron says we must protect our freedoms – instead of restricting the internet like China or North Korea:

“If we turn the internet into a tool for censorship and surveillance, the terrorists will have won. We won’t make ourselves safer by making ourselves less free. Instead of mass surveillance, the Liberal Democrats will invest in police and local intelligence-gathering that helps keep communities safe.”

Astonishingly, instead of levelling with the British public about foreign funding for extremists, the Conservatives are still choosing to protect their allies in Saudi Arabia.

The Liberal Democrats demanded a report into foreign funding of extremism in Britain in 2015 – a demand David Cameron agreed to when he was Prime Minister.

We have repeated our call for the report to be made public, but today Conservative Minister Karen Bradley refused to say whether it would be published, saying it was more important to “work with our friends and allies” in the Middle East.

We believe the British people deserve to know the truth behind the funding of extremism in our country, so we can confront this issue head on.

Tim Farron says the Conservatives are making the wrong choices in the fight to protect our lives and freedoms against those who threaten us:

“In the choices we make, we should provide the resources necessary for those who keep us safe to do their jobs with the powers they have been given. We need to guard the hard-won liberties that define us as a country. If we make the wrong choices, those who seek to change our way of life have won.”

Vote Lib Dem on 8th June.

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