Two teenagers have been arrested in Kent on suspicion of far-right terrorism offences, police have said.

The boys, both aged 15 and from Ramsgate in Kent, were arrested at their homes on suspicion of preparing for terrorist acts, Kent police said. They are being questioned at a police station in south-east England after being held under section 41 of the Terrorism Act.

DS Nigel Doak said: “We are committed to tackling any and all ideologies which pose a threat to the public’s safety and security. We treat the threat from the extreme right in exactly the same way as any other threat.”

The arrests follow warnings that the UK has not “woken up” to the threat posed by the far right.

Shortly after he left the police service, Mark Rowley, the former national lead for counter-terrorism policing, urged politicians, the media and communities not to underestimate the threat of far-right groups.

Four far-right plots have been thwarted since March 2017, including one by an alleged member of National Action to murder the Labour MP Rosie Cooper.

National Action has been described as “virulently racist, antisemitic and homophobic” and was the first extreme rightwing group to be banned since the second world war when it was proscribed in December 2016.