Elements of the mainstream left in Britain have responded to an apparent terror attack outside Parliament, in which several people were hurt and one woman hospitalised with “serious” injuries, by suggesting it was a “reckoning” for people being mean online.

Sean O’Grady, Deputy Managing Editor of The Independent — the former newspaper now part-owned by Saudi interests — offered this assessment in an article titled ‘If the Westminster car crash turns out to be a terrorist attack, this is what we should bear in mind’.

“The ‘debate’ about anti-Semitism, about the burqa and niqab, the hateful tone of so much that goes on in social media, the talk of traitors and treason, enemies of the people. If you want to see what racial or religious hatred looks like, you need not infiltrate some terror cell; just take a look at the comments left below the line on popular news websites, or surf around Twitter,” he opines — appearing to compare online critics of Corbyn’s Labour, Islamic face veils, and anti-Brexit campaigners to jihadist demagogues.

“Sooner or later there was going to be a reckoning, a tangible act in response to the goading and climate of fear we seem to have generated in our peaceful land,” he continues, apparently justifying an apparent terror attack as a natural reaction to people voicing their opinions on social media and online comments.

https://twitter.com/luisaomielan/status/1029353466513317889

Luisa Omielan, a comedian who has appeared on the BBC’s ‘Live at the Apollo’ programme and featured in the left-wing Guardian on the same day as the August 14th car ramming, was even more explicit, tweeting semi-intelligibly: “Parliament crash is awful, this is why making fools and absolving [MPs] like Boris Johnson is dangerous, they callous dismissive jovial remarks [sic] are dangerous and toxic. People have had enough.”

Business Insider editor Adam Bienkov attempted to link Johnson — much in the news for recent comments criticising Islamic full-face veils — more indirectly, remarking: “Boris Johnson cancelled the pedestrianisation of Parliament Square ten years ago.”

However, another journalist — ironically from the Independent — would subsequently explain that the pedestrianisation plan scotched by Mr Johnson during his time as Mayor of London was “limited”, and indicated it would not have been sufficient to prevent vehicle attacks.

It is not, in any case, clear what impact pedestrianisation would have on preventing terror attacks. A number of recent terror attacks, including those in Stockholm, Berlin, and Nice have seen Islamic radicals driving vehicles through pedestrianised areas at high speeds and causing mass fatalities.

UPDATE – Met Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu: “Given that this appears to be a deliberate act, the method, and this being an iconic site, we are treating it as a terrorist incident and the investigation is being led by Counter-Terrorism Command.” https://t.co/zEL4JCji90 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 14, 2018

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery