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Theresa May is threatening to rip up human rights laws in a bid to clamp down on the movements of terror suspects

Speaking tonight at a rally in Slough, the PM said she wanted “longer prison sentences for people convicted of terrorist offences” and to “make it easier for the authorities to deport foreign terror suspects to their own countries”.

As Home Secretary, she watered down Labour’s strict Control Order regime which curbed the freedoms of terror suspects when police and security services did not have enough evidence to prosecute.

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Mrs May replaced them with terrorism prevention and investigation measures (Tpims), which have been criticised for not being tough enough to tackle the threat from Islamic extremists.

She went on: “We should do even more to restrict the freedom and the movements of terrorist suspects when we have enough evidence to know they present a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court.

“And if human rights laws get in the way of doing these things, we will change those laws to make sure we can do them.”

(Image: Handout)

Theresa May earlier admitted a major inquiry will be needed into the failings that allowed the London Bridge jihadis to slip through the net.

The under-pressure Prime Minister said she expects the police and security services to undertake a sweeping review of the failure to apprehend killer Khuram Butt, who appeared on a TV show about jihadis last year.

“MI5 and the police have already said after the Manchester attack that they will be looking and reviewing how they dealt with that,” the PM said.

“I would expect them to do exactly the same after London Bridge.”

(Image: PA) (Image: PA)

Mrs May also effectively admitted her anti-extremism policies since 2010 have failed.

She was Home Secretary between 2010 and 2016 and in charge of drawing up and implementing Britain’s counter-extremism strategy.

But yesterday she said: “We need to deal with extremism in our country. We have been too tolerant of it in the past.”

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Mrs May is already facing mounting criticism over her decision to scrap terrorist Control Orders and axe more than 20,000 police officers - including more than 1,000 armed cops.

She had dismissed warnings from senior police officers that the cuts would make Britain less safe as “crying wolf”.

Today it emerged her most senior aide, Nick Timothy, attacked the Police Federation in 2015 for “shroud-waving” when it protested about the impact of cuts.

(Image: ITV)

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has now piled the pressure on Mrs May with a stark warning that Scotland Yard faces losing almost 13,000 officers under fresh Tory cuts.

“Police officers in our communities act as the eyes and ears of the security services, providing the intelligence and information that allows us to disrupt attempted terrorist attacks,” Mr Khan said.

“Cuts on this scale would make it harder to foil future terrorist attacks on our city - and as the mayor of London I’m simply not willing to stand by and let that happen.”

With the Government facing mounting criticism senior Tories descended into civil war over who was to blame.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson clashed bitterly with Home Secretary Amber Rudd after admitting the police and security services have serious questions to answer over the decision not to keep a closer eye on Butt.

“People are going to look at the front pages today, and they are going to say how on earth could we let this guy slip through the net?” Mr Johnson admitted.

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“How could it possibly happen, how can he be on a Channel 4 programme and then committing atrocities like this?

“That is a question that will need to be answered by MI5 and by the police as the investigation goes on.”

His comments enraged Ms Rudd, who famously clashed with her Cabinet colleague during the EU referendum debates last year when she campaigned for Remain.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, she hit back: “It’s not really for me - or for the Foreign Secretary - to say how that happened or what happened.”

She went on: “Like any incident you look and see if there’s anything to learn. I can say that without putting any sort of suggestion of blame. It’s very easy to rush in and say what went wrong.”

Pressed again about Mr Johnson’s comment, the top Tory said sarcastically: “Yes, I was lucky enough to hear it on my way here.”