The outgoing head of counter-terrorism policing in the UK has used his valedictory speech to warn against the rise of the far-right as he revealed four extremist rightwing plots were thwarted in 2017.

Mark Rowley, the assistant commissioner at the Metropolitan police, drew parallels between far-right groups and figures and the Islamist extremists they claim to despise in the annual Colin Cramphorn memorial lecture in central London.

Speaking two weeks before his 31-year career in policing comes to a close, Rowley revealed four extreme rightwing-inspired plots were prevented last year.

In a conference with journalists before the speech, Rowley said the far-right terror threat was “significant and concerning” and the public should be “gravely concerned” by the existence of National Action, the white supremacist, neo-nazi group banned under terror legislation.

“The rightwing threat was not previously organised. Every now and then there’s been an individual motivated by that rhetoric who has committed a terrorist act but we’ve not had an organised rightwing threat like we do now,” he said.

He said a third of referrals to the government’s Prevent strategy, aimed at reducing radicalisation in communities, are now individuals engaged with far-right terrorism.

In his speech, Rowley draws many comparisons between Islamist and far-right groups and figures, such as Isis and Anjem Choudary in the former, and National Action and former EDL leader Tommy Robinson in the latter.

“Ironically, while Islamist and extreme rightwing ideologies may appear to be at opposing ends of the argument it is evident that they both have a great deal in common,” he said.

Rowley said both groups have a common goal of “increasing tensions and divisions in communities”. He said both reach into communities through sophisticated propaganda, as well as create intolerance and isolation by exploiting grievances. He added both also reinforce a sense of isolation by generating distrust of the state and offer “warped parallel alternatives” that undermine values of tolerance and diversity.

Rowley said he had repeatedly seen how extremism – both far-right and Islamist – creates or exploits vulnerable people.

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He gave the example of the Finsbury Park mosque attacker, Darren Osborne, jailed for life earlier this month, who grew to hate Muslims “largely due to his consumption of large amounts of online far-right material, including statements from former EDL leader Tommy Robinson, Britain First and others”.

He then cited the example of Choudary, the convicted Islamist extremist linked with a number of banned groups and terror attacks, including the murder of the soldier Lee Rigby in London. “While Choudary became the de facto spokesperson for Islamism in the UK, mouthpieces from the far-right wing such as Tommy Robinson also attracted notoriety and attention,” he said.

“Robinson also became a regular fixture in our media, giving him the platform to attack the whole religion of Islam by conflating acts of terrorism with the faith, often citing spurious claims, which inevitably stirred up tensions. Such figures represented no more than the extreme margins of the communities they claim to speak for yet they have been given prominence and a platform to espouse their dangerous disinformation and propaganda. Each side feeds into each other’s extremist rhetoric with the common goal of increasing tensions and divisions in communities.”

Painting a stark picture of the scale of the challenge facing police and MI5, he said there were more than 600 investigations encompassing Islamist, extreme rightwing and other motivations comprising more than 3,000 subjects of interest and a legacy of more than 20,000 individuals who featured in past terrorism investigations.



Rowley has been the most senior officer in counter-terrorism since June 2014. In the last year alone he has overseen the response to five terrorist attacks in the UK, including the atrocities on Westminster Bridge, at London Bridge, Borough Market, Finsbury Park mosque and Parsons Green tube station, and in the Manchester arena.

The Guardian revealed earlier this month that a review had been launched into the extreme right by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre. It is the first assessment of the entire landscape of the threat the extreme right poses to national security by JTAC, an elite Whitehall counter-terrorism unit, which has previously concentrated on jihadist and Irish violent extremism.