The UK has proposed slashing welfare funding to divert it to the police and armed forces in the wake of the Woolwich attacks, despite MI5 already having been informed enough to have kept tabs on the murder suspects for years.
The MP responsible for work and pensions has been in discussions
with both the defense and home secretaries to heighten security
measures on the British Isles at the expense of up to 3 billion
pounds in welfare, according to a Telegraph report published
Tuesday.
Iain Duncan Smith, from the UK’s ruling Conservative party
proposed that housing benefit for the under-25s be restricted and
state payments could only be given to families with more than two
children, reported the paper. The extra money would be poured
into the police and armed forces.
“Iain Duncan Smith has offered a deal which will protect the
country’s security.” One senior government source confirmed
to the paper.
A governmental desire to increase security and intelligence
spending has spiked following the brutal Woolwich murder which
happened on May 22. Home Secretary Theresa May has proposed
granting the security services the capabilities to access the
communications data of British residents – a policy which Deputy
PM Nick Clegg already withdrew his support for in April.
Prime Minister David Cameron has also proposed new Tackling
Extremism and Radicalization Task Force (TERFOR) through which a
combination of UK government forces plan to “look at ways of
disrupting individuals who may be influential in fostering
extremism”
However, great concern has been voiced by some who feel the move
may be ineffectual.
“They’ve got something like 4,000 staff, MI5, and if they
can’t keep an eye on the people who are at the very top of the
watch list, then there needs to be a real shake up and heads need
to roll,” investigative journalist Tony Gosling told RT.
The two suspected Woolwich murderers had been flagged by MI5 for
eight years, with one friend of Adebolajo claiming that MI5 had
even got to the point of attempting to recruit one of the
attackers for their own covert operations.
“MI5’s job is to stop people like this committing acts like
this and they haven’t done it, and this isn’t the first time. If
we go back to the London bombings of 2005, you might remember
that MI5 had been following these guys around as well. Now, all
fair play to them if they can stop some plots taking place, but
these guys were really at the top of the list and if they can’t
stop these people then what are they there for?” Gosling
questioned.
Welfare expenditure has been repeatedly slashed, with rises in
benefit payments capped at 1 per cent on an annual basis. At the
beginning of April, a series of cuts began to be imposed on the
country, which critics said would strike low-income families and
the financially vulnerable.
On Sunday, the UK’s Mirror reported that one woman who had her
welfare benefits halted died just nine days after she was ordered
to go back to work. She was suffering from high blood pressure,
kidney failure and blackouts, according to the paper, and had
previously required a heart and lung transplant.
However, ‘unprotected’ departments, including the Ministry of
Defence and the Home Office, have also suffered as a result of
expenditure cuts, with defense spending facing a cut of
1.6 billion pounds and the Home Office 800 million pounds.
The two cuts proposed by Duncan Smith have been proposed on a
previous occasion by the UK PM, but weren’t considered to be on
any agenda. The matter is likely to be discussed further in a
spending review next month.
Anxieties have been voiced that the move will widen a deep
existing divide within the Con-Dem coalition.
“The Liberal Democrats will block it — and it will be for them
to explain why it is more important for teenagers to be given
council flats rather than for the nation and its citizens to be
protected,” an anonymous senior conservative source told the
Telegraph.
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne refused to get
on-board the welfare cuts scheme, and some already see this as a
sign of deepening divisions within the UK’s Coalition Government.
On the one hand, Britain needs to somehow battle its deficit, but
on the other, there are different means of doing it. According to
George Eaton, editor of The Staggers blog at New Statesman,
“Osborne, as well as ruling out welfare cuts, has also ruled
out further tax rises, I think he’s wrong to do so… further tax
rises would reduce the need for such deep cuts.”
As far as security goes, however, Eaton remembers that Britain
has not really had a terrorist incident since 2005. Therefore,
while the need for security can never be understated, he believes
the UK is not doing a bad job of it and there really is no reason
to think that the country is under some grave threat of
terrorism.