Theresa May has vowed that ‘hatred and evil’ of the kind seen in the attack on a north London mosque will never succeed.
The Prime Minister was speaking following a meeting with security officials and ministers in the Government’s Cobra emergency committee in Whitehall.
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She confirmed that police believe the man who drove a van into worshippers outside Finsbury Park Mosque in the early hours of Monday acted alone.
Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, Mrs May said the attack had ‘once again targeted the ordinary and the innocent going about their daily lives – this time, British Muslims as they left a mosque, having broken their fast and prayed together at this sacred time of year’.
She added: ‘Today we come together, as we have done before, to condemn this act and to state once again that hatred and evil of this kind will never succeed.’
Mrs May said that the attack on Muslims was ‘every bit as insidious and destructive to our values and our way of life’ as the recent string of terror attacks apparently motivated by Islamist extremism, adding: ‘We will stop at nothing to defeat it.’
Mrs May said police would continue to assess the security needs of mosques and would provide whatever additional resources were needed.
‘This was an attack on Muslims near their place of worship and, like all terrorism in whatever form, it shares the same fundamental goal. It seeks to drive us apart and to break the precious bonds of solidarity and citizenship which we share in this country,’ she said.
‘We will not let this happen. This morning we have seen a sickening attempt to destroy those freedoms and to break those bonds of citizenship that define our United Kingdom.
‘It is a reminder that terrorism, extremism and hatred take many forms and our determination to tackle them must be the same whoever is responsible.’
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