BRITAIN’S leading counter-terrorism cop tonight warned of a twin peril facing the country from neo-Nazis and Islamic-inspired attackers.

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley revealed that four terrorist plots involving right wing fanatics have been foiled since the Westminster attacks last March.

It compares to 10 Islamic terrorist conspiracies which were smashed by police and MI5 during the same period.

In a worrying new trend, at least two of the foiled neo-Nazi plots involved a group of suspects, rather than lone wolves like Finsbury Park killer van driver Darren Osborne and nail bomber David Copeland.

Police chief Mr Rowley singled out proscribed far right group National Action, saying “for the best part of 18 months in the UK, a home-grown white supremacist neo-Nazi terrorist organisation that eschews violence” has been active.

“That should be a matter of grave concern to all of us,” he said in advance of delivering a keynote speech tonight.

A third of all referrals to the Government’s prevent anti-radicalisation programme are now right wing extremists.

Mr Rowley said neo-Nazi terrorism “is a significant part of the threat we are facing,” adding that not enough has previously been done to highlight it to the public.

“It is real, it is significant and it is growing,” he said.

The police chief added: “Right wing terrorism was not previously organised.

“Every now and then there was an individual motivated by far right ideology who attempted an attack.

“But we have not had organised terrorism before in a far right group.

“Plots within the last year have featured groups and organisation.”

Mr Rowley, retiring next month as overall head of the Met Police security and counter-terrorism branch, said the growth of far right and Islamic terrorism is “extremely concerning.”

The four neo-Nazi plots foiled in the UK in the last year include 20-year-old Ethan Stables, a closet bisexual convicted last month of trying to launch a machete attack on a gay pride night held at a pub in his home town, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, last June.

He was brainwashed by Nazi propaganda on the Internet and caught after posting a message on a far right Facebook page saying he was “going to war” and planned to “slaughter.”

Other cases cannot be mentioned at this time for legal reasons.

Police chief Mr Rowley described Internet propaganda as the “bloodstream that drives terrorism,” continuing: “The ability of terrorists and extremists to play their trade on the Internet is a matter of great concern.”

Mr Rowley added: “The ease and speed in which vulnerable people can be radicalised through online propaganda and then move to attack planning has been a feature of many of our cases.”

In his address to the Policy Exchange political think tank’s Colin Cramphorn Memorial lecture held in Central London, Mr Rowley said there were repeated examples of vulnerable people being exploited and influenced by extremist rhetoric to carry out attacks.

Mr Rowley said Finsbury Park attacker, Darren Osborne “had grown to hate Muslims largely due to his consumption of large amounts of on-line far right material, including EDL leader Tommy Robinson, Britain First and others.”

He went on: “Osborne had a dysfunctional background and history of alcohol, drug abuse and violence.

“There can be no doubt that the extremist rhetoric he consumed fed into his vulnerabilities and turned it into violence.”

Mr Rowley added that the two opposing strands of far right and Islamic extremism – spouted by hate preachers like Anjem Choudary – both used “a common strategy” of radicalisation and fed off each other.

He said “both try to generate isolation, fear and hatred” and whip up community tensions.

Mr Rowley compared how Islamic organisation CAGE described Jihadi John as a “beautiful young man” with how right wing extremists have run whites-only food banks in several city centre locations across the UK.

The police chief said such extremist ideology is a “recruitment ground for terrorism.”

At the earlier briefing, Mr Rowley questioned whether “there have been times where we have been too tolerant of intolerance.”

Save kids plea

CHILDREN of extremists should get the same protection as those of paedophiles, says anti-terror chief Mark Rowley.

They should be taken away from their parents to stop them being exposed to terrorist propaganda, he believes.

It was “equally wicked” to grow up in an extremist environment as it was one tainted by sex abuse, the top cop said.

He pointed out 100 children had been dealt with through family courts since the start of the Syrian war.

But he said: “We still see cases where parents convicted of terrorist-related off-ences retain care of their own children.

“I wonder if we need more parity between protecting children from paedophile and terrorist parents.”

He feared home schooling was being used as a cover to radicalise children.

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He said there was a risk that tackling extremism could entrench someone in their views, though not combatting it “can allow it to fester and grow.”

MI5 recently joined the fight against far right terrorism for the first time as a result of an inquiry report into last year’s terrorist attacks in the UK by David Anderson QC.

Mr Rowley welcomed the specialist skills brought to the task by the Security Service, but added a response from across the whole of society was needed to tackle extremism and terrorism.

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