As MPs inexplicably focus on the right to online anonymity, rather than countering extremist terror in the wake of Sir David Amess’s killing, Policy Exchange has uncovered publicly available tweets from the father of the only suspect arrested, Ali Harbi Ali, proving anonymity is not the determinant of extremist social media content. Harbi Ali Kullane’s views, available on the public Twitter account @Xarbi, has him defending Palestinian attacks on Israel, criticising British colonialism in Somalia, and in 2015 he compared the IS Paris bombing to raids carried out by Western powers on military targets in Syria. Policy Exchange ask whether it’s absurd to suggest these views could have influenced his son… 

It’s also noted that while it’s been reported that Kullane has himself received threats from Al-Shabaab jihadists, we don’t know the context and nature of these disputes, nor Kullane’s wider world view. 

Policy Exchange asks 13 more questions arising from the Southend terrorist attack; including being bold enough to explicitly question the role of Islamist ideology in the attack, the sociological accuracy of the term ‘lone wolf’ with these attacks. are we getting value for money from MI5’s services? Is there the balance of focus required in tackling far-right versus Islamist extremism? Has Prevent been over-vilified by its opponents? All excellent questions the authorities need to answer in the coming weeks…