London Bridge terror attack: Theresa May told police two years ago to ‘stop crying wolf’ over cuts

The Labour Party has accused Theresa May of not doing enough to help police fight against terror.

In the aftermath of the London Bridge attack, a two-year-old video has re-emerged in which Mrs May tells police to ‘stop crying wolf’ about cuts to the force.

At the annual Police Federation conference in Bournemouth in May 2015, Mrs May, who was then home secretary, gave a speech in which she accused the force of using ’scaremongering’ tactics.

Footage of her controversial speech has been circulated widely on social media following Saturday night’s attack in London, in which seven people were killed and 48 were injured.

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It was also referenced by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Sunday, when he accused the prime minister of cutting 20,000 police officers despite warnings it would compromise public safety.

Mr Corbyn, who has promised to recruit an extra 10,000 officers if he becomes prime minister after this Thursday’s general election, told a crowd in Carlisle: ‘You cannot protect the public on the cheap.

‘The police and security services must get the resources they need, not 20,000 police cuts.

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‘Theresa May was warned by the Police Federation but she accused them of crying wolf.’

On Monday, Labour’s shadow international trade secretary, Barry Gardiner, posted a link to a BBC news report from May 2015 on Mrs May’s Police Federation speech.

He tweeted: ‘Sometimes the words we use come back to haunt us.’

In her speech two years ago, Mrs May said: ‘This weekend, the federation warned that spending reductions mean that we’ll be “forced to adopt a paramilitary style” of policing in Britain.

‘Today you’ve said that neighbourhood police officers are an “endangered species”.

“I have to tell you that this kind of scaremongering does nobody any good – it doesn’t serve you, it doesn’t serve the officers you represent, and it doesn’t serve the public.

‘You warned that the police – and the public – were being put in danger in 2001, 2004 and 2007. The truth is that crime fell in each of those years, it’s fallen further since, and our country is safer than it’s ever been.

‘So please – for your sake and for the thousands of police officers who work so hard every day – this crying wolf has to stop.’

Police Federation chair Steve White took a thinly veiled swipe at Mrs May on Twitter yesterday, after she said ‘enough is enough’ in her speech at Number 10 Downing Street in the aftermath of the London Bridge attacks.

Mr White pointed out that the federation had used the same message three years ago in reference to police cuts.

Last month, he said cuts to policing meant officers were unable to fully cope with a terror threat without the aid of the army.

‘There is no ignoring the fact that we, the police, simply do not have the resources to manage an event like this on our own,’ he said.

Meanwhile, culture secretary Karen Bradley was grilled by Good Morning Britain presenter Piers Morgan on Monday when she refused to say whether or not there are fewer armed police on the streets than in 2010.

She said: ‘What I’m interested in is making sure that we have the right resources, the right powers, and the right training and capabilities.

‘I am assured by the police that they have that to deal with the counter-terrorism threat, but we need to look, learn lessons and make sure that we act where appropriate and we need a leader who is prepared to take those decisions, and that is Theresa May.’

Ms Bradley was later dubbed the ‘Tory Diane Abbott’, in reference to the shadow home secretary’s own confusion over policing numbers in a radio interview last month.

Labour’s Yvette Cooper said police cuts have gone ‘too far’ and more officers should be recruited who could help ‘prevent radicalisation’.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Many of us have been warning for some time that the scale of police cuts in Britain have gone too far – to lose 20,000 officers wasn’t the right thing for our future and we should be trying to increase them again.

‘If you have community police officers, neighbourhood police officers, as well as counter-terror officers, as well as armed police officers, across the country that does help you gather intelligence, it helps you prevent radicalisation and it could also help you with the wider demands on policing which are immense at this time.’