Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called for Theresa May to resign as British prime minister over cuts to police numbers as the political fallout from the London terrorist attack dominated the general election campaign on Monday.
Mr Corbyn’s comments came as Ms May’s record as home secretary, when police numbers fell by almost 20,000, was under the spotlight following the second terror attack during the election period.
But Ms May defended her record in office and accused Mr Corbyn of failing to support measures to tackle terrorism.
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She sought to turn attention back to Brexit with a personal attack on the Labour leader’s fitness to represent the country at the forthcoming negotiations with Brussels.
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Mr Corbyn conceded that Thursday’s general election was “perhaps the best opportunity” to remove the prime minister from her post, but, asked by ITV News if he backed calls for Ms May to resign, he said: “Indeed I would, because there’s been calls made by a lot of very responsible people on this who are very worried that she was at the Home Office for all this time, presided over these cuts in police numbers and is now saying that we have a problem — yes, we do have a problem, we should never have cut the police numbers.”
‘Security failures’
His comments came after Steve Hilton, a former adviser to David Cameron in Number 10, said Ms May was "responsible for security failures of London Bridge, Manchester, Westminster Bridge" and "should be resigning, not seeking re-election".
The prime minister used a campaign speech in London to focus on Brexit and the economy, but was repeatedly pressed over whether she would reverse the cuts to police numbers since 2010.
Ms May said that since 2015 police budgets had been protected “despite the fact that Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench suggested that police budgets should be cut by up to 10 per cent”.
She added: “It is also about the powers you give to the police and I have been responsible for giving the police extra powers to deal with terrorism.
“Jeremy Corbyn has boasted that he has opposed those powers and opposed the powers for anti-terror actions throughout his time in parliament.
“And I also support, absolutely, shoot-to-kill and I think what we saw on our streets on Saturday was how important that was.”
Brexit deal
In her speech, Mrs May insisted that Brexit “remains the most critical issue in this campaign” and “the question of leadership” was at the heart of the contest.
She said Mr Corbyn was “not fit to negotiate a good Brexit deal for Britain”.
In a speech at the Royal United Services Institute, where she had launched her campaign for the Tory leadership just under a year ago, she said: “Jeremy Corbyn seems to think that any deal — no matter what the price, no matter what the terms — is better than no deal.
“That’s not leadership. That’s an abdication of leadership.”
Meanwhile, London Mayor Sadiq Khan described the terror attack as "cowardly and evil" after visiting the scene with Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick.
Speaking from London Bridge he said he was “angry” the three knifemen were seeking to justify their actions using the faith he belonged to.
“The ideology they followed is perverse,” he said.
“I condemn this terrorist act, but also the poisonous ideology these men and others follow.”
Ms Dick described their visit to the crime scene as “deeply, deeply chilling”.
Resources
Mr Khan praised the police for doing a “fantastic job” with the resources they had but said it was “a fact that, over the last seven years, we as a city have lost £600 million from our budget — we have had to close police stations, sell police buildings and we’ve lost thousands of police staff”.
Mr Khan said: “Over the next four years there are plans to cut a further £400 million from our city’s policing budget.
“There are plans to change the police funding formula which could mean we lose up to £700 million on top of that, which leads to a total loss of our policing budget of £1.7 billion and we don’t receive the right level of funding as a capital city we should receive.
“We receive half the funds we should be receiving — £170 million versus £370 million.”