The stabbing of 10 people last night on a train heading to London should be seen as “an isolated incident”, according to Secretary of State for Defense, John Healey.
The attack was committed in the carriages of a train and caused 10 injuries, nine of which were in critical condition.
Witnesses spoke of an attacker, but the police have kept two people in custody since Saturday, without their identity or motive being known.
Interviewed by Sky News this morning, Healey said that the terrorist motivations for the attack are “mere assumptions” and that the only consideration is that it was “an isolated attack”.
“There’s no reason why we can’t get on with our lives,” he added.
The person responsible was thus responding to several factors that could point to the terrorist theory, such as the fact that there were two detainees (and not just one), that the anti-terrorist police joined the investigation and that similar attacks had occurred in the past with ideological motivations.
Still, he acknowledged that the attack “reflects a period of increasing pressure” on the country and “uncertainty throughout the world”, a “new era of threats”.
The Labor Government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to avoid speculation about the attack, without explicitly linking it either to terrorism or to immigration, at a time of high tension, due to speeches against migrants.
On Monday, an Afghan refugee stabbed a 49-year-old man to death in Uxbridge, west London, and left two others injured.
The attacker, who had been granted asylum in 2022, was arrested hours later, without the reasons for the crime being revealed.
The police also stated that, at this stage, they are ruling out terrorism as a motivation.
“At this time, there is nothing to suggest this is a terrorist incident,” British Transport Police Superintendent John Lovelace said in a brief press conference.
He also specified that the two people arrested on suspicion of attempted murder are a 32-year-old British man and a 35-year-old British man of Caribbean descent.