After a spate of terror attacks in Europe which have seen Islamists ploughing trucks into crowds of pedestrians, instead of looking to the motivating ideology behind the events, British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for restrictions on access to automobiles.
Speaking Friday just hours after three separate automobile incidents rocked Spain and saw 14 victims killed, the long-serving socialist said now was the time to restrict the use of hire vans to people who could prove they had a legitimate business reason for using it.
Specifically pointing to building companies and self-employed workers as people who would be able to legitimately provide proof to hire companies to borrow trucks in Britain, Labour leader Corbyn said he did not want to obstruct people conducting “business”.
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He said: “It looks as though cities are being targeted, and whatever appropriate security measures can be made should be made… sometimes people need to hire vans at short notice for very good reasons.
“There are building companies, there are self-employed workers. Lots of people do need to hire a van at short notice, and I think a requirement to show identification and show what you want to use the vehicle for is fair enough.
“It’s reasonable that sort of thing should be brought in to prevent use in crime. But obviously, you don’t want to make it impossible to hire a van at short notice because clearly need to be able to go on their normal daily business.”
However, a number of users of social media platform Twitter lashed out at the Labour leader, pointing out that people moving home, or borrowing a van for a hobby, would struggle to produce the proper paperwork.
The proposal also does not address the issue of other vehicles being used in attacks — the third attack in Spain on Sunday and the London Westminster Bridge attacks having been perpetrated with high powered hired cars, and the Stockholm and Berlin attacks were committed with hijacked goods vehicles.
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The decision to call for a response to predominantly Muslim terror attacks using cars and trucks to run over victims by making trucks harder to acquire, rather than dealing with the root causes, follows the response in Sweden to a terror stabbing at an IKEA store where an Eritrean migrant grabbed a knife from a display and killed two. The store responded by withdrawing knives from sale.
Meanwhile, mass migration of predominantly Muslim asylum seekers and economic migrants continues into Europe. The day before the Spanish attacks, Breitbart London reported that the Spanish maritime rescue service had their busiest day of the year, bringing 600 migrants to Europe.
Follow Oliver Lane on Facebook, Twitter: Follow @Oliver_Lane or e-mail: olane[at]breitbart.com
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