UK Threat Levels


The United Kingdom Terror Threat Levels, often referred to as UK Threat Levels, are the alert states that have been in use since 1 August 2006 by the British government to warn of forms of terrorist activity. Before then a colour-based alert scheme known as BIKINI state was used. The response indicates how government departments and agencies and their staffs should react to each threat level.

Current threat level

The current level is "substantial", which was set on 4 November 2019. It was previously reduced to "severe" on 17 September 2017. It had been raised to "critical" following the Parsons Green bombing on 15 September. The previous threat level to that was "severe" having been reduced to that level following an increase to "critical" after the Manchester Arena bombing of 22 May 2017.
The current level of Northern Ireland-related terrorism in Great Britain is "moderate" as of 1 March 2018, having been "substantial from 11 May 2016. The level was previously raised to Substantial on 25 September 2010 until downgraded on 24 October 2012. The threat in Northern Ireland has been "severe" since 4 March 2009.
On 29 November 2019, due to a terror attack that took place on London Bridge the UK's Government is reviewing the threat level.

Categories of threat

Since 24 September 2010, the Home Office has reported three different categories of terrorist threat:
A fourth category of terrorist threat is also assessed but is not disclosed, relating to threats to sectors of the UK's critical national infrastructure such as the London Underground, National Rail network and power stations.
The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre is responsible for setting the threat level from international terrorism and the Security Service is responsible for setting both threat levels related to Northern Ireland. The threat level informs decisions on protective security measures taken by public bodies, the police and the transport sector.

Threat levels

History

Threat levels were originally produced by MI5's Counter-Terrorism Analysis Centre for internal use within the British government. Assessments known as Security Service Threat Reports or Security Service Reports were issued to assess the level of threat to British interests in a given country or region. They had six levels: Imminent, High, Significant, Moderate, Low and Negligible. Following terrorist attacks in Indonesia in 2002, the system was criticised by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament as insufficiently clear and needing to be of greater use to "customer departments".
The 7 July 2005 London bombings prompted the government to update the threat level system following a recommendation from the ISC that it should deliver "a greater transparency of the threat level and alert systems as a whole, and in particular that more thought is given to what is put in the public domain about the level of threat and required level of alert." The system was accordingly simplified and made easier to understand. Since 2006, MI5 and the Home Office have published international terrorism threat levels for the entire UK on their websites, and since 2010 they have also published threat levels for Northern Ireland, with separate threat levels for Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Changes to threat levels

The following table records changes to the threat levels since August 2006: