PM says election will go ahead on June 8

The General Election will go ahead as planned on Thursday despite the terrorist attack in London.

Prime Minister Theresa May confirmed the news today outside Downing Street following the incident in the capital last night that left seven people dead and dozens more injured.

Political campaigning will resume in full tomorrow after most parties suspended national campaigns today.

The PM also:

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• Said defeating the “evil” ideology of Islamist extremism is “one of the great challenges of our time” but stressed it “cannot be defeated by military intervention alone”.

• Threw down the gauntlet to web giants and called for international agreements to regulate cyberspace, saying: “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed – yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide.”

• Set out her determination to stamp out “safe spaces” that exist in the real world, saying: “There is - to be frank - far too much tolerance of extremism in our country”.

• Said there was a need for Britain’s counter-terror strategy to be reviewed to ensure police and security services have all the powers they need, while she also raised the prospect of longer jail terms for terror-related offences, including those which are “apparently less serious”.