U.K. campaigning is suspended, but the election will proceed after the London Bridge attack

(Image credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images)

last updated 5 June 2017

Following Saturday night's linked terror attacks on London Bridge and nearby Borough Market, the United Kingdom's upcoming election on June 8 will continue as scheduled, announced Prime Minister Theresa May. "Violence can never be allowed to disrupt the democratic process," she said in a statement outside Downing Street on Sunday.

However, the U.K.'s three primary political parties — Conservatives, Labour, and Liberal Democrats — as well as the Green Party have suspended national campaigning for the remainder of the weekend. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn echoed May's comments, remarking that if "we allow these attacks to disrupt our democratic process then we will all lose."

The right-wing populist party UKIP, known for its hard-line approach to terrorism and immigration policy, will not suspend its campaign outreach. UKIP leader Paul Nuttall said to stop campaigning is "precisely what the extremists would want us to do."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.