David Cameron is to chair an emergency Cobra meeting of ministers and senior security officials in Whitehall to coordinate Britain's response to Friday night's attacks in Paris, which killed at least 127 people. Ministers are likely to receive updates on the situation in France from intelligence and security agencies before formulating a response. Senior police officers are also likely to be present. Overnight it emerged that Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officials were monitoring events in France for signs of a heightened threat to the country, though none was said to have been detected on Saturday morning. The prime minister, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, and senior MI5 officials were being updated overnight. Cameron called the attacks "horrifying and sickening" on his Twitter feed, having already pledged late on Friday to help France in whatever way he could. Mark Rowley, the Met's assistant commissioner for specialist operations in London, said there would be a heightened police presence at British ports and major events over the coming days. The UK's threat level is currently at the second highest position – "severe" – meaning an attack is deemed highly likely. It has not been changed in reaction to the Paris attacks. Rowley said he expected the Cobra meeting to decide whether to raise it to "critical". Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Rowley called for "vigilance" from the public, stressing that the fight against terrorism was dependent on maintaining the trust and confidence of the UK's communities to provide police with information about suspicious behaviour. He said: "We can't let the terrorists defeat us by becoming fearful and withdrawing from the streets. It comes down to trust between communities and the ability for the public to trust the police and work with us and supply us with the sort of information they have been very effectively over the past year." "We are strengthening our policing stance across the country at the moment, and we are reviewing that later this morning, no doubt, with the prime minister at Cobra." Rowley added that "small changes" had been made and that, consequently, people may notice some differences at events in big cities across the country – "extra police officers, extra checks, extra vigilance from the police". He added: "We will constantly keep that under review, and there are many events over the coming days and weeks we will have to look at. "We are doing things like strengthening our policing of ports, we have been strengthening policing on the streets. We have put out some guidance across the country. Our liaison officer in Paris is seeing what we can find out there and see if there is anything to feed into our own intelligence picture." British police had already been preparing for the possibility of an attack of the kind seen in Paris, said Rowley. "It is one of the scenarios we had been thinking about," he said. "In July this year we did a massive exercise in London for exactly this type of scenario – a multiplicity of firearms attacks. "We have been planning for it. It is very much on the radar in terms of something we think may happen, but of course we constantly hope it won't and all police and intelligence agencies across the western world are trying to defeat it, but we know that there are people out there trying to do that." He said that central to the success of countering terrorism was the relationship between the public and the police. Rowley added: "We have had more reports than ever before of behaviour of concern and individuals of concern over the last year or so and we need that to continue. "It is that vigilance which gives us the first insight, particularly when we have a terrorist organisation which has a range of methods, from the ghastly mass killings that we have seen in Paris through to provoking over the internet vulnerable young people and people with mental health issues to do lone-wolf-style attacks." The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said on Saturday the world needed to "look for peace" in the wake of the "horrific" attacks. He said the atrocity was an attack on "all of us who stand for the kind of fair and inclusive societies we want to live in". Corbyn said other cities, including London, had gone through the same trauma and added that there were also "many dying in wars around the world". He said: "We have to send our support and our sympathy to all the people of Paris. They are, like London, like so many cities around the world, vibrant, multi-faith, multi-cultural societies. This is an attack on all of us who stand for the kind of fair and inclusive societies we want to live in." Scotland's first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, told BBC Radio Scotland: "This is an unspeakably awful event. I think everybody waking up this morning will be deeply shocked, and obviously our thoughts, our prayers, our solidarity, are with the people of Paris and indeed the people of France today. "France has had to bear more than what any country should be expected to over the course of this year, so this is awful beyond words. "On behalf of the Scottish government, and I am sure this will be the case for governments across the world. We stand ready to help in any way that we can."
