The threat of Republican terror

The Metropolitan Police has released a statement saying that they have received a bomb threat for central London today from dissident Irish Republicans. There’s no information on where in the capital or what time today the warning relates to.
 
The threat, for which the spurious attempt at justification is presumably related to the Queen’s visit to Ireland tomorrow, may well be a hoax. But if it is real, it would attest to the growing reach of dissident Republicans whose previous operations have been confined to Northern Ireland itself. (The best book on dissident Republicanism is Legion of the Rearguard by occasional Coffee House contributor Martyn Frampton).
 
If a physical force Republican terror threat returns to the UK mainland, it’ll drive Northern Ireland right back up the political agenda.