A friend of an Islamic State terrorist who plotted to assassinate the Prime Minister has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years.

Mohammed Aqib Imran, 23, planned to travel for jihad, while Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman, 21, was set on a suicide attack on the heart of Government.

Imran, from Ombersley Road, Birmingham, researched travel and tried to secure a false passport in online communication, fearing his mother would stop him if he used his own passport.

Rahman, from Finchley, north London, admitted helping his friend by recording an IS sponsorship video for him, the Old Bailey heard.

The pair were snared by a network of online role-players from the Met Police, MI5 and the FBI.

Rahman’s plans to kill Theresa May were scuppered when undercover officers handed him a jacket and rucksack packed with fake explosives.

Following a trial in July, Rahman was found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism and was jailed for life with a minimum term of 30 years.

Imran was convicted of possessing a terrorist handbook entitled How To Survive In The West.

Following a retrial, former student Imran was also found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism abroad on or before November 28 2017 in December.

On Tuesday, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC jailed him for eight years and six months for preparing to join IS with an additional three years and six months on extended licence.

He also handed Imran three years and nine months in custody for possessing the terrorist publication on his Kindle, to run concurrently.

The judge accepted Imran was “immature” for his age and “more of a follower than a leader”.

While he did nothing to put off Rahman from carrying out his plot, the judge said he would not sentence him on the basis that he encouraged it.

He said: “Mr Rahman was a very dangerous man and that must have been evident from any time spent with him but also from the messages the defendant exchanged with him.

“I am afraid nothing I have seen demonstrates a change of heart by the defendant or a real insight into what would be necessary to achieve that. His defence was simply this was talk, he never intended to follow through and the jury rejected that.”

Acting Commander for the Met Police Counter Terrorism Command, Alexis Boon, said: “The idea was that Rahman would kill the Prime Minister, and Imran would subsequently have a video from a martyr recommending he be accepted into the terrorist organisation. Such a video would have held weight with Daesh.

“Of course, this was never going to happen because MI5 and the Counter Terrorism Command had been investigating the pair for some time and in fact a covert police officer had been meeting with Rahman to establish how serious his plans were.

“I am pleased with this result. Our police investigation has stopped Imran from joining Daesh on the ground in Libya, where his subsequent actions could have assisted the terrorist organisation to further their aims.”

Prime Minister Theresa May has scolded her former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, for saying that Muslim women who wear burqas look like letter boxes or bank robbers.

Johnson, who resigned last month over the way May is negotiating Brexit, wrote in The Daily Telegraph this week that Denmark was wrong to ban the burqa, a head-to-toe cloak which conceals the face with a mesh or is worn in conjunction with the niqab – a face veil that leaves only the eyes exposed.

But Johnson also said the robe was oppressive, ridiculous and made women look like letter boxes and bank robbers, prompting an outcry from other politicians and British Muslim groups.

“I think Boris Johnson used language in describing people’s appearance that has obviously caused offence. It was the wrong language to use. He should not have used it,” May said.

She added that women should be free to wear the burqa if they chose to do so.

Full-face coverings such as niqabs and burqas are a polarising issue across Europe, with some arguing that they symbolise discrimination against women and should be outlawed. The clothing has already been banned in France.

Britain and France will join forces to press companies to do more to tackle online extremism, Prime Minister Theresa May will say on Tuesday, her first foreign trip since her Conservative Party lost its majority in a parliamentary election.

After winning support from the Conservatives to stay on as prime minister after Thursday’s election, May heads to France, wanting to repair her authority and possibly to bask in the popularity of Emmanuel Macron, who last month swept to victory in a presidential contest.

May will also want to raise Britain’s talks to leave the European Union, which have been put in doubt since her governing Conservative Party suffered the setback in the election and now needs to strike a deal with a small Northern Irish party.

But her spokesman said the two leaders will focus on counter-terrorism, and return to May’s election campaign pledge to tackle online extremism following two attacks in as many weeks in Manchester and London that killed 30 people.

“The counter-terrorism cooperation between British and French intelligence agencies is already strong, but President Macron and I agree that more should be done to tackle the terrorist threat online,” May will say, according to her office.

She will add that the measures to “encourage corporations to do more and abide by their social responsibility” could include “creating a new legal liability for tech companies if they fail to remove unacceptable content”.

It was not clear how much further their talks would build on  discussions at a meeting of the G7 most industrialised nations last month, where the leaders agreed to do more to purge extremist content.

Internet firms, such as Google and Twitter, say they are investing heavily and employing thousands of people to take down hate speech and violent content on their platforms, with evidence their efforts are working.

But the companies say they also struggle to identify replacement accounts that quickly reappear.

After two Islamist attacks in less than two weeks, May’s bid  to clamp down on internet extremism has struck a chord with international leaders especially Macron, whose country has suffered several jihadist attacks since 2015.

“(At the G7) they had a very good conversation on how they could work together in order to make social media companies do more to address the fact their platforms are used to spread extremism,” May’s spokesman said.

“I would expect that conversation to continue tomorrow.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Sunday (January 22) she would not be afraid to tell U.S. President Donald Trump when she finds something he has said unacceptable.

“I’ve already said that some of the comments that Donald Trump has made in relation to women are unacceptable, some of those he himself has apologised for,” she said on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

Thousands of women took to the streets of European capitals on Saturday (January 21) to protest against Trump, particularly comments he has made which were seen as demeaning of women.

May is due to meet Trump in Washington on Friday (January 27) and said she would use the opportunity to discuss the future trading relationship between the United States and Britain, as well as NATO and challenges such as defeating terrorism.

Following last year’s vote to leave the European Union, the British government has been keen to deepen ties with the United States and other nations outside Europe to show that Brexit will not diminish its standing in the world.