Hamed Chapman
“The threat from the extreme right-wing must not be minimised. It is serious, and it is growing; it must be robustly addressed,” said Home Secretary Suella Braverman.
“But it is not the same, either in nature or in scale, as the threat from Islamism,” Braverman contentiously argued in Parliament on February 8 following the publication of the much-delayed review of the controversial Prevent programme carried out by former Charity Commission chair William Shawcross.
“While obscuring the Islamist threat, Prevent has defined the extreme right-wing too broadly, encompassing the respectable right and centre-right,” she claimed when announcing that the government would swiftly implement all of Shawcross’s 34 recommendations.
In a statement released before the Parliamentary session, the Home Secretary went much further, insisting that “Islamist terrorism” remains the primary terrorist threat to the UK and Prevent would “now ensure it focuses on the key threat of Islamist terrorism” and must be “proportionately directed to confront this, whilst remaining vigilant against all other threats including the extreme right.”
In response, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that the review and its conclusions, as well as what Braverman was saying, were “confused” and that instead of being a way to build consensus, they had been “mishandled.”
“At one point, she said that the focus should be narrower and on those most likely to pose a terrorist threat, but at the same time, the focus needs to be more on wider non-violent extremism,” Cooper warned, adding that there should be “no hierarchy” in the contrasting approaches by seeking to prioritise dealing with so-called Islamist extremism at the expense of right-wing terrorism.
The review of the much-maligned and discredited Prevent programme was effectively forced on the government in an amendment to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill when it was passed in January 2019 but have since created more controversy and delay through the initial appointment of its own former reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Carlile.
It took a legal challenge before the government had to abandon its choice, only to name Shawcross instead at the beginning of 2021, which caused an even bigger backlash, including a wholesale boycott of the review by over 450 human rights groups, Muslim organisations and others because of his well-known Islamophobic views.
“As a director of the Henry Jackson Society, Shawcross expressed patently Islamophobic views, saying: ‘Europe’s relationship with Islam is one of the greatest, most terrifying problems of our future. I think all European countries have vastly, very quickly growing Islamic populations,’ a coalition of 17 human rights and community groups, including Liberty, said in a joint letter dated February 16, 2021.
Shawcross, defending his comments on Islam, said his views “were misrepresented or misinterpreted,” as he had told The Guardian.
It appeared that only some Tories as well as sections of the right-wing media voiced any support for the report published this month, with many others strongly disagreeing with how the review has been used and launching many warnings about its implications that attempt to switch the focus back on so-called Islamist ideology and away from the rising tide of far-right extremism.
The Prime Minister’s Spokesman declined to disagree with Braverman or criticise Shawcross following complaints his report was “biased against Muslims,” including failing to mention two recent terrorist attacks by the far-right, as he claimed all attacks since the review was commissioned in 2019 were “Islamist in nature.”
“I don’t have the full report in front of me. I am sure it talks about threats from the left and the right,” Rishi Sunak’s spokesman said.
Regarding the remarks he made about Islam, the spokesman insisted that the controversial author was “a respected individual” and that “his review is very much aligned with some of the advice we are getting from the police and security services.”
Ilyas Nagdee, Amnesty International UK’s Racial Justice Director, called the review “plain anti-Muslim prejudice” that has “no legitimacy.”
The Runnymede Trust said that the review had become highly politicised and expressed concern that the four million Muslim communities in the UK would feel “unreasonably vilified and marginalised by the conclusions.”
The Muslim Council of Britain confirmed that the report would make British Muslims feel “particularly vulnerable and Britain less safe by ignoring the evidence of the far-right threat.” The threat “thrives on Islamophobia and is a threat that has already seen violent attacks on Muslim communities,” MCB secretary general Zara Mohammed warned.
In Parliament, SNP spokesperson Kirsten Oswald warned it would be “wrong and indeed damaging to stigmatise or marginalise Muslim communities” and said that the risks posed by other ideologies, such as right-wing extremism and antisemitism, must all remain central to any UK counter-terror strategy.
The Lib Dems’ education spokeswoman, Munira Wilson, said that she “deeply regrets the tone of some of the Home Secretary’s remarks” and called for engagement with marginalised communities, suggesting that the government was doing “precisely the opposite” by demonising one in particular.
In response, Braverman remained defiant, insisting that “all need to be intellectually honest” about the situation and “must not shy away” from what she claimed was “speaking the truth, however uncomfortable that may be.”
Among others, Labour’s Afzal Khan raised the issue of the government’s less emphasis on far-right terrorism despite statistics showing there are more referrals to Prevent and more Channel interventions for the far-right than for Islamist cases, but the home secretary instead insisted upon using the number of cases, which she quoted from counter-terrorism police investigations.
Among its recommendations, the Shawcross review went as far as to saying that challenging extremist ideology should “not be limited to proscribed organisations but should also cover domestic extremists operating below the terrorism threshold who can create an environment conducive to terrorism.”
“Prevent takes an expansive approach to the extreme right-wing, capturing a variety of influences that, at times, has been so broad it has included mildly controversial or provocative forms of the mainstream, right-wing leaning commentary that have no meaningful connection to terrorism or radicalisation.”
“However, with Islamism, Prevent tends to take a much narrower approach centred around proscribed organisations, ignoring the contribution of non-violent Islamist narratives and networks to terrorism.” The refocus extends to include even critics of Prevent itself.
The Cage advocacy group, also targeted by Braverman, described the review as “the work of right-wing Islamophobic lobbies within the state” and said it “exploits Muslim prejudice to expand state powers.”
Photo: Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has accused Home Secretary Suella Braverman (pictured) of sending “confused” messages about Prevent’s focus. (Credit: Brandon Hattiloney/No 10 Downing St)
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