The UK’s ‘Prevent’ counter terrorism strategy has been harshly criticised for in a review for being overly focused on threat posed by “far right” extremists and failing to act to prevent Islamic terror attacks for fear of appearing Islamophobic.
The UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman told MPs that Prevent needs major reform after William Shawcross released his damning review of nationwide system that aims to identify would-be terrorists yet had at one point funded a group whose head was sympathetic to the Taliban the BBC reported.
The BBC reports that Mr Shawcross revealed he had been consistently unable to determine how many community organisations receiving a slice of the £49m Prevent budget were having any impact.
“Funding too often goes towards generic projects dealing with community cohesion and hate crime, and few [community organisations] could be seen publicly to contest extremist discourse.
“Some have promoted extremist narratives, including statements that appear sympathetic to the Taliban.
“As a core principle, the government must cease to engage with or fund those aligned with extremism.”
And he added: “Prevent’s first objective – to tackle the causes of radicalisation and respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism – is not being sufficiently met. Prevent is not doing enough to counter non-violent Islamist extremism.”
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