David Cameron and a right-leaning thinktank have warned the government to defend its flagship counter-extremism strategy from criticisms or risk enabling terrorism. In a controversial report from Policy Exchange, the former prime minister has demanded a robust defence of the Prevent strategy. The report claims that Prevent is being undermined by “Islamist campaigners and their allies” and names organisations including CAGE and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). Its release comes after Priti Patel has indicated she wishes to overhaul the strategy in the wake of the murder of the Conservative MP Sir David Amess. An ongoing independent review of Prevent by William Shawcross has been delayed, but is expected to report its findings later this year. In a foreword to the report, Cameron warns: “Just as we need to counter the Islamist extremist narrative, we need to counter the anti-Prevent narrative. We need to show that delegitimising counter-terrorism is, in essence, enabling terrorism.” The report goes on to condemn Muslim groups that have criticised Prevent. “Unopposed, activists have been feeding the national media, and targeting Muslim communities themselves, creating a grievance culture that argues they are victims of Prevent, which they claim is an ‘Islamophobic’ social engineering project.” A spokesperson for the MCB said Policy Exchange has consistently led efforts to discourage cooperation between the authorities and the Muslim Council of Britain. “It is therefore laughable that the Policy Exchange should now claim that we are the ones discouraging cooperation because we are exercising our democratic responsibility to scrutinise bad policy. “The MCB has always repeatedly and loudly opposed all forms of terrorism, but the Policy Exchange’s amnesia fails to acknowledge this,” she said.
Muhammad Rabbani, managing director of CAGE, said:“The report stands as a testament to the unified resilience of Muslim organisations, against all odds, in effectively defending their communities from one of the most pernicious and insidious government policies, that is Prevent. “Despite the government having a near absolute monopoly on power and access to mainstream media and PR agencies, the report promotes a false reality of ‘unopposed activists’ critiquing Prevent in order to explain away communities’ wholesale rejection of Prevent.” There have been calls for an independent review of the strategy for years, by critics who say it fosters discrimination against people of Muslim faith or backgrounds and inhibits legitimate expression. The Prevent strategy includes a statutory duty for schools, NHS trusts, prisons and local authorities to report any concerns they have about people who may be at risk of turning to extremism. It has led to cases in which teachers have reported primary schoolchildren to the police for having toy guns or talking about video games. A coalition of more than 450 Islamic organisations, including 350 mosques and imams, boycotted the government’s review of Prevent last March in protest against the appointment of Shawcross. Shawcross, who chaired the Charity Commission between 2012 and 2018, has been criticised as a result of previous remarks he has made about Islam.