Sir William Shawcross, the man chosen by the government to review the Prevent anti-terror programme, does not mince his words about its continued failings. He says the public has been left “at risk” from a network of Hamas sympathisers because ministers have “ignored” his advice on the urgent need to prioritise tackling Islamist extremism.
He accuses the government of failing to fully implement the recommendations of his report — published a year ago — and warns that Prevent is still failing to identify potential terrorists, including Hamas supporters emboldened by the October 7 attacks on Israel. It is a damning indictment.
Prevent is a key component of the UK’s counterterrorism strategy, aiming to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It places public bodies, including schools and the police, under a legal duty to identify people who may turn to extremism. The scheme has been dogged by controversy since its inception two decades ago. Campaigners claim that it impinges on civil liberties and discriminates against Muslims. Other critics have questioned its effectiveness.
In his review, Shawcross found that Prevent had repeatedly “failed” to identify attackers and accused it of a biased focus on right-wing extremism instead of the more dangerous Islamist equivalent. Shawcross blamed this double standard on fears about accusations of Islamophobia.
His report also found it impossible to identify how many of the organisations receiving a slice of Prevent’s £49 million annual budget were having the desired impact: the report cited one case where the counterterror programme had funded a group whose leader was sympathetic to the Taliban. Prevent, the report concluded, had simply lost its way.
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The government promised to act on its recommendations in full — and the Home Office says that 30 of the report’s 34 recommendations have now been implemented.
Why then would Shawcross feel the need to go public with accusations that ministers are still not doing enough? It points to a dispute about something more fundamental: Shawcross believes that the terrorist threat has materially increased after the Hamas attacks and that the public is being put in danger because, even now, Prevent is focused on the wrong threats.
The public, who ultimately fund Prevent, deserve to know who is right. Is it James Cleverly, the home secretary, who insists the country now has a “first-class Prevent programme”, or is it Shawcross, who knows more about its detailed workings than probably anyone else? My money is on Shawcross
Jawad Iqbal is a freelance writer
