INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF PREVENTWHAT DID WE LEARN?

In his foreword to the review, Shawcross says: “No counter-terrorism programme will ever be able to shield us from all harm, but every society has a duty to try to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

“Prevent seeks to divert people away from being radicalised into terrorism and back towards lawful life within society. This is a far more humane approach than waiting until someone has crossed a criminal threshold and then bringing punitive action. In the last 20 years, Prevent has evolved and adapted as we have learned more about how to counter radicalisation effectively.”

He continues: “I found a programme that is broadly right in its objectives, admirable in its intentions and that fulfils many of its functions to good effect. However, there is room for improvement.

“Prevent must return to its core mission – countering all those ideologies that can lead people to committing or supporting acts of terrorism. This can only be done if Prevent properly understands the nature of these ideologies and how they attract and suborn individuals.

“It is correct for Prevent to be increasingly concerned about the growing threat from the Extreme Right. But the facts clearly demonstrate that the most lethal threat in the last 20 years has come from Islamism, and this threat continues.”

The review was commissioned in 2019 – it is now 2023 – and since then, Shawcross claims six terrorist attacks have taken place in the UK: Fishmongers’ Hall (November 2019), Whitemoor Prison (January 2020), Streatham (February 2020), Reading (June 2020), Southend (October 2021), and Liverpool (November 2021). As Shawcross points out, “All these attacks were Islamist in nature.”

However, Shawcross does not mention the October 2022 Dover firebomb attack, which was led by right-wing ideology. This happened more than three months before publication of the review, so could have been included in his list.

Delay

It is worth mentioning the delays to the review, which was published two-anda-half years after its original deadline.

The parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee launched an inquiry into the government’s counterextremism strategy to examine Prevent in 2015. David Anderson, the UK’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation at the time called for an independent review of Prevent. The committee’s final report also called for an independent review of the decision to place the Prevent duty on a statutory basis.

In 2018, Neil Basu, then deputy assistant commissioner in the Met, and others including Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and Liberty called for an independent review of Prevent.

In January 2019, security minister Ben Wallace said that the government would accept an amendment to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill which committed the government to commission an independent review of Prevent. The bill became law in February that year and required the government to appoint a reviewer within six months (by 12 August 2019) and present the report and the government’s response within 18 months (by 12 August 2020).

Lord Carlile, a former reviewer of terrorism legislation, was appointed to the role on 12 August 2019. However, this appointment was criticised as he had provided independent oversight on a previous review of Prevent by the Home Office in 2011 and was a member of a Home Office committee responsible for enforcing the implementation of the Prevent duty by public bodies. Carlile himself said: “I admit I played a part in it, so I may be somewhat biased towards it.”

Legal action was launched by Rights Watch (UK) contesting his appointment. Carlile was dropped as reviewer in December 2019.

In April 2020, the government launched an “open” competition to recruit an independent reviewer. With the deadline for publication approaching, legislation was introduced and a new deadline of August 2021 was set. Shawcross was announced as the reviewer in January 2021 (five months after the original deadline for publication). Shawcross, a journalist and author, was previously chair of the Charity Commission and former director of the Henry Jackson Society think tank. However, this appointment was also criticised, when comments Shawcross made in 2012 as director of the Henry Jackson Society surfaced: “Europe and Islam is one of the greatest, most terrifying problems of our future.”

The Review Was Finally Published On 8 February 2022

In February 2021, a group of human rights and civil liberties organisations including Amnesty and Liberty, announced they would boycott the review. In a statement, they said: “Shawcross’s appointment, given his well-known record and previous statements on Islam… brings into question the good faith of the government in establishing the review and fundamentally undermines its credibility.”

The deadline was pushed back again, with Shawcross set to deliver the review to parliament by the end of September 2021 and the report and the government’s response set to be published by 31st December 2021. Then on 24 December, the government announced another extension into 2022, with no final deadline given.

In February 2022, an alternative review known as The People’s Review of Prevent, which was supported by many of those who had boycotted the official review, found that Prevent “leads to the stigmatisation of certain communities as suspect and even dangerous, regardless of how carefully they seek to stay within the law”.

Then there were leaks. In May 2022, the Guardian reported that it had seen extracts of the report and that it would call for renewed focus on Islamist extremism and criticise the inclusion of far-right extremism. In September that year, the Telegraph reported that Suella Braverman (in her first short stint as Home Secretary) was planning an overhaul of Prevent based on Shawcross’s findings, again mentioning that the focus should be more on Islamist extremists and less on far-right extremism.

In December 2022, The Times reported that publication was delayed due to legal concerns over the naming of individuals and organisations accused of spreading Islamist extremism.

The review was finally published on 8 February 2022.

Testimonies

Shawcross said: “Prevent has a noble ambition: stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. I heard time and again about how Prevent saves lives, helps tackle the causes of radicalisation, prevents individuals from potentially carrying out an act of terrorism, and assists others to disengage from extremism. The government should be proud of Prevent’s positive impact in this regard. Prevent’s architecture is sophisticated and impressive. The caricature of Prevent as an authoritarian and thinly veiled means of persecuting British Muslims is not only untrue, it is an insult to all those in the Prevent network doing such diligent work to stop individuals from being radicalised into terrorism.”

Required Improvement

However, Shawcross also points out that often those who commit terrorist acts have previously been referred to Prevent and seeks to demonstrate how these failings may be addressed. Areas that require improvement are addressed: “Prevent must return to its overarching objective: to stop individuals from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism”.

Shawcross criticises the safeguarding of those referred to Prevent: “i.e. an emphasis on protecting those referred into Prevent from harm and addressing their personal vulnerabilities”.

He says: “Prevent too often bestows a status of victimhood on all who come into contact with it, confusing practitioners and officials as to Prevent’s fundamental purpose.”

The main conclusions of Shawcross’s review seem to be: “Prevent is not doing enough to counter non-violent Islamist extremism” and “Prevent has a double standard when dealing with the Extreme Right-Wing and Islamism”. By way of explanation, Shawcross claims that “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 mainstream, rightwing 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 review lists 34 recommendations, ranging from exploring the prevalence of anti-semitism in Channel cases to moving away from vulnerability language. Shawcross recommends revising the first objective to “tackle the ideological causes of terrorism”; resetting thresholds to ensure proportionality across Prevent workstreams; improving the understanding of ‘blasphemy’ as part of the wider Islamist threat; and revising the Prevent Duty to ensure that the scheme meets its revised objectives.

Shawcross also recommends extending the Prevent Duty to immigration and asylum and job centres; lengthening the Prevent funding cycle to between two and five years; and improving E