Home Office ministers reject their own department’s review of counter-extremism policy

Fresh confusion surrounded the future direction of the UK government’s counter-extremism strategy on Tuesday as Home Office ministers were forced to reject the conclusions of a leaked internal review which called for a focus on “behaviours and activity of concern” rather than ideology.

Details of the review, which also called for the scope of counter-extremism work to be widened to cover a range of causes and activities including Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), extreme misogyny and a fascination with violence, were published on Monday by Policy Exchange, a right-wing think tank.

But on Tuesday it was reported that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper did not agree with the recommendations of her own department’s review and would order the focus of policy to remain directed towards Islamist and far-right extremism.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis also said the review was not policy and that the government had no plans to expand the definition of extremism.

Speaking in parliament, he reiterated comments by Cooper last week when she suggested there were too few referrals to the Prevent programme for cases relating to Islamist extremism.

“As we have said repeatedly, Islamist extremism followed by far-right extremism are the biggest threats we face,” said Jarvis.

“The Home Secretary set out last week our plans to carry out an end-to-end review of Prevent thresholds on Islamist extremism because we are concerned that referrals are too low.

“Ideology, particularly Islamist extremism followed by far-right extremism, continue to be at the heart of our approach to countering extremism and countering terrorism.”

The Prevent programme and the government’s approach to counter-extremism are under scrutiny since it was revealed last week that a teenager convicted of killing three young girls in a knife attack in Southport last July had been reported to Prevent three times, but had been referred to other services because it was determined he was not ideologically motivated.

Cooper ordered the review of counter-extremism policy following the Southport attack and a wave of unrest which followed, much of it directed at Muslim communities and prompted by misinformation on social media which wrongly identified the Southport attacker as Muslim.

British governments have long grappled with legal definitions of extremism, which rights groups have warned pose a serious threat to freedom of speech and freedom of belief.

‘Ideologically agnostic’

Extracts of the leaked review published by Policy Exchange indicate that it has called for the government’s approach to tackling extremism to be based on an “ideologically agnostic approach” led by identifying a broad range of behaviours and activity of concern.

The review warns that “narrow definitions [of extremism]… predicated on violence, or that have a requirement for an ideological dimension…. exclude many damaging extremist beliefs and movements and associated harms that may warrant intervention.”

Examples of extremist beliefs which it cites include Hindutva, which the review notes played a “significant role” in inflaming tensions between Hindus and Muslims in Leicester in 2022, and “pro-Khalistan extremism”, or calls for an independent Sikh state.

It also cites “extreme misogyny”, involvement in “an online subculture called the manosphere”, “spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories”, and an interest in “gore and violence”.

Policy Exchange has been credited with shaping the direction towards counter-extremism taken by previous Conservative governments, and has been accused of promoting “hostility towards British Muslims”, which it denies.

It warned that the review’s “playing down of ideology in general, and Islamism in particular” risked becoming a “major victory” for critics of the Prevent programme.

According to Policy Exchange’s report, the review says that a full counter-extremism strategy will be published next year.

It recommends that responsibility for counter-extremism be shifted to the Home Office from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (known under the previous Conservative government as the Department for Levelling Up and headed by Michael Gove).

It calls for counter-extremism work to be delivered by a standalone team within the Prevent Directorate, which would be renamed the Prevent and Counter-Extremism Directorate.

It also calls for the creation of a Counter-Extremism Ministerial Board, attended by ministers, security officials and representatives from the MI5 and GCHQ intelligence agencies. Other members of the board, according to the Policy Exchange report, include Robin Simcox, head of the Commission for Countering Extremism.

This comes after the CCE, set up by the Home Office in 2018 with a remit to support and advise the government on policies to tackle extremism, was apparently sidelined by the recent creation of the new role of independent Prevent commissioner.

Middle East Eye reported on Tuesday that the CCE had been repeatedly soliciting complaints about Prevent from anonymous far-right social media accounts.

Simcox, whose appointment by the previous Conservative government as head of the CCE in 2022 drew widespread criticism owing to his record of working for think tanks accused of Islamophobia, wrote in a blog post last week that the “Extreme Right” should not be allowed to “dominate the discourse” on public policy questions like immigration, a topic he warned was treated as “un-discussable”.

Simcox has previously criticised Prevent for putting too much emphasis on the far right – advocating for a greater focus on Islamist extremism.

Layla Aitlhadj, director of Prevent Watch, which supports people affected by the programme, told MEE that successive governments “have consistently used reviews and consultations to reinforce existing policies rather than critically assess or improve them”.

She added that any acceptance or rejection of the leaked Home Office report “is likely to follow this same pattern”.