‘Tainted’ Prevent has ‘stigmatised and alienated’
A cohesion programme aimed at building positive relationships between people of different backgrounds has been tarnished by the counter-terrorism agenda and is backfiring in the very local communities it was designed to support, according to MPs.
The Prevent scheme has instead ‘stigmatised and alienated those it is most important to engage, and tainted many positive community cohesion projects’, says the report by the communities and local government (CLG) committee.
Moreover, the government's strategy to limit the development of violent extremism in the UK ‘sits poorly’ within a counter-terrorism strategy.
Committee chair Phyllis Starkey called for ‘a different approach’ to be taken, saying: ‘We agree that a targeted strategy must address the contemporary al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist threat, but we do not believe a government department charged with promoting cohesive communities should take a leading role in this counter-terrorism initiative.
‘Much of the positive work undertaken by CLG to promote better community cohesion and to curb social exclusion has been tainted by association with the counter-terrorism agenda. Any decision to widen the Prevent programme would only make this problem worse.’
The committee called for measures including:
- A more clearly risk-based approach to tackling all kinds of extremism
- Revisit a recommendation for a central 'rebuttal unit' to help local authorities tackle all extremist myths with accurate facts
- Make funding available to projects encouraging direct participation in democratic debate.
Dr Starkey added: ‘Many witnesses made plain they believe Prevent has been used to "spy" on Muslim communities. The misuse of terms such as "intelligence gathering" amongst Prevent partners has clearly discredited the programme and fed distrust.’
In December last year communities secretary John Denham said the government was looking to make the Prevent more effective and defended against accusations that the programme encouraged public sector workers to spy on individuals vulnerable to extremism.
Just a few months earlier, a damning report by the New Local Government Network (NLGN) claimed Prevent was hampering the ability of local authorities to build safe and cohesive communities and should be scrapped.
NLGN deputy director Anna Turley called this week’s report ‘bold and thoughtful’ and welcomed the emphasis on clarity around the relationship between community cohesion and counter-terrorism.
‘I was particularly pleased to see support for some of the key recommendations from our report Stronger together,’ she said, ‘including the need to strengthen information-sharing between local partners to ensure local authorities have the information required to decide funding, as well as the need to provide more training and support to front line workers such as council staff, police, teachers and youth workers.’
But she disagreed with the report’s concern that local authorities ‘have been left with too much responsibility for deciding how engagement and project funding should be managed’, commenting: ‘The problem is that they have not always felt they have the guidance, shared-intelligence and tools needed to enable them to fulfil their obligations to the best of their ability.’
Ted Cantle, executive chair of the Institute of Community Cohesion (Icoco), said: ‘The key problem with Prevent has been that, until very recently, it has been entirely focussed on Muslim communities. This has meant that it has alienated many sections of the Muslim community who resent the association with “terror”.
‘It has also reinforced the idea in the minds of people who are not Muslims, that Muslims are potential terrorists, or that they are all “a problem” and fails to recognise the diversity within the Muslim community.
‘Because the Prevent agenda is delivered as part of the counter-terrorism strategy – which is, again, wholly Muslim focused – it has been unable to gain the trust and confidence of Muslim communities who fear that Prevent may be used for “spying” on them and that any involvement may put them, their families and friends at risk if they as much as express extreme or strong views, for example in respect of international policy.’
He added that the report would ‘help to re-position the Prevent agenda as one which works across all communities to prevent violence – especially from far right groups – and any others that have had an association with violent means’.
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