Prevent under renewed scrutiny over Southport attack failings
The UK government’s controversial Prevent counter-terrorism programme is facing fresh scrutiny after it was revealed that a teenager convicted of the high-profile killings of three young girls in a knife attack last year was referred to the scheme three times as a schoolboy.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the appointment of Lord David Anderson to the new role of independent Prevent commissioner.
Anderson, a former independent reviewer of terror legislation, has previously called for "clarity and restraint" in Prevent's application.
His appointment appears to sideline another Home Office-created body previously tasked with oversight of Prevent, the Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE).
Robin Simcox, the current head of the maligned CCE, was made responsible for Prevent by the previous Conservative government.
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His appointment drew widespread criticism owing to his record of working for think tanks accused of Islamophobia.
It is unclear how his role will interact with Anderson's.
In December, MEE asked the Home Office and the CCE how the new role of independent Prevent commissioner would be integrated with the CCE's role, but received no clarification.
'Shine a light into its darkest corners'
Speaking on Tuesday, one day after Axel Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty to charges relating to the attack on a dance class in Southport last July, Starmer said the UK faced a “new and dangerous” threat.
“In the past, the predominant threat was highly organised groups with clear political intent. Groups like Al-Qaeda,” Starmer said.
"But now, alongside that we also see acts of extreme violence perpetrated by loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom, accessing all manner of material online, desperate for notoriety.
"If a law needs to change to recognise this new and dangerous threat, then we will change it and quickly," he added.
Saying there would be a public inquiry into the Southport attack, Starmer spoke of the failure of some state institutions and used Prevent as the leading example.
"I will not let any institution of the state deflect from their failure. Failure, which in this case, frankly, leaps off the page.
"For example, the perpetrator was referred to the Prevent programme on three separate occasions. In 2019 – once. And in 2021 – twice."
Starmer announced a review of Britain's "entire counter-extremist system", and said he had tasked Anderson "to hold this system to account, to shine a light into its darkest corners, so the British people can have confidence that action will follow words".
The creation of the role of independent Prevent commissioner was announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper last month, but Starmer’s speech was the first official confirmation of Anderson’s appointment.
In a statement to the House of Commons later on Tuesday, Cooper said the government and Counter Terrorism Policing had commissioned an “immediate Prevent Learning Review” last year to examine Rudakubana’s referrals to the scheme and why they were closed.
Cooper said the review had concluded that Rudakubana should have been referred into the Channel counter-radicalisation programme.
"The three referrals took place between three and four years before the Southport attack, including following evidence he was expressing interest in school shootings, the London Bridge attack, the IRA, MI5, and the Middle East," Cooper told MPs.
Confirming Anderson's appointment, she said his first task as independent commissioner would be conduct a thorough review of Rudakubana's case to establish what changes were needed to make sure that serious cases involving "mixed or unclear ideology" were not missed.
But she said she had also ordered her department to review the thresholds for Prevent referrals, and said that referrals for Islamist extremism have previously been "too low".
Contrasting approaches
Anderson, a member of the House of Lords since 2018, was formerly the UK government’s independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation and is a highly respected barrister.
Commenting on the social media platform Bluesky following the announcement of his appointment, Anderson said: "Looking forward to this important new challenge. Terms of reference will follow."
He has previously acknowledged concerns raised by critics – including human rights and civil liberties organisations and Muslim advocacy groups - that Prevent is discriminatory and disproportionately targets Muslims.
'Terrorism can make the careers of political leaders, prosecutors, journalists, lawyers and activists'
- David Anderson
Speaking to the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2016 he said there were “strong concerns” about Prevent within Muslim communities.
As both counter-terrorism legislation watchdog and as a member of the House of Lords, he was a vocal advocate of the need for an independent Prevent review to address concerns and criticism surrounding the programme.
His appointment appears to mark a further shift away from the conclusions of a contentious previous review of Prevent carried out under the former Conservative government by William Shawcross which was boycotted and then widely rejected by critics of the programme.
Cooper said on Tuesday that the government had implemented 33 out of 34 recommendations made by Shawcross. But she said that Shawcross's conclusion that the scope of Prevent should be narrowed to focus on cases on terrorism would "risk including fewer cases like this one, where ideology is less clear".
Simcox, the commissioner for countering extremism, endorsed Shawcross' conclusion that Prevent should be more heavily focused on Islamist extremism.
"Anderson is an interesting appointment," John Holmwood, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Nottingham and co-author of the People's Review of Prevent, told MEE.
"He has expressed scepticism about Prevent as potentially encroaching on civil liberties. But he has gone further to question the expansion of legislation under the label of terrorism."
This places Anderson's approach in stark contrast not just to Simcox's position, but also to Starmer's suggestion on Monday that laws could be changed to recognise a new "terrorist" threat where there is no clear political intent.
Anderson wrote in 2013 that the terror label "risks distorting a thing to which it is attached by its sheer emotional power.
"Terrorism can make the careers of political leaders, prosecutors, journalists, lawyers and activists," he argued.
"All these people are, by the mere use of the T-word, taken out of the normal vocabulary of crime, government, commerce or academe into a mental space that is inhabited by Robespierre, Irish dynamiters, Russian anarchists, Olympic hostage-takers, mujahideen, desert emirs and, on the other side of the fence, Special Branch, undercover agents, Navy Seals and drones."
He suggested that the word "terrorism" was more of an obstacle than a help in tackling crime.
Holmwood said: "My suspicion is that Anderson would be more inclined to scale Prevent back and not extend it to a new domain."
This would represent an overhaul of the approach to counter-extremism championed by the CCE.
No 'terrorist ideology' identified
Rudakubana on Monday pleaded guilty to the murder of Bebe King, six, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and to the attempted murder of eight other children and two adults in a knife attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last July.
Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the attack, also pleaded guilty to possessing an Al-Qaeda training manual and to producing ricin, a biological toxin.
Reports published following his conviction on Monday revealed that Rudakubana had been first referred to Prevent in 2019 when he was 13 after he used school computers to search for material related to school massacres in the US.
'If there is a failure, it is the failure over the last decade to invest in young people and in mental health services'
- John Holmwood, Professor Emeritus
But he was deemed not to be motivated by a terrorist ideology or to pose a terrorist threat.
He was referred to Prevent again on two further occasions in 2021.
After one referral it was recommended that he receive mental health, special educational needs and other services.
In a statement, Merseyside Police said Rudakubana had been “known to a range of services” prior to the Southport attack and described him as “a man with an unhealthy obsession with extreme violence”.
“We know that he had researched numerous documents online which show that obsession. What we can say is that from all those documents no one ideology was uncovered, and that is why this was not treated as terrorism,” the statement said.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch argued on Tuesday that the Southport attack indicates a failure of Prevent, suggesting that the programme should be strengthened.
Holmwood disputed this, telling MEE: "There is no real evidence that Prevent works, but that doesn't mean that Southport indicates that it is not working.
"Cases that don't go onto a de-radicalisation intervention are returned for consideration to the safeguarding services of the local authority for other interventions.
"If there is a failure, it is the failure over the last decade to invest in young people and in mental health services."
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