Withdraw review of Prevent anti-radicalisation strategy, ministers urged

Civil society groups, community leaders and academics say ‘ideologically led’ review of programme should be rejected

More than 200 civil society organisations, community leaders and academics have called on the UK government to withdraw a controversial review of the Prevent programme, part of its counter-terrorism strategy.

The Home Office accepted all 34 recommendations in the review from William Shawcross, a former chair of the Charity Commission who concluded that the Prevent programme should focus more on Islamist rather than far-right terrorism.

Implementing Shawcross’s findings means endorsing ideologically led policy with no legal accountability or parliamentary oversight.

Implementing Shawcross’s findings means supporting claims about increased threats of Islamic extremism without including data to back up these claims in the review.

Continuing to implement the Prevent programme will lead to perpetuating further harms against children and vulnerable adults.

The argument that Prevent should focus less on rightwing extremism and more on "‘Islamist” extremism is explicitly discriminatory.