Yvette Cooper grilled on asylum seeker policy in 2022

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Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has hit out at Suella Braverman for saying she is preparing “major reform” of the Prevent programme, despite an independent report branding the anti-terror initiative “politically correct”. Chief among the initiative’s shortcomings were staff overstating right-wing terrorist threats and downplaying the dangers of radical Islam, according to the report. The Home Secretary, who was reinstated by Rishi Sunak on 25 October, has said she will accept every single one of the 34 recommendations set out in William Shawcross’ independent review.

Following Ms Braverman’s response to the Shawcross report, Ms Cooper told Express.co.uk that the Home Secretary’s “attempts to pick and choose between different kinds of extremism is completely counter-productive”. The Labour shadow cabinet minister said Ms Braverman’s uncompromising approach “fails to address the complex challenges of extremism and terrorism and her approach is making it harder for counter terror police to do their job”.

“Her plan includes no new action to tackle online radicalisation or prison radicalisation by both Islamist and far-right extremists even though we know those are serious problems”, the Yorkshire MP said.

Under Ms Braverman’s new plan, the anti-terror initiative will refocus on its “core mission” which is protecting the public. “Prevent’s focus must solely be on security, not political correctness,” she said.

Ms Braverman, in the wake of the indepent report scutinising Prevent, accused officials of operating with “cultural timidity and an institutional hesitancy to tackle Islamism, for fear of the charge of Islamophobia”.

“Prevent is a security service, not a social service. Too often, the role of ideology in terrorism is minimised with violence attributed instead to vulnerabilities such as mental health or poverty.”

However, the shadow Home Secretary took aim at Ms Braverman’s assessment of the findings: “The police have made clear they need to tackle persistent Islamist extremism, growing far-right extremism as well as new extremist threats”, she said.

“Labour believes we need more action to fiercely challenge all kinds of extremism without fear and favour. Suella Braverman’s plan to cut action to prevent far right extremism at the same time as failing to tackle Islamist and far right extremism online is really irresponsible.”

The Shawcross review accused Prevent of having a “double standard when dealing with the extreme Right-wing and Islamism”.

“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, right-wing leaning commentary that have no meaningful connection to terrorism or radicalisation”, the Shawcross review concluded.

“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.”

One of the findings of the review was that anti-terror officials at Prevent had listed a Conservative MP and former member of the Government as being “associated with far-Right sympathetic audiences and Brexit”.

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The 76-year-old author of the report said that Prevent was “out of kilter” with the rest of UK counter-terrorism, where only 10 per cent of live investigations are concerned with Right-wing radicalism, whereas 80 per cent are focused on radical Islam.

In the report’s summary, Mr Shawcross, former Charity Commission chair, writes: “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.

“Despite this, all too often those who commit terrorist acts in this country have been previously referred to Prevent. Prevent apparently failed to understand the danger in these cases and this review demonstrates how such failures might be avoided in the future.

The summary continues: “Prevent is not doing enough to counter non-violent Islamist extremism. Challenging extremist ideology should not be limited to proscribed organisations but should also cover domestic extremists operating below the terrorism threshold who can create an environment conducive to terrorism.”

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