3 days ago
Concern over mass migration is terrorist ideology, says Prevent
Lord Young suggested the definition could even capture Mr Jenrick, the former immigration minister, who has previously warned that 'excessive, uncontrolled migration threatens to cannibalise the compassion of the British public.'
Senior Labour politicians could also fall within the scope of the definition, he claimed. Lord Young cited Sir Keir's recent statement that without fair immigration rules, 'we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.'
There are growing fears that police are wrongly seeking to limit free speech.
The Telegraph disclosed last month that Julian Foulkes, a retired police officer, was arrested and detained over a social media post warning about the threat of anti-Semitism. Officers who conducted a search of his house described a collection of books by authors such as Mr Murray as 'very Brexity'. Mr Foulkes later received an apology and £20,000 compensation.
Last year, Allison Pearson, the Telegraph columnist, was questioned at home by two officers over an X post following pro-Palestinian protests.
The Telegraph has also covered the case of Hamit Koskun, who was fined this week for burning a Koran. It led Mr Jenrick to accuse the courts of reviving blasphemy law.
Lord Young said the course material appeared to reflect a shift in the Prevent approach from focusing on conduct – such as acquiring weapons or inciting violence – to 'treating ideology itself as a risk indicator, encompassing belief, alignment or political attitude'.
He said the FSU had already had to support members referred to Prevent, including a 24-year-old autistic man whose social worker reported that he had been viewing 'offensive and anti-trans' websites and 'focusing on lots of Right-wing dark comedy'.
Prevent referral could stain person's name
Even if a person was subsequently deemed to require 'no further action', their name would risk remaining on police and other databases that could be accessed by MI5, MI6, the Home Office, Border Force, HMRC, the Charity Commission and local safeguarding teams.
Lord Young said: 'There are multiple documented cases in which individuals referred to Prevent – despite not meeting the threshold for further action – suffered serious and lasting consequences simply because their names were logged in the system.'
The row comes despite a report by Sir William Shawcross, a former independent reviewer of Prevent, which criticised the way that mainstream literature and even a former Cabinet minister had been described as 'cultural nationalists' by a Home Office research unit on extremism. The minister was later revealed as Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Sir William recommended that Prevent must be 'consistent in the threshold that it applies across ideologies to ensure a proportionate and effective response.'
He added that there were major failings with Prevent more broadly, including that it wrongly funnelled money to extremist organisations and had repeatedly failed to identify people who went on to carry out terrorist attacks.
Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said: 'It is a very difficult job that the Home Office has to do, but maybe they should do a careful bit of editing so that people who are close to the political mainstream are not caught up in it.'
A former government adviser said the 'cultural nationalism' definition was 'pretty shoddy'.
'Agencies like counter-terrorism police and MI5 are much more rigorous in their classifications,' they said. 'We are talking about Right-wing extremists, who are often neo-Nazis. It undermines the seriousness of what counter-extremism is all about.'
Professor Ian Acheson, a former government adviser on extremism, said: 'We are now beginning to see the consequences of a referral mechanism built on training like this which skews away from suspicion by conduct to the mere possession of beliefs that are perfectly legitimate but regarded by Prevent policy wonks as 'problematic.''
