The UK’s Prevent counter-terrorism strategy “is no longer keeping the country safe” and needs a “radical overhaul”, an independent commission has found.
It said 90% of people referred to the scheme are turned away because they have no obvious ideology, even though they can go on to commit violent crimes.
In a wide-ranging report, the commission also recommended narrowing the definition of what constitutes terrorism to provide greater clarity.
And it called for decisions by government to proscribe organisations to be reviewed every five years to ensure proportionality. That recommendation comes as the Home Office faces a legal challenge over its decision to ban the activist group Palestine Action.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘Not fit for purpose’
Full details of the commission’s findings – based on a three-year review into the UK’s counter-terrorism measures – will be unveiled at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank in London today.
The starkest conclusions are about Prevent.
“The evidence we had shows that the present approach to Prevent is not fit for purpose,” said Sir Declan Morgan, a former chief justice of Northern Ireland who chaired the commission.
Underlining the failure of the scheme, Axel Rudakubana – the Southport murderer who stabbed three girls to death and attacked 10 other people at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July last year – had been referred to Prevent three times.
But no evidence had been found of a fixed ideology, so his case was closed in 2021. The teenager committed the atrocity three years later.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
“The Independent Commission on Counter-Terrorism says that Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy is no longer keeping the country safe,” according to an executive summary of the report.
“It calls for a radical overhaul of Prevent to make it part of a broader initiative dealing with violence and no longer based on a flawed radicalisation model.”
A changed terror threat
The commission found there is no evidence that radicalisation is a predictor of whether a person will become a terrorist.
It said terrorist threats in the UK have morphed from plots by groups such as al Qaeda or Islamic State to “self-initiated” individuals with “complex, mixed, unclear or unstable ideologies”.
As a result, there has been a surge in referrals to the counter-terrorism scheme.
“This risks overwhelming Prevent and missing individuals being drawn into terrorism,” the report warned.
It said more than 58,000 people have been referred to Prevent since 2015, but more than 90% had no counter-terrorism concerns.
The other 10% showed no evidence of criminal activity.
Read more:
Highest-ever number of referrals to Prevent
Why is anti-terrorism programme controversial?
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
The commission also said the majority of referrals are children and young people, even though they only comprise 21% of the population.
“Prevent needs a major overhaul and integration into a wider system to which all those susceptible of being drawn into violence can be referred,” it said.
The commission described this as a “single access point” that would be the first port of call for concerns about the susceptibility of individuals to being drawn into violence.
Those at risk of involvement in terrorist violence would then be passed to Prevent, while others would be dealt with by different agencies.
On tightening the definition of terrorism, the commission recommended what it called a more focused statutory definition.
“Terrorism should be defined narrowly as acts intended to coerce, compel, or subvert government or public institutions, and the threshold for property damage should apply only to conduct causing serious risk to life, national security, or public safety, or involving arson, explosives, or firearms methods inherently capable of causing unpredictable harm,” it said.
Sir Declan said: “Our narrower definition provides greater clarity while ensuring the government can tackle terrorism effectively.”
