Prevent scheme ‘puts too much focus on far-Right and not enough on Islamists’

BRITAIN’S flagship programme fighting radicalisation has been hijacked by political correctness, skewing it away from the threat posed by Islamic terrorism, a report claims.

The analysis, published in the wake of Sir David Amess MP’s fatal stabbing, accused police and others who oversee the Prevent scheme of allowing its work to be swayed by ‘false allegations of Islamophobia’.

It claimed, as a result, anti-terror resources are being diverted away from the principal terror threat – Islamist extremism.

Prevent is said to be spending growing amounts of time and money combating other types of extremists, such as the farRight, even though they make up a smaller proportion of the threat to national security. The report by counter-terrorism think-tank the Henry Jackson Society said the beleaguered scheme was ‘failing to deliver’.

Dr Alan Mendoza, of the society, said: ‘The Prevent scheme has been hamstrung by political correctness following a well-organised campaign by Islamist groups and the political Left of false allegations of “Islamophobia” so its work is skewed away from the gravest threat – that of radical Islam’.

The report said there is a ‘fundamental mismatch’ between the threat posed by

Islamist terrorism and the attention given to it by Prevent. Home Office figures show 22 per cent of all referrals to Prevent relate to Islamist extremists while 24 per cent are for neo-Nazi or other far-Right extremists.

Among cases actually taken up by the Prevent scheme in its Channel programme – which mentors individuals to turn them away from terrorist causes – 30 per cent relate to Islamists compared with 43 per cent who are far-Right.

The British Muslim academic who compiled the report, Dr Rakib Ehsan, said: ‘The Prevent scheme’s central aim is to reduce the UK’s overall terror threat and maximise public safety. At the moment, it is failing to deliver on this front.’