UK Edition
Islamist extremists may be evading monitoring because Prevent is failing to target them despite their accounting for an overwhelming majority of terrorist incidents, a report warns on Wednesday.
The study said there was a "fundamental mismatch" between the scale of the threat from Islamist extremism and the apparent relative lack of attention paid to it by Prevent, the Government's counter-terrorism programme.
The report found that only 22 per cent of referrals to Prevent were for Islamist radicalisation and just 30 per cent of those were taken on to Channel deradicalisation programmes.
In contrast, far-Right extremists made up 24 per cent of referrals and 43 per cent of those offered Channel support, making them both more likely to be referred and taken up as Channel cases.
However, this compared with Islamic terrorists accounting for more than 90 per cent of the 43,000 suspects on MI5's watchlist and the overwhelming majority of recent terror convictions, offenders and killings.
Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorist legislation, concluded in his annual report that "Islamist terrorism remains the principal threat in Great Britain" and was responsible for the majority of terrorism convictions in 2019.
‘We need more Prevent going forwards, not less’
Last year, just 210 Islamist extremists were referred to Channel for deradicalisation, according to the report, which was published by the Henry Jackson Society.
Ali Harbi Ali, 25, the suspect in the death of the Conservative MP Sir David Amess, was referred to the Prevent programme six years ago.
A government review of Prevent by William Shawcross, a historian and former leading trustee of the Henry Jackson Society, is expected to recommend a major overhaul of the programme, placing greater emphasis on protecting public security and securing three-year funding for schemes to deradicalise extremists.
In the study, Dr Rakib Ehsan said the mismatch meant "there is an all too real prospect of Islamist extremists who present a significant security risk not being sufficiently monitored by the public authorities".
The paper warned that "the UK cannot afford to be paralysed by political correctness and tribal identity politics in the fight against Islamist extremism – a terror threat that concerns both Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain to similar degrees".
It added: "The effectiveness of the UK’s counter-terrorism structures has once again been called into question following the killing of Sir David. 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."
Dr Alan Mendoza, the director of the Henry Jackson Society, said: "The reality is the programme has struggled to cope with the increase in referrals to it over the years given increased extremism and the unremitting hostility to it by some leaders in the Muslim community and the political Left.
"We need more Prevent going forwards, not less, and we should be redoubling our efforts to strengthen the programme."