Islam and violence

The Home Office must take greater responsibility for how deradicalisation programmes are working with potential terrorists, a review will recommend.

The review found that Prevent, the government’s counterextremism strategy, was ineffective in some parts of the UK because certain local authorities were involving Muslim groups that actively opposed the programme in the process of deciding whether individuals need to be deradicalised.

… Separately, a report by the Henry Jackson Society, a think tank, has warned of a “fundamental mismatch” between the threat posed by Islamic extremism and the number of referrals to Prevent.

Despite Islamic extremists making up three quarters of offenders in prison for terror-related offences and the vast majority of suspects on the MI5’s terror watchlist, they represent only 22 per cent of all Prevent referrals and 30 per cent of Channel cases.

Calls to overhaul Prevent as it is revealed ‘divisive groups who DON’T believe in counter-terror strategy help decide if individuals need to be deradicalised’ – after Islamists behind four recent attacks were ALL referred to scheme

Prevent is being undermined by activists who are opposed to its very existence being allowed to decide if individuals need to be deradicalised, a review will find – as it emerged Islamists behind four recent attacks were all referred to the scheme.

The review – which will be handed to Priti Patel next month – found that Prevent was ineffective in some parts of the UK because councils were involving Muslim groups with a ‘divisive’ agenda.

… Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and senior adviser at the Counter Extremism Project, said the official narrative that the far-right is the fastest growing threat is a ‘comfort blanket’ obscuring the ‘patently more potent threat of Islamist extremism’.

‘The body count does not lie,’ he said.

Reaction to the death of Sir David Amess has been dispiriting

The reaction from the political establishment to the murder of Sir David Amess has been what you might expect. Politicians and media commentators of all persuasions have been united in their condemnation of the brutal slaying of this evidently popular member of parliament. And that is, of course, how it should be.

But I detect that, deeper in the bowels of political activism, matters aren’t quite so categorical. There hasn’t, it seems to me, been the same kind of grassroots unity of purpose and solidarity accompanying Sir David’s murder as that which we saw in the wake of the dreadful assassination of Jo Cox. Fewer candles and words of unconditional condemnation, no Twitter hashtag, a little more reticence among those who were not of Sir David’s political hue.

The UK does not want the focus to be on the latest terrorist killer’s Islamic ties.

As best I can remember, I’d never heard of Sir David Amess before learning of his murder. That’s a shame, because he appears by all accounts to have been that rare politician who was in it for the right reasons — who, that is, loved his country, cared about his constituents, and made “public service” sound like a fair job description rather than a cynical Clintonian lie. But then I guess that’s precisely the kind of politician who rarely makes the big headlines.

ALMOST 40 hours of rants by hate preacher Anjem Choudary can be found after in seconds on a Google search.

The shocking revelation comes as it was claimed the suspect accused of murdering MP David Amess was radicalised after watching YouTube videos of Choudary.