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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.
‘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.
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