Good morning. What does it mean to be mainstream? A day after the Guardian’s exclusive on the Prevent anti-radicalisation programme, that question’s been on my mind a lot.
The story revealed a leak from the review being conducted by William Shawcross into the programme, which is supposed to be a way to flag vulnerable people at risk of radicalisation. Shawcross believes Prevent is treating “mainstream, rightwing-leaning commentary” as far-right, while Islamist propaganda is being ignored.
That conclusion is uncomfortably timed, emerging shortly after the horrifying news of the attack in Buffalo, New York inspired by “great replacement” ideas that have made their way into US mass media – and while circumstances in the UK are very different, it’s highly contested by those who know the field best. But it may not be surprising coming from Shawcross, whose appointment was controversial from the start thanks to his previously expressed views on the “terrifying problems” linked to “quickly growing Islamic populations”.
For today’s newsletter, assistant editor Nimo Omer and I spoke to radicalisation experts about their objections to Shawcross’s account of Prevent – and why his view of what counts as mainstream might need closer attention. That’s after the headlines.
Five big stories
Conservatives | An unnamed Tory MP has been arrested on suspicion of serious sexual offences, including rape. Some of the offences, which took place between 2002 and 2009, are believed to have taken place in parliament.
Economy | Tory MPs called on Rishi Sunak to make cuts to VAT and raise benefits amid dire economic predictions on the cost of living crisis. New data due out on Wednesday is expected to show inflation topping 9%.
Brexit | The European Commission raised the prospect of a trade war with the UK if Liz Truss presses ahead with a plan to rewrite the Northern Ireland protocol. Truss set out a bill to make key changes but said she was open to talks.
Extremism | The self-confessed white supremacist gunman accused of killing 10 people – most of them Black – in Buffalo, New York, was plotting the attack months in advance, online posts revealed.
Japan | A man mistakenly sent ¥46.3m (£287,000/US$358,000) in Covid-19 relief funds gambled away the entire amount on his phone within a fortnight. The money was intended for 463 low-income households in the town of Abu.
In depth: Where the Shawcross draft report falls short
For most of its 19-year history, worries about Islamophobia have not been enough to fundamentally reform how Prevent works. If anything, it has got tougher: since 2015, education, social services and medical staff have been obliged to report anyone they view as ‘at risk’ of extremism. British Muslims may not have been shocked that once the claim was of a serious problem with how far-right extremism is defined rather than Islamism, the government has ordered a wholesale review.
The extracts leaked to the Guardian from a draft of William Shawcross’ report, currently undergoing final checks before publication, will do little to assuage those doubts. According to Shawcross (pictured above), Prevent has mistakenly shifted focus away from Islamist extremism. He hoists red flags over the programme’s treatment of “mildly controversial” right-wing commentary while “[ignoring] Islamist narratives”.
Julia Ebner, a research fellow at counter-extremism organisation the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and author of The Rage: The Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism, takes another view. “The unprecedentedly high referral numbers on the far-right are not the result of a biased definition,” she said. “They reflect bigger trends that we’ve seen in our research consistently in the last few years.”
Here are some of the key objections to what we know of Shawcross’ review so far:
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Radical tropes have entered the mainstream
Perhaps the most arresting line from the draft of William Shawcross’ review is that Prevent has a “double standard when dealing with extreme rightwing [views] and Islamism”. In particular, he says Prevent’s definitions of far-right is “so broad it has included mildly controversial or provocative forms of mainstream, rightwing-leaning commentary that have no meaningful connection to terrorism or radicalisation”.
The problem with that argument is that it ignores the uncomfortable reality that versions of far-right tropes have repeatedly slipped into the mainstream media in recent years. “There has definitely been a very strong trend of mainstreaming conspiracy myths,” said Ebner. “And sometimes media platforms give a platform to these extreme ideas without even realising where they first gained traction.”
The most notorious case of that is the way the “great replacement” theory – the idea of white people being ‘replaced’ by people of colour, through immigration or interracial marriage, for example – has been refashioned and used by the Republican party and commentators like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in the US.
Yet that mainstreaming isn’t a solely American phenomenon – “that’s happening in the UK as well,” Ebner said. There are many examples, but Ebner points to the “breaking point” poster unveiled by Nigel Farage during the Brexit campaign, or Spectator and UnHerd columnist Douglas Murray, who has argued that Europe is “committing suicide” because the “native population” is being outgrown by Muslims.
One problem, says Ebner, is that “far-right extremism is seen as coming from within ‘our’ own culture, and so it’s a more painful discussion to have. Whereas jihadism is something that can always be painted as coming from the outside.”
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The breadth of radical ideologies may be being underestimated
While the leak of Shawcross’ draft report appears to suggest that the scale of radical right adherence is overplayed, Ebner argues that the opposite may be the case.
“There is a problem of definitions,” she said. “There are many conspiracy theories which spread anti-minority ideas and violence which overlap extensively with the far right but are not the same thing – you see it in antivax communities, or QAnon.” Sympathy with misogynist violence is not included in the framework at all, she added. “There’s a whole universe of different ideological elements which are really hard to tag within Prevent.”
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Terror threats and Prevent statistics tell different stories
As Vikram Dodd wrote on Monday, the nature of terrorist plots under investigation by MI5 has changed drastically in the last 15 years. Where once Islamist plots were viewed as by far the dominant threat, of the 32 assessed as aiming to cause mass casualties in the UK since 2017, 18 were Islamist related, while 12 were associated with the extreme right.
In March, the head of Counter Terrorism Policing UK, Matt Jukes, said that three of the four advanced plots disrupted by police in 2021 involved right-wing extremists. But he also said that 80% of 800 live counter-terrorism investigations in the UK were linked to Islamist extremism – a figure that has been used to argue that the growth in Prevent referrals relating to right-wing radicalism is misplaced.
But that argument relies on a fundamental misrepresentation of what Prevent is supposed to be for: not as a report card on the level of immediate terror threats, but a way to redirect those who might be vulnerable to radicalisation, who are typically younger and by definition not yet active.
Today, the influence of the far right on younger people “has been a significant problem in the UK, and I would say compared to other countries it’s really been quite shocking,” Ebner said.
It’s hardly surprising if the – undoubtedly real – threat of Islamist extremism is less visible among young people in the Prevent statistics: adherents are much less focused on proselytising than they once were.
“What we see on the Islamist extremist side is there is more of a violent core that has remained active since the downfall of Isis,” Ebner said. “But the wider appeal of violence-inciting narratives is much stronger on the far right.” Viewing this as a problem with Prevent is a bit like seeing Manchester United’s youth development as inadequate because they haven’t identified Cristiano Ronaldo as a hot prospect.
Dr Rob Faure Walker, the author of The Emergence of ‘Extremism’ who has his own experience of Prevent from his years as a teacher, points out another reason that the headline figures may obscure the big picture. He told Nimo: “If you look at overall right wing referrals compared to referrals of Muslims – Muslims are a small percentage of the UK population. Let’s say that generally far-right referrals are coming from the white population – Muslims are still massively over-represented within Prevent.”
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Some view Prevent as counterproductive anyway
To Faure Walker, Prevent has a fundamental flaw. He remembers that during his time as a teacher, he was able to hold conversations with Muslim children who said they wanted to travel to Syria and white children who espoused racist views alike. After the Prevent duty to report came in in 2015, “regardless of how critical I am of [the programme], it would have been my legal duty to report those children to the police.” The conversations stopped.
Ebner still thinks Prevent can be effective in some circumstances – but warns that the leak of the Shawcross review hints at an approach which could make things much worse. “It almost seems like we would return to the starting point where we were a decade ago, where we are downplaying the threat of far-right extremism,” she said. “I think that could be really detrimental, not just to UK public safety, but to our democratic future.”
What else we’ve been reading
Frances Ryan unpacks comments from rightwing MPs that suggest the cost of living crisis is, in part, down to personal failures. “It is in the Conservatives’ interests … to propagate the idea that hardship is a result of an individual’s bad decisions,” writes Ryan, “rather than government policies.” Nimo
After Jake Daniels became the first current UK male footballer to reveal he is gay since 1990, Thomas Hitzlsperger – who did the same after he retired in 2014 – reflects on the importance of the moment. “I will never regret coming out,” he says. “And Jake won’t either.” Archie
The world recoiled at the killing of Palestinian-American Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh. Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi writes about exactly what Abu Aqleh’s death means not only to her as a diaspora Palestinian herself, but to Palestine as a whole. Nimo
3D movies started as a 50s gimmick, returned a decade ago, and are making a comeback once again. That’s the theory, anyway: Stuart Heritage is entertainingly unconvinced. Archie
I loved Zoe Williams’ interview with Margaret Beckett, Britain’s longest-serving female MP. It’s easy to think no other political moment is as bad as the one you’re currently in, but Beckett gives us some much-needed perspective as she reflects on her 58-year career. Nimo
Wagatha Christie latest
A man more familiar with a penalty box than a witness box took the stand yesterday, with Wayne Rooney watched on by his one-time England team mate Jamie Vardy, who accompanied his wife Rebekah to court for the first time. “Awkward” was the word of the day, as the two couples sat awkwardly together separated only by a barrister, and then Wayne revealed the “awkward” chat he was asked to have with Jamie about Rebekah’s behaviour at the 2016 World Cup.
“I remember the conversation I had with Jamie. It was a bit awkward for me to have to speak with a teammate regarding his wife,” Rooney testified. “I sat down with Jamie Vardy and he had a coffee. It was such an awkward moment.” If he thought that was awkward, one wonders what England’s record goalscorer must think of the past fortnight …
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“Me sitting in this courtroom is the first time I’m hearing almost everything on this case,” Wayne Rooney said. “This week is really the first time I’ve had any understanding of what happened.”
Sport
Football | Liverpool took the Premier League title race to the final day by beating Southampton 2-1 away from home. Jürgen Klopp’s team still need Manchester City to slip up if they are to win the league.
Football | Arsenal and England midfielder Jordan Nobbs will miss the women’s Euro 22 tournament with a knee injury after being omitted from the provisional squad. Steph Houghton and Fran Kirby were named in Sarina Wiegman’s selection.
Cricket | The chief executive of the England and Wales cricket board is to step down next month, the Guardian has learned. After an often controversial reign, his interim replacement is managing director of women’s cricket Clare Connor.
The front pages
The Guardian’s print edition leads today with “Sunak faces Tory clamour to act now on cost of living”. The Daily Mail’s splash is “Police arrest Tory MP over rape and sex offences” which the Telegraph has as “Tory MP held on suspicion of rape”, while in the Mirror it’s “New Commons scandal”, “Tory MP Rape Arrest”. The Metro says “Tory MP is arrested for rape”. The top story in the Financial Times is “Musk discussed Twitter deal with board before disclosing his stake”. The i has “Sunak plots 1p income tax cut this year” while the Times’ angle is ““Sunak plans heating bill discounts and tax cuts”. “So that’s why the Bank of England is helpless” – the Express says Andrew Bailey’s staff work four days a week from home. “Wazzatha” – the Sun’s coverage of the Vardy-Rooney court case continues.
Today in Focus
The ‘carbon bombs’ set to blow up the world’s climate pledges
A Guardian investigation has revealed 195 oil and gas projects known as ‘carbon bombs’ that could trigger catastrophic climate breakdown if allowed to continue. Damian Carrington reports
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
In 1973, an undiscovered Canadian folk artist named Maude Lewis traded one of her paintings for a grilled cheese sandwich. In a remarkable turn of events, five decades later, that piece of art was sold for C$350,000, ten times more than its assessed value. When she was alive Lewis lived in poverty and mainly sold her art to tourists passing through Nova Scotia with her husband. It has only been in the years since her death that her talent has been internationally recognised.
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