A glossy anti-Prevent manifesto is masquerading as counter-terrorism reform, and Britain will be less safe if anyone falls for it

Under the veneer of legal nuance, it advances the same agenda long pushed by groups such as CAGE and MEND, organisations flagged by Michael Gove as meriting investigation for extremist links; to drop all measures that counter Islamism.

At the heart of the report lies an appealing idea, a single access point for all concerns about individuals vulnerable to violence.

As a former Prevent practitioner, I understand the logic, a “one-stop-shop” approach makes sense with respect to the triage apparatus of Prevent. It already has the apparatus to handle mixed, unclear or violence-fixated cases, and could expand that role with more manpower and minimal structural change.

What the Commission proposes, however, is something else entirely. It would hollow Prevent out, keeping the shell of multi-agency safeguarding but stripping the core ideological analysis that makes it counter-terrorism.

The report takes an explicit stance against recognising extremist ideology as a driver of terrorism, overlooking the fundamental reality that what distinguishes terrorism from other forms of violence is precisely its ideological motivation.

Most revealingly, it calls for a review of “the most appropriate language” to describe terrorist threats, signalling clear discomfort with the terms Islamist and Islamism.

This is not a semantic exercise, it reflects a deeper attempt to shift focus away from the ideological roots of terrorism.

By blurring ideological extremism into generic “violence prevention,” we risk replacing early detection of radicalisation with the management of social vulnerability.

That shift means less focus on Islamist networks, antisemitic mobilisation, and far-right conspiracies, and more on abstract notions of “resilience” and “well-being.”

At a time of deepening division and intensifying ideological extremism, fuelled by a globalised, digitised world, we don’t need less understanding of ideology. We need far more.

The signal is clearest in its proposal to scrap the Prevent duty, the legal obligation on frontline services to identify and refer to radicalisation risks.

That duty is the backbone of national consistency; without it, early intervention becomes voluntary. A statutory safeguard turned into an optional suggestion is a step backwards in every sense.

Educators could opt not to refer for fear of community reprisal and those with extremist sympathies could purposefully miss risks all together, whilst local authorities beholden to a constituency with high anti-Prevent sentiment could negate the vital safeguarding mechanism all together.

What is more, the Commission’s evidence base has been driven by groups that have spent a decade undermining that very idea. CAGE — the organisation that once described “Jihadi John” as a beautiful young man — is cited as a source of evidence.

As is MEND, which ministers have repeatedly refused to engage due to extremist concerns. Prevent Watch, a single-issue campaign built to destroy Prevent, is listed uncritically. When such voices shape the evidence base, it is little wonder the report echoes their central talking points: “Prevent spies on Muslims,” “Islamism is an offensive label,” and “counter-terrorism should be a public-health issue.”

These groups were formally disengaged from the government over concerns that their Islamist sympathies could distort or undermine counter-terrorism policy.

Yet this report calls for their re-engagement. History shows that partnering with groups holding Islamist worldviews does not promote cohesion, it legitimises those views, sidelines genuinely liberal Muslim voices, deepens sectarian divides, and endangers the very minorities targeted by Islamist intolerance. We are still untying ourselves from that mistake today.

This is not balanced scholarship but a vehicle through which previously shunned organisations, once proposed for investigation over extremism links, seek to regain influence under the banner of “inclusion”.

Most telling is what the report omits. There is no serious engagement with ideological ecosystems, the Muslim Brotherhood’s soft power in Britain, Jamaat-e-Islami’s sectarian messaging, Khomeinist networks, or the spread of anti-blasphemy extremism.

These are the currents that normalise intolerance and sometimes precede violence. Yet the report’s only concern is “community tension” supposedly caused by tackling them.

Prevent is not flawless. It needs better training, greater confidence in tackling Islamism in particular and clearer transparency.

We can expand Prevent’s triage capacity to handle non-ideological threats such as incel-linked violence or mass-violence fixation.

But that must complement, not replace, having a unit that counters ideologically inspired violence (yes that is terrorism). Remove the ideological lens and you remove the ability to see the warning signs that every terrorist leaves behind.

This report claims to modernise counterterrorism, but in practice it risks dismantling it. By recasting core counter-terrorism functions as generic safeguarding, it dilutes ideological focus and weakens statutory accountability.

The government must steer well clear of its recommendations, or risk returning to the failed approach of over a decade ago—when officials partnered with extremist actors under the illusion of tackling violent extremism.

We don’t need yet another Prevent review, especially one informed by those who are committed to removing it in its entirety.

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Dr Charlotte Littlewood is a former Prevent Practitioner and Counter Extremism Coordinator

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