Same old rules

A series of selective leaks had suggested that the second edition of the country’s counter-terrorism strategy, released on Tuesday, would see a shift from trying to tackle violent extremism to tackling extremism per se. This would have been a welcome development. Counter-terrorism in Britain has been crippled by a strategic failure to match policy to the reality that terrorism is merely the symptom of a wider problem: namely the hold of extremist Islamism on a small but significant slice of the British population.

However, as so often, the spin was misleading. The document is actually deeply cautious — a reflection of the splits in government over this issue. There are some small improvements; it is encouraging to see that the government will challenge the views of those groups that reject liberal democratic values. But the government’s letter to ‘partner organisations’, leaked to The Spectator, declares, ‘We are aware of recent, inaccurate media speculation that Contest [the strategy] will widen the definition of extremism. This speculation has been damaging and is categorically wrong.’ Those in government who argued for this broadening, notably the Communities and Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears, have been defeated.

Few things better sum up the confusion in the government’s counterterrorism strategy than the failings of Prevent, the government’s flagship scheme to stop British Muslims becoming radicalised. Part of it involves the doling out of money to supposedly moderate groups. But a recent report from the think-tank Policy Exchange shows that because of the narrow focus on preventing violent extremism, money has gone to groups that are still far from moderate. Indeed, when the Conservative shadow minister Paul Goodman asked for a list of organisations that had received funds under this scheme, the government was unable to oblige — because it didn’t have one.