Toby Young Toby Young

Yvette Cooper wants to lock up your sons

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issue 12 October 2024

In his independent review of the Prevent programme last year, Sir William Shawcross warned that something had gone very wrong with Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy. Instead of focusing on Islamism, Prevent was wasting its time investigating complaints of ‘far-right’ extremism from left-wing teachers, e.g. 14-year-old boys ‘caught’ watching TikTok videos of Nigel Farage. He has pointed out that 75 per cent of MI5’s caseload is taken up with Islamist threats, but 11 per cent of referrals to Prevent are related to Islamist terrorism. The result, Shawcross said, is a ‘dangerous’ surge in anti-Semitism, as we can see from the pro-Palestinian marches that have disfigured our cities for the past year. These reached their apotheosis last Saturday, when 300,000 protestors paraded through London spewing bile about the state of Israel and celebrating the largest pogrom against the Jews since the Holocaust.

Teachers will be encouraged to refer boys who make sexist remarks to Prevent

If you think Yvette Cooper is going to rectify this, think again.

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