"I Genuinely Don't Know What The Role Of Prevent Is Anymore", Says Former Counter-Extremism Tsar
5 min read
Britain’s counter-radicalisation programme Prevent is mired in confusion, a former government adviser who was once among its most prominent supporters has said.
Dame Sara Khan, previously a counter-extremism commissioner, also criticised the Home Office for failing to implement recommendations in multiple official reports on how to curb the emerging threat.
Prevent has come under increasing scrutiny after a succession of high-profile cases, including that of Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana, who was referred three times to the programme but whose case was closed “prematurely”.
A review published on Wednesday found that a “problematic” assessment of MP Sir David Amess's killer led to “questionable decision-making" and a “suboptimal” handling of his Prevent case.
Launched in 2005, Prevent has attracted criticism from members of the Muslim community who perceive it to be biased against them. Khan has also been accused of being too close to government for a role requiring strict independence.
Khan was an early advocate for the programme, but in an interview with The House, she said there is “genuine confusion about what the purpose of Prevent is”.
“There's a central question to be asked here, which is: what is the role of Prevent? Is it about tackling extremism? Is it about tackling terrorism?” she said.
“The Home Office has got to be able to answer: ultimately, what is Prevent for? What is its remit and role? Because in my view it is so confused. I'm confused by it. I genuinely don't know what the role of Prevent is anymore.”
Khan said ministers using the words ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ interchangeably is “just adding to the confusion”.
“There is no legal definition of extremism,” she said. “The way that we interchange ‘extremism’ with ‘terrorism’ – I found ministers are doing that, Home Office [official] lines are doing that, where they're using the ‘e’ word with the word ‘terrorism’ interchangeably. That's just unacceptable. That's just adding to the confusion.”
In her former role as counter-extremism commissioner, Khan delivered three official reports to government on the extremist threats facing the UK. The reports found that strategic, legislative and operational gaps were allowing extremism to flourish in the UK.
I look back with quite some pain
But Khan revealed to The House that government has failed to respond to any of these reports.
“I have had no official response to any of my recommendations, and everything that I said in those reports has come to fruition,” she said.
“I look back with quite some pain, actually. When we're seeing worsening youth radicalisation and an accelerated extremism landscape, here were a clear set of sensible, really important recommendations which successive UK governments just sat on and didn't respond to.”
Khan delivered her three official reports on extremism – one co-authored with Mark Rowley before he was made Metropolitan Police Commissioner – to Boris Johnson’s government in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Her ‘Khan Review’ into threats towards social cohesion followed in March 2024. The last report, delivered in an independent capacity, landed on Labour’s desk just before Christmas.
However, Khan said whether a Conservative or Labour government, she has “not had any response at all”.
“I question the commitment in particular of the Home Office. When journalists ask for responses, the Home Office will always give lines of, ‘Look, we are committed to countering extremism’,” she said.
“I find that very difficult to believe because from where I'm sitting, having put forward a number of these official and independent reports, they’ve not responded to any of the recommendations.”
Khan added she is worried about a “normalising culture” within government where independent reports are not treated with “the urgency and the respect that they deserve”.
In July, 17-year-old Rudakubana murdered three little girls – Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven – at a dance class in Southport. Speaking the day after the killer was sentenced, Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned the UK faced a “new threat” of “loners, misfits [and] young men in their bedroom” becoming radicalised.
Khan said she felt “a sense of frustration” at Starmer’s response. “This has been a phenomenon for the last 10,12 years at the minimum. It has been widely accepted. It is nothing new.”
“I don't understand how you could not address those issues when they've been pointed out so clearly to you: the threat of extremism, how it's evolving at such a rapid pace and posing such a serious threat to our country.”
Khan currently works as a senior adviser to Crest Advisory, a think tank and consultancy specialising in issues related to justice, policing and public safety. She also sits on the global board of research group More in Common, which aims to build more inclusive societies.
Khan said government failure to strategise against extremist attacks is contributing to a “chronic democratic decline” in the UK and that the protests following the Southport attack should “not have been a surprise” for government.
“The summer riots in 2024 should not have been a surprise for anybody inside Whitehall because we've seen this play out at a much smaller scale in towns and cities across the country,” she said.
“The question is, why has Whitehall not built the infrastructure in place to have recognised that?”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Dame Sara Khan has done a huge amount of work to understand and tackle extremism in the UK. Her report contains important and substantial recommendations, and we will respond in due course.”
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