Home Affairs Select Committee Radicalisation Report is an Effort to Dissipate Momentum Against PREVENT and a Dangerous Script for a Closed Society

The Home Affairs Select Committee report on counter extremism (“Radicalisation: the counter-narrative and identifying the tipping point”) was never meant to be more than a theatrical designed to stem the gaining momentum tearing apart Britain’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) agenda.  The momentum against PREVENT, constituted of Muslims on the ground, countless academics and a number of unions required arresting. The tactic was to take control of this spiralling situation through a “review” where there is token acceptance of issues that are then carefully spun away and the course set upon by neoconservatives in collectively punishing the Muslim psyche through the neo-imperialist CVE project is resumed.

The evidence for the effort to maintain the course of PREVENT is evident from the way the review was framed:

“Our concern was that families and communities were being deeply affected by recruitment of young men and women to fight in Iraq and Syria. We therefore decided to examine the Government’s strategy for tackling extremism to assess whether it is effective and reaches the members of society who are most vulnerable to radicalisation.”

Implicit within the above statement is the focus on the singular “pathway” to political violence: “extremism”.  When the report’s author aver that they sought to examine the “major drivers of, and risk factors for recruitment to terrorist movements” – this analysis is firmly limited to the dominant pro-Israel/neoconservative-designed lens of ideology and extremism.

Theresa May: From one Israel Proxy Leader to Another

Muslims have been understandably expressing consternation at Theresa May becoming prime minister. Whilst the sacking of Michael Gove has brought delight, her appointment of Amber Rudd as Home Secretary is being seen as deeply worrying given Rudd’s policy council membership of the notorious hate-funded Henry Jackson Society. No doubt we will be seeing a continuation of closed society, illiberal security policies in the name of liberalism and freedom, as Muslims remain the punch bag for anti-Muslim rhetoric. May is no friend of Muslims, with animosity towards Islam articulated through counter-extremism rhetoric.

As the Conservative prospective candidates demonstrated their reality by stabbing each other in the back, dropping low-blows about not having children, and employing Machiavellian tactics against each other for once, as the leadership came to a head, it was interesting to note the prominent voices which fell into line behind May.