14 July 2010

Ministers dismantle £60 million programme to prevent violent extremism

PREVENT goes. Bit of an early surprise. This is one of the four planks of the counter-terrorism programme, and in many ways the most important. I'm not sure how much of this is Guardian spin, but it is true that aspects of PREVENT had dismayed Muslim communities in the UK. The Labour government confused intelligence gathering with community strengthening and fell into the trap it fell into in so many other areas of trying to turn every NGO or business it could find into an arm of the state in the name of counter-terrorism [discuss]. The bleating of Alan Johnson, ex-Home Secretary at the foot of this piece shows how far Labour still have to go to regain confidence in the area of civil liberties.

One suspects that this is a simple cost-cutting exercise. Despite the announcement of a review, note that actually, just about all the counter-terrorism powers have been renewed for a further six months, so the headline could just as easily be: "Ministers continue previous government's draconian measures to suspend civil liberties." We shall see...or we wont, because all will have been forgotten six months down the track. One thing you can bet on. Intercept evidence will be permitted in the courts.

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