The Shadow Home Secretary, Andy Burnham, has called for the Prevent strategy to be scrapped.
According to the Guardian, Burnham said the strategy is today’s equivalent of internment in Northern Ireland.
In a speech to the Chamber of Commerce in Manchester, Burnham called for a cross-party review of the Prevent strategy, but said his personal view was that the policy should be discarded. “I do feel that the brand is so toxic now that I think it’s got to go,” he said.
Burnham also announced Labour’s intention to oppose the government’s extremism bill, which was unveiled in last month’s Queen’s speech. It contains new powers to ban “extremist” organisations, gag individuals and enable local councils to close premises used to “promote hatred.”
“The Prevent duty to report extremist behaviour is today’s equivalent of internment in Northern Ireland – a policy felt to be highly discriminatory against one section of the community,” said Burnham. “It is creating a feeling in the Muslim community that it is being spied upon and unfairly targeted. It is building a climate of mutual suspicion and distrust. Far from tackling extremism, it risks creating the very conditions for it to flourish.
Burnham said that since 9/11 the UK had been “struggling – and failing – to find the right response to this new form of terrorism”.
“That single event shocked us out of the optimism and unity that had been so tangible just five years before. That is exactly what it was designed to do, just like the Manchester bomb,” said the MP for Leigh. “But this time, instead of building bridges, we seem to have slipped back into the language of division, suspicion and alienation.”
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Burnham told the Guardian after his speech that Prevent, which was introduced under the last Labour government, had been allowed to go down the wrong path. “The Prevent strategy and potentially this extremism bill are creating the conditions for more radicalisation not less. It’s as simple as that really,” he said.
Burnham said “a language of xenophobia has entered the lexicon” of British politics and that many politicians were flirting with racism. “The subliminal message is there and it’s getting close if not beyond that [racist] line at moments.”
Burnham’s call for the scrapping of Prevent follows similiar calls from hundreds of Muslims groups, human rights organisations and public sector workers.
