Prevent and the political performance of ‘justice’

Keir Starmer. Editorial credit: Juergen Nowak / Shutterstock.com

Prevent Watch director Layla Aitlhadj argues that politicians like Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper are exploiting tragic events like the Southport murders to expand the Prevent strategy, perpetuating a cycle that benefits political agendas over public safety or justice.

Each time tragedy strikes, a predictable script unfolds: politicians stand before the cameras, blaming the toxic Prevent strategy for the atrocity, while presenting it as the solution to protect us against the next. This is part of a downward spiral that we must exit in order to find real solutions.

The political performance takes place before the full facts are established — often alongside calls for a “review” or “inquiry,” though logic would dictate that conclusions should follow, not precede, such investigations.

In this spectacle, politicians play the roles of decisive leaders, delivering rehearsed lines about the ever-present boogey-man (implied as “Muslims”), while the real threats and root causes remain hidden behind the curtains, never quite making it into the script.

Southport attack

Our current Prime Minister and Home Secretary’s response to the Southport attack is one in a long line of familiar instances.

A tragic event has been used to reinforce the prevailing Prevent-based narrative on extremism, laying the groundwork for yet another expansion of counter-extremism powers – just as their predecessors did before them.

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Take Theresa May, for instance. After the 2017 attacks in London and Manchester, she seized the moment to push for more surveillance, tighter Prevent enforcement, and an overhaul of counter-terrorism laws that disproportionately targeted Muslims.

Standing before the nation, she declared: “Enough is enough… things need to change,” saying in her official statement: “…we need to become far more robust in identifying [extremism] and stamping it out – across the public sector and across society … we need to review Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy to make sure the police and security services have all the powers they need.”

With these words she set the stage for the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, which expanded the securitisation of everyday spaces and reinforced the underlying pre-crime logic of Prevent.

Southport killer Axel Rudakubana

Now, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper seem poised to follow the same playbook. In the wake of the Southport attack and the revelation of numerous potential failings, the focus has been on Prevent.

After the attacker’s guilty plea, Starmer declared that it was “clearly wrong” that the attacker had not been deemed to meet the threshold for intervention under Prevent.

Cooper, in a statement to Parliament that same day, claimed that Prevent referrals for Islamist extremism were “too low,” and in outlining “next steps” said: “…the Prevent programme is vital for our national security. Its officers work with huge dedication to keep us safe. But we need it to be effective.

“Some changes have already been made since 2021 including new Prevent duty guidance, new training for frontline workers on radicalisation, and stronger policy on repeat referrals. In September 2024, a new Prevent assessment framework was launched, supplemented by robust training for all Prevent police officers. But these changes do not go far enough.”

Had they been serious about justice for the victims of the Southport attack — or about public safety — Prevent would not have been mentioned.

Did our Home Secretary not realise that thresholds for “Islamist extremism” are irrelevant here, as the attacker was not deemed to be an “Islamist extremist,” nor was there any ideological motivation behind his crime?

Did Keir Starmer not recognise the performative theatre in announcing a review that would “leave no stone unturned” while simultaneously delivering his own conclusions on what went wrong, declaring: “… if the law needs to change to recognise this new and dangerous threat, then we will change it – and quickly. And we will also review our entire counter-extremist system to make sure we have what we need to defeat it.”

Why was Prevent singled out for blame before the inquiry he commissioned had even begun? The answer lies in the broader political utility of Prevent.

Leveraging Prevent

The tactic of leveraging Prevent to serve political ends is not new. In September 2014 in a grand speech at the United Nations General Assembly, then Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced plans to place Prevent on a statutory footing. This was before the full inquiries into the Trojan Horse affair – which provided the leverage to force Prevent into schools – had concluded.

At that point, the Clarke Report (July 2014) and Kershaw Review (July 2014) had been published, yet neither had found any evidence of radicalisation or an “Islamist plot” in Birmingham schools. The Education Select Committee inquiry (March 2015) also found no evidence of radicalisation, and the case against the schools fell apart.

However, the narrative of “radicalisation in schools” was already serving its political purpose in justifying the expansion of Prevent.

Prevent has been widely criticised as a surveillance operation on the Muslim community.

Cameron, in what was a direct reference to the Trojan Horse affair, sought to conflate conservative Islamic beliefs with extremism, framing them in his speech to the UN as a threat to British values: “We’ve seen cases where you have people with a warped worldview, not just expressing those views but seeking to impose them on the education of children in our country.”

This same logic is at play today. The Trojan Horse affair was used to embed Prevent in law, despite no evidence of radicalisation. Now, Starmer and Cooper are using the Southport attack to demand an even more expansive Prevent – even before any inquiry into Prevent’s utility has taken place.

The actors may change, but the performance remains the same: Prevent is cast as both the villain and the hero, blamed for failing, yet expanded in response.

So when Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper criticise Prevent for “failing” to keep the Southport attacker in its system, they are not engaging in genuine oversight. Instead, they are laying the groundwork to expand a deeply flawed programme, in the same way Prevent was used in 2017 and in the same way it was initially weaponised following the Trojan Horse affair.

If our political leaders were serious about justice, they would step off the stage and engage with the reality of the evidence. Making an already toxic and superfluous policy like Prevent “more robust” or “redefining terrorism” will only drain resources and erode trust in services, while the real issues go unaddressed.

We are watching yet another act in a long-running show – one that benefits Prevent lobbyists, think tanks, and the revolving door of counter-extremism consultants, all profiting from reviews that are never taken on board if they do not reflect the agenda of the political leader of the day.

The cycle will continue, unless we stop mistaking performance for progress.

This article first appeared on the Prevent Watch website.

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