The UK has a small but determined environmentalist movement characterised by its appetite for popular protest – and the diversity of its tactics. In the last twelve months these have ranged from the Tyre Extinguishers group letting down the tyres of private motor vehicles, Insulate Britain attempting to close the M25, Extinction Rebellion blockading Oxford Circus with a giant pink table, to Just Stop Oil protestors tying themselves to the goalposts during Premier League football matches.

The Prevent counter-terrorism strategy is perhaps the most controversial government policy most people have never heard of. Public recognition of it is generally low, but opposition from Britain’s raucous Islamist scene, near total. From there, opposition has spread to sections of the far-left, and those parts of academia where Islamism and the revolutionary left intersect. This report, written by three experts on Islamism, outlines the campaign against Prevent, and argues that this is not an exceptional campaign against a uniquely flawed policy – the groups opposing Prevent have tended to criticise pretty much any counter-terrorism policy, in sine cases for a generation. The same names and campaign groups appear time after time regardless of the colour of the government of the day.

Much of the attention following the killing of Sir David Amess MP has been focused on the rising volume of threats to MPs and the issue of online anonymity. These are very important, but a much broader set of questions around ideology is in danger of slipping from view. William Shawcross’ Independent Review of the counter-radicalisation Prevent strategy affords a major opportunity to address this imbalance and reset discussion in a neglected area of policy. Shawcross is due to report shortly to the Home Secretary.
Here are fourteen questions which emerge from the horrific events in Southend:

On the evening of Wednesday October 13, 2021, in the city of Kongsberg, some 50 miles from Oslo, five people were killed and two more were injured in a suspected terrorist attack by a lone perpetrator. The attacker, named Espen Andersen Bråthen, was armed with a bow and arrows. He was later apprehended and charged.

France’s Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and the Minister for Citizenship, Marlène Schiappa, recently gave an interview with Le Figaro, reflecting on the first anniversary of Macron’s speech against “Islamist separatism”, which he delivered on October 2, 2020. Darmanin and Schiappa described how the French government has stepped up its efforts to tackle Islamist extremism in France, particularly after the approval by the National Assembly in July 2021, of the Law Reinforcing Respect of the Principles of the Republic, also called the “anti-separatism” bill. This includes a wave of measures against violent and non-violent Islamist extremism.

The Charity Commission is to investigate a London-based Islamic charity, the Miftahul Jannah Academy in Waltham Forest, after the National Secular Society reported that the charity’s website contained extremist sermons praising the Taliban and encouraging Muslims to fund jihadists. The charity’s website also hosted antisemitic audio recordings referring to the “dirty qualities” of Jews.