Prevent counter-terror program accused of woke quota failures | Politics | News
Philp: Woke nonsense needs to end now (Image: Getty)
Britain’s counter-terror program has been accused of repeated failure and putting racial quotas ahead of protecting the public.
Prevent, which was set up to stop vulnerable people being drawn into extremism or terrorism, has been panned as promoting “woke nonsense” by critics.
The damning verdict, by Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, comes as new analysis revealed a spike in referrals of young children where officials recorded them as having “no ideology”.
It’s seen a 663% increase, from 11 in 2021/22 to 84 in the year to March 2025.
Mr Philp said the system had “repeatedly failed to intervene on a number of occasions where individuals went on to commit atrocities.”
He added that the new data showed there was “no sign that the lessons from any of those failures have been applied”.
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The top Tory pointed to cases where Prevent had contact with individuals who later went on to kill.
Ahmed Hassan, who attempted to bomb a District line train at Parsons Green in September 2017, had previously been referred to Prevent.
Ali Harbi Ali, who murdered the Conservative MP, Sir David Amess in 2021, had also been known to the scheme.
Axel Rudakubana, who murdered three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in Southport in 2024, had been referred to Prevent on three separate occasions.
Officials repeatedly recorded his ideology as “mixed, unclear or unstable” or “vulnerability present but no ideology” – yet police later found a digital copy of an al-Qaeda training manual on his devices.
Mr Philp said: “We saw council officials veto a description of Axel Rudakubana as a dangerous knife-wielding thug because they said it was a racist stereotype.”
He added: “This woke nonsense needs to end and the police, mental health professionals and local councils need to focus on protecting the public and not racial quotas. Otherwise more lives will be lost.”
Rudakubana referred to Prevent three time (Image: Getty)
Mr Philp said: “Labour do not have the backbone to confront this reality, and that is a national security failure. Only the Conservatives will make sure Britain never turns a blind eye to extremism.”
Emma Schubart, research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, warned: “Prevent is supposed to stop people becoming terrorists. That task becomes much harder if officials cannot identify what ideology, if any, is driving the concern.”
She added: “A 663% rise in referrals of under-10s where no ideology is recorded should prompt serious questions inside the Home Office.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “We have gone further than ever to strengthen Prevent to safeguard vulnerable children and ensure that concerns are not dismissed prematurely.
“We are piloting new interventions for cases without a clear ideology and all cases are rigorously assessed by specialists, with support tailored or redirected where appropriate.”
