Our submission to the HASC report on new forms of extremism answered questions posed by the HASC, drawing attention to inherent problems with gauging ‘extremism’ due to the operation of Prevent. Our submission described several key problems with Prevent and thus with assessing ‘extremism’ in the UK. A summary of our submission follows. Our full submission is available here. Identifying Extremism Risk Ticking any of the boxes on a National Prevent Referral Form can justify a Prevent referral with safeguarding leads advised: ‘better to be safe than sorry’. The Home Office Select Committee asks about trends relating to the growth of different types of extremism and radicalisation, including that of ‘mixed, unstable and unclear ideologies’ – but this category is potentially an artifact of how the boxes on the form are ticked. It is a subjective judgement made by the assessing individual and the upward trend in these referrals reflects […]