Attacks like the Plymouth shooting involving Jake Davidson last year, prove that the greatest emerging threat is not Islamist, but in a rapidly expanding set of so-called mixed, unclear and unstable (MUU) extremism cases.
Davidson, 22, shot dead five people in Plymouth last year, before turning the gun on himself.
A large element of this rapid growth has seen Prevent referrals inheriting much of the case load of young people with “complex needs” from underfunded local services.
Data from 2021 suggests up to 70 per cent of people referred to Prevent may have mental health issues.
Growing numbers of MUU referrals suggest practitioners are struggling to classify these cases within frameworks built to handle clear-cut ideological categories.
Events like those in Plymouth speak to a more disparate set of extremism-related threats than the current government approach can capture. The New Statesman argues that they require a new paradigm of response.
Source: Plymouth shooting anniversary: Britain still lacks a strong approach to extremism – New Statesman
