Prevent doesn’t work and never will. The way forward for the UK rests in the realm of ideas and their healthy expression, not in trying to police thoughts, writes John Holmwood.
In the People’s Review of Prevent (published in February this year), we showed that Prevent is not working, but also that it couldn’t work.
What, then, is its purpose? Why do some people continue to advocate for it and in terms that involve the hostile name-calling of Prevent’s critics, including that they are extremists and enabling terrorism.
The answer is that it serves an ideological and populist purpose by scapegoating minority communities.
