The UK government has branded citizens who worry about open borders as ‘far-right terrorists,’ escalating tensions over immigration concerns. According to Prevent, the official counter-extremism scheme, expressing worries about mass migration or a lack of integration now marks individuals as potential terror threats.

This alarming classification extends to those who identify as cultural nationalists, raising fears of overreach by authorities. The policy shift has sparked debate about freedom of speech and the government’s approach to addressing societal anxieties, leaving many questioning the balance between security and civil liberties.

Infowars.com reports: The Telegraph reported last week that an online training “refresher course” on Prevent’s site lists “cultural nationalism” as one belief that could see an individual referred for “de-radicalisation” training. It defines this as the conviction that “Western culture is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups.” It classifies this as one of the common “sub-categories of extreme right-wing terrorist ideologies” alongside white supremacism and white/ethno-nationalism. 

It has been pointed out that, absurdly, UK prime minister Keir Starmer could himself be referred to Prevent as a “cultural nationalist.” Last month, he made a surprising (if not entirely believable) U-turn on migration, finally talking about a crackdown on illegal small-boat crossings in the Channel. He promised an end to Britain’s “open-borders experiment” and lamented the country had become an “island of strangers” as a result of failed integration. For this, Starmer could theoretically be seen as a person of concern by Prevent, spreading “extreme right-wing terrorist ideologies.” 

In fact, a staggering number of Brits would be caught in Prevent’s crosshairs, provided the civil servants undertaking the training course actually followed its guidelines. According to recent polling by YouGov, immigration and asylum rank as the second-highest priority for voters, just behind the economy. And given that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which has built its platform largely around cutting migration, is still leading in the polls, it would appear as if a large portion of the British population is—as Prevent would see it—guilty of flirting with far-right extremism. 

Of course, in practice, Prevent is not going to be rounding up Reform supporters or politicians who advocate against mass migration—if not for any other reason than the organisation is terrible at doing its job. Prevent has an abysmal track record when it comes to actually preventing terrorist attacks. One of its most infamous and catastrophic failures has to be Axel Rudakubana, the teenager who killed three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, Merseyside, last year. Rudakubana had had multiple run-ins with Prevent, being referred on three separate occasions for making violent threats and taking an alarming interest in weapons, historic genocides, and school shootings. Ultimately, though, Prevent decided that he was not so much of a threat as to warrant further action. The fact that his surname had been spelled wrong in its database might have also played a role in allowing him to slip through the cracks. 

In fact, Prevent regularly misses opportunities to stop attacks and save lives. It failed to stop Islamist killer Ali Harbi Ali from murdering Conservative MP David Amess in 2021. Nor did Prevent deem Khairi Saadallah—a Libyan refugee who had been a child soldier in an Islamic militia—a high enough threat to investigate. In 2020, he stabbed three men in a park in Reading, Berkshire, at random. 

Meanwhile, the cases that Prevent does waste its time on are utterly baffling. A 12-year-old boy was once referred to the programme and interviewed by officers for saying he believed there were “only two genders.” His toy crossbow was seen as evidence that he had an unhealthy interest in weapons. In another shocking case, a 24-year-old autistic man, who was receiving almost round-the-clock care, was referred to Prevent by his social worker for looking at “offensive and anti-trans websites” for having an “interest in anime.” In perhaps the most insane example of Prevent’s pointless yet authoritarian overreach, an 11-year-old boy was referred after his teacher misheard his suggestion to “give alms to the oppressed” as “give arms to the oppressed.” 

Prevent seems to have particular issues when it comes to stopping Islamist terror attacks. In the last ten years, the deadliest terror attacks on British soil have been carried out by Islamist extremists. In 2017, Salman Abedi detonated a bomb in the lobby of the Manchester Arena after an Ariana Grande concert. The attack left 22 people dead, most of them children. Just a month later, three Islamists launched an attack on London Bridge, plowing into pedestrians with a van and then leaping out to stab at them with kitchen knives. Eight people died. Two of the attackers had previously been involved with Prevent. In stark contrast, the worst far-right terror attack in the last decade was the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016. While of course still tragic, there is clearly a huge disparity between where the most serious terror threats are coming from. 

Prevent is apparently incapable of acknowledging the fact that that threat comes from Islamism, not the so-called far-right. As William Shawcross pointed out in his 2023 Independent Review of Prevent, there is a significant inconsistency between the kinds of ideologies that Prevent pours its time and energy into, versus the ideologies that actually lead to terror attacks or investigations. According to Shawcross, a whopping 80% of the Counter Terrorism Police network’s live investigations are of an Islamist nature. Only 10% are extreme right-wing. By contrast, in 2021, Prevent saw just 16% of referrals relating to Islamist extremism, but 20% for right-wing extremism. 

Perhaps the only conclusion that can be drawn from Prevent’s astoundingly bad performance is that it does not really exist to stop terror at all. Rather, it is more about policing language and controlling the narrative. The Home Office, in response to the news that caring about immigration and integration is a potential indicator for terrorism, tried to claim otherwise. “Prevent is not about restricting debate or free speech,” it said, “but about protecting those susceptible to radicalisation.” 

If this were truly the case, then Prevent would focus on the real threat to national security. Our security apparatus would dedicate itself not to tackling the low-hanging fruit of primary-school children or those it can smear as right-wing extremists. It would instead be having a serious, and much more uncomfortable, conversation about how violent Islamism has been allowed to thrive in the UK. Until the state can recognise where the true danger comes from, it will never be able to keep Brits safe.