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A negative view of Prevent 2 from Issan Ghazni
No comments on A negative view of Prevent 2 from Issan GhazniWhen the Government launched its revised version of the Prevent counter-extremism strategy a few weeks ago my take on it was that it was essentially a fudge. There is a very real division within Government about how to approach these issues. There is the liberal approach most clearly articulated by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg when he made his Luton speech. Then there is the populist Tory approach that Prime Minister David Cameron was…
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Prevent 2.0 means money for Luton – but who is winning the argument within Government about the meaning of integration?
Yesterday the Home Secretary Theresa May announced the conclusions of the review of the Government’s counter-radicalisation strategy designed to tackle home grown terrorism and violent extremism, known as Prevent, by the independent reviewer of anti-terrorist laws Lord Carlile of Berriew. Prevent was set up in 2007 and proved to be controversial. Both from many members of Britain’s Muslim community who felt it unfairly targeted them and from others who saw the policy as being confused…
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Reactions to Nick Clegg’s speech on multiculturalism
Most of the media coverage of Nick Clegg’s speech on multiculturalism in Luton last week, which I blogged about here, has focused on the differences with David Cameron’s speech on the same subject a month ago. They variously describe it as a break or split within the coalition, or Clegg “taking on” or distancing himself from Cameron, and The Sun, in a typically restrained manner, talks of a “race war” between the two men. BBC…
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Cameron is wrong: multiculturalism has worked
Last Saturday wasn’t a particularly pleasant day for me for more than one reason. At the same time as I was witnessing how the people of Luton had been excluded from their own town centre by the EDL, David Cameron was making a speech in Munich that was reported as declaring that “multiculturalism had failed”. At the time I felt, as did a number of other people I spoke to, that by making this speech…
