School governors told to ‘dismiss’ grooming gangs concerns

The number of referrals from the community as well as friends and family fell by 25 and 7 per cent respectively.
It would be interesting to know the number of referrals made by mosques and communities.

Except the child referred in that particular example was Muslim, and was probably referred for suspected Islamic extremism rather than far right.

Maybe due to the “Adolescence” drama being on TV? I think I read elsewhere that there was an increase in reports due to “incel” ideology.

It seems that 36% (3192) were for children between 11-15, I wonder what they are being reported for?

From Times today.
It's hard to unpack what the figures actually mean.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/f41d232d-27b7-426f-93b7-d02089091e5c?shareToken=7fbc72edb04747717456f9312350a3ea
The number of cases referred to the programme hit a record high of 8,778 in the year to March, a 27 per cent increase on the previous year, Home Office figures show.

Overall extreme right-wing concerns accounted for 21 per cent of referrals and Islamist extremism for 10 per cent. Sources said there had been a notable increase in the number of people being referred who had a fascination with US school shootings.

That’s exactly what the figures suggest.

Another generalised accusation designed to stop people talking, or reflect badly on those talking.

Care to specify exactly what you mean by ‘hate’ ?

Can you clarify what you mean by ‘the far right’ please?

as I think that's the fastest growing source of referrals.

Another interesting point .

As the vast majority of actual acts of terrorism in the last 20 years have been by Islamic extremists, and while Prevent has been operating I don’t think we’ve seen any actual ‘far right’ terrorist attacks since it’s in rotation in 2003, is there a chance that over zealous ‘referees’ with an agenda or Prevent workers with an agenda (we have repeatedly seen how important organisations can fall to an activist agenda) are over- egging the numbers?

It’s not hard to cause the ‘fastest rise in referrals’. You just do this:

An 11-year-old primary school pupil was referred to the government’s controversial counter-radicalisation Prevent programme after a teacher mistook the word “alms” for “arms” during a classroom discussion.
The boy’s teacher asked what pupils would do if they found themselves in possession of a lot of money. According to a legal challenge against the school lodged by the boy’s parents, he said he would “give alms to the oppressed”. The teacher interpreted this as “give arms to the oppressed” and made the Prevent referral.

And hey presto, fuel to the ‘right wing’ agenda and suddenly the right wing is conveniently the fastest growing threat and a huge deflection from the actual threat of actual Islamists who are the main ones actually killing people.

To many people are trusting these organisations to be honest.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/27/boy-11-referred-to-prevent-for-wanting-to-give-alms-to-the-oppressed

That’s very kind - you too.

I’ve given it all quite a bit of thought recently.

Yes I’m sure there was a lot of criticism, which means nothing except that there were dissenting views, as here, and I’ve already said that the government implemented many of his recommendations.

Meant to link the report, and hopefully if anyone interested they can take a look. Agree it’s a derail and the focus of this thread should be the governor training, but I do think it’s quite revealing.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-prevents-report-and-government-response/independent-review-of-prevent-accessible#executive-summary

The Shawcross report I keep banging on about gives lots of examples of how Prevent failed in cases of Islamist terror attacks. The main terror threat to the UK is not far right, that’s a particular form of agenda pushing which the left promotes. Shawcross felt that radicalised Islamists were referred to the programme at a very late stage, sometimes when it was too late for any effective intervention. “Far right” referrals have often been because someone has said something perceived as racist, when they are at a very early stage of radicalisation. Shawcross also felt the far left should be considered more.

from the report (my bold)

3.46 While the products related to Islamist terrorism focus on the most serious material relating to violent Islamist ideology, mostly Islamic State and al-Qa’ida, much of the material covering extreme right-wing falls well below the threshold for even non-violent extremism.
3.47 This material tends to deal with broader themes and often covers content that relates to narratives on social media. These products not only covered non-violent far right extremism, but also examples of centre-right debate, populism, and controversial or distasteful forms of right-leaning commentary and intolerance. Some of this material falls well short of the extremism threshold altogether.
3.48 I saw one RICU analysis product from 2020 on right-wing terrorist and extremist activity online which referenced books by mainstream British conservative commentators as “key cultural nationalist ideological texts”. The same document listed “key texts” for white nationalists as including historic works of the Western philosophic and literary canon.
3.49 A RICU analysis product from 2019, which discussed a cohort of social media users it termed “actively patriotic and proud”, listed a prominent Conservative politician and former member of the government as being among figures “associated with far-right sympathetic audiences, and Brexit”.
3.50 Another RICU product about far-right radicalisation online named a highly popular American podcast host, claiming that this individual had been described as a gateway to the far right. It was suggested that he had hosted a disproportionate number of influencers from the “far right of the political spectrum,” although no examples were provided.
3.51 I do not consider the above to be appropriate subjects for RICU analysis or Prevent’s attention, particularly as little care was made to clarify that these mainstream conservatives should not actually be considered part of the far right themselves. The analysis products in question did not present sufficient or convincing evidence that this material is relevant to countering terrorism or meeting Prevent’s objectives. Their inclusion in RICU’s output is liable to confuse practitioners about where they should focus efforts to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.
3.52 I have seen nothing to suggest that RICU has formally adopted an official policy of applying radically different standards to different ideologies. In practice, however, the bar for what RICU includes on Islamism looks to be relatively high, whereas the bar for what is included on extreme right-wing is comparably low.
3.53 This risks creating false equivalence in the minds of Prevent practitioners about the scale and nature of the threats from extreme right-wing and Islamism. That makes it more difficult to respond proportionately to the unique challenges of these two different ideologies. It also short-changes those, such as Muslim communities, who are threatened by extreme right-wing terrorism and deserve a robust response to this threat. Conflating the dangers posed by the extreme right-wing with the vote to leave the European Union and the views of mainstream Conservative politicians fails to help provide that response.
3.54 This inconsistency goes to the heart of the fundamental question of how Prevent should approach ideology as part of its objective of tackling radicalisation.
3.55 RICU’s analysis products convey the sense that for the extreme right-wing, non-violent trends and narratives are of crucial importance, but that for Islamism, it is largely only the terrorist ideology and the narratives of the most serious jihadist groups that are relevant.

I'm happy to agree to disagree.

Re Shawcross - there was a lot of criticism of the report at the time, as I recall, but it was my understanding that the recommendations were mostly accepted and implemented by the previous government.

Thank you for this, and I also appreciate the genuine engagement.

I'm sure it's true that accusations of racism are sometimes misplaced, perhaps because of misunderstandings or clumsy wording etc. I absolutely don't believe that people are racist simply for having concern about small boats/immigration/grooming gangs etc, but I do find that a lot of people tend to express such concerns in very racist ways.

You say that you don't think the majority of people in the country have suddenly become horrendously racist, and I do agree with that. I don't think that the majority of people are racist, but there is a growing minority who are, and they are incredibly vocal about it. Racism has massively increased in recent years - either because people have become more racist, or perhaps just because they feel more emboldened to show it. And when you repeatedly see the incredibly damaging impact that the massive increase in racism is having on the people that you care about, then of course you become less and less willing to tolerate it.

I agree that respectful dialogue on both sides, with genuine engagement and care over language, is what's needed. At the same time, I don't think we should shy away from saying when we think people have got things wrong.

Thank you for taking the time to engage.

No you don’t IMO understand it, but you’re not alone in that as I said. We’ll have to agree to disagree. The report I mentioned is a very interesting read, and the government agreed with Shawcross that the main terror threat (and therefore the main focus of the programme) was Islamist terrorism and there should be a “back to basics” approach taken focussing on ideological radicalisation, and took up many of Shawcross’s recommendations.

I totally agree with you and compiled the following statistics, when someone on another forum was claiming that the main threat to the UK was from the far right. Since 7/7/2005 (the London bombings) to 14/11/2021, there have been 94 people killed in the UK and 1987 people injured by Islamic terror attacks and 3 people killed by far right attackers. Many people think that Rotherham was the only place where Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs were operating, which is untrue, they were operating in the following cities and towns - Rochdale, Keighley, Leeds, Halifax, Aylesbury, Banbury, Bristol, Derby, Huddersfield, Manchester, Newcastle , Oxford, Peterborough, Blackburn, Telford and others. In each case, there were hundreds of young, predominately white girls being abused by thousands of mainly, Pakistani background Muslims. One particularly horrible case was the 15 year old Bradford girl, who had been raped and abused by Pakistani men since she was 13. She was then forced to marry her abuser in an Islamic ceremony aged 13. Her senior, male, Muslim social worker was present at the ceremony and had actually recommended that she stay with the man. He, Anwar Meah, is still working (as far as I know) for Bradford social services. He was investigated by the police at the time, but no further action was taken. How about - being complicit in an under age illegal marriage?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89ezepnj0jo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-48106927

And not only that it was “transphobia” but that it was either “hate crime” or a “non crime hate incident” just to put up “anti trans” women’s rights stickers. Islamophobia (and other things) can be used in the same way and I find that concerning.

I certainly understand the point of the programme. And it is based on an assessment of the level of threat, but that assessment is carried out at the level of the specific individuals referred I to the programme, rather than the perceived threat from specific ideologies. This seems like a sensible approach to me.

Absolutely. And what many people term as ‘racism’ is in many situations, just normal people attempting to have normal conversations about topics that concern them.

So it’s a bit like the way that claims that ‘transphobia’ was rampant were created by expanding the definition of transphobia to include ribbons tied to a fence, women’s rights stickers and calling a man a man.

Ditto Islamophobia to an extent. The definition in the Labour Party website is so wide it risks catching discussion of all sorts of serious issues. That may be deliberate.

Does the safeguarding training make no reference to Prevent? They usually do.

I don't disagree with that all concerns and allegations must be escalated to the DSL (or the LADO if appropriate). Any and all safeguarding training that I have attended has made this extremely clear. And if I had to bet on it, I'm pretty certain that the Goveror Hub training would have done the same in the section which was actually focusing on what to do about concerns or allegations that might arise.

The point of the scenario as it was used in this particular training was not to provide any guidance at all on how governors should or shouldn't respond to safeguarding concerns/allegations. It was to help governors understand the differences between misinformation and disinformation. As I have said, it was a stupid example that was predicated on a flawed premise, but it absolutely didn't tell governors that they should dismiss any concerns raised.

Indeed.

Our Prevent training at work is a separate session from safeguarding training. I'm in HE.

To be fair, all safeguarding training that I've done includes reference to Prevent. The Prevent specific training just goes into more depth because you can't generally cover everything adequately in a relatively short session.