The former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee had been Cameron’s closest adviser on counter-terrorism in opposition, but had found working in government as a minister in the Lords tough going. Far from being allowed to work to her strengths, she found herself occupying the more familiar role of Lords ministers: being the workhorse across every area of home office legislation. Despite the cordial exchange of resignation letters, she was plainly an ex-spook in a round hole. It raises yet again the question why the British system of government fails to adapt to anyone with experience or expertise in anything other than the grubby business of politics.
Cameron has shifted the ministerial responsibility for security and counterterrorism to James Brokenshire MP, the parliamentary under-secretary of state. Although he gets a seat with the big boys on the national security council he remains at the most junior of ministerial levels, about two or three grades up the evolutionary scale from pond life. It is hard to see this as anything other than a down-grading of counterterrorism and security in the government’s priorities.
Top of James Brokenshire’s red box is the review of the Prevent strategy, which Theresa May announced last year. Prevent is one of the four strands of the CONTEST strategy which Labour produced in the wake of the 7/7 bombings. It rests on the idea that no suicide bomber arrives at their decision to murder civilians in a vacuum. Every suicide bomber in Britain has had a background in Islamist political organisations and extremist groups, and been exposed to similar messages (what the experts call ‘the Al-Qaeda narrative’).
Therefore part of any strategy to tackle violent extremism should include tackling the places, publications and people who ferment hatred and twist young, zealous minds. The incoming government decided it wasn’t effective, and is now enjoying a right royal internal row about how to improve it. You can tell there’s a row going on by the indeterminable delays to the publication of the review. The announcement stated ‘The Home Secretary will report back on the findings of the Prevent review early next year.’ But ‘early next year’ has been and gone, and still no sign of a Prevent review.
It’s pretty obvious what’s going on. The liberal establishment is resisting the prime minister’s will. In his speech to an international counterterrorism and security conference in Munich in February, David Cameron set out his own convictions: that specifically Islamist (not Islamic) terrorism remains the gravest threat to our security, and not some diluted, amorphous sense of ‘extremism’. And second, that violent extremism is incubated within the ideology of non-violent extremism. Cameron argued that the prevailing view amongst many British officials, that non-violent extremists can be used as a bulwark against violent extremists, is dangerous nonsense. He said in his speech:
‘We have got to get to the root of the problem, and we need to be absolutely clear on where the origins of where these terrorist attacks lie. That is the existence of an ideology, Islamist extremism … Islamist extremism is a political ideology supported by a minority. At the furthest end are those who back terrorism to promote their ultimate goal: an entire Islamist realm, governed by an interpretation of Sharia. Move along the spectrum, and you find people who may reject violence, but who accept various parts of the extremist worldview, including real hostility towards Western democracy and liberal values.’
And later:
‘And to those who say these non-violent extremists are actually helping to keep young, vulnerable men away from violence, I say nonsense. Would you allow the far right groups a share of public funds if they promise to help you lure young white men away from fascist terrorism? Of course not.’
The prime minister’s Munich speech stands in stark contradiction to many in the police and home office, and a cottage industry of advisers, trainers and consultants, who believe funding the bad guys keeps them onside in the fight against the really bad guys.
Will Cameron prevail? He’s up against some pretty powerful forces inside the establishment. In August 2005 Tony Blair announced that the non-violent, extremist Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir would be proscribed. Blair immediately ran up against the legal establishment and Home Office bureaucracy. Two years later, in July 2007, David Cameron mocked the newly installed Gordon Brown at prime minister’s questions the failure to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. This prompted Brown’s famous response that he’d ‘only been in the job five days’.
The Conservative manifesto stated ‘A Conservative government will ban any organisations which advocate hate or the violent overthrow of our society, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir’ (not a pledge which made it into the coalition agreement) and the then-shadow home secretary Chris Grayling MP said in his speech to the Conservative party conference in 2009: ‘I will immediately ban Hizb ut-Tahrir’.
David Cameron was reminded of his tough talk this week by Alan Johnson. Hansard captures the words, but not the prime minister’s squirming discomfort:
‘Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab): On the subject of empty opposition, the Prime Minister castigated his predecessor for not proscribing the radical Islamist organisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir, when the previous Prime Minister had been in post for a week. The right hon. Gentleman has now been in post for a year. I would like to give him the opportunity to castigate himself.
‘The Prime Minister: It is very kind of the right hon. Gentleman to give me that opportunity. We are clear that we must target groups that promote extremism, not just violent extremism. We have proscribed one or two groups. I would like to see action taken against Hizb ut-Tahrir, and that review is under way. ‘
Cameron’s answer strongly points to the philosophical battle being fought out inside Whitehall, and that Cameron’s position remains unchanged since the Munich speech. It also suggests that Liberal Democrats are blocking the ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir, despite its hateful, twisted ideology, on ‘liberal’ grounds.
If the Prevent review, when it finally it comes, drips with appeasement and acquiescence, and fails to confront Islamist extremism head-on, we will know Cameron has failed.