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Andrew Tate is not a terrorist The UK's Prevent Strategy has lost its purpose

One insider referred to the “Andrew Tate-ification of counterterrorism” (Andrew Tate)

One insider referred to the “Andrew Tate-ification of counterterrorism” (Andrew Tate)


February 14, 2023   5 mins

In 2020, I attended a meeting with various professionals and volunteers in Nairobi to discuss the recruitment of Kenyans by al-Shabaab, the formidable al-Qaeda affiliate across the border in Somalia. Midway through the presentations by assorted Europeans, the room began to grow restless. The Kenyan contingent made up of community workers and volunteers asked where, in all the models of radicalisation being discussed, was the individual agency of the terrorist?

Many of them had travelled to the capital from the coastal towns where al-Shabaab was most active, and where all the structural “push” factors one could imagine are present: poverty, boredom, marginalisation, corruption — and extrajudicial killings. Perhaps that’s what enabled them to diagnose one of the central shortcomings of the policies generally known as Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), of which Britain’s Prevent Strategy is a part. In his independent review of Prevent, published last week, William Shawcross came to the same conclusion: the overemphasis on vulnerability in the process of radicalisation strips individuals of their agency, obscures reality and sucks the politics out of political violence.

This framing is inadvertently written into the policy from its birth in 2011: according to Prevent’s foreword, one of its core objectives is to “prevent people from being drawn into terrorism” (emphasis mine). In this model, the individual is a passive participant in their own descent into terrorism, sometimes manipulated by mysterious online recruiters or pushed by socioeconomic circumstances beyond their control. Over time, the strategy moved into more and more safeguarding settings, and this notion evolved further. As one practitioner told me: “radicalisation is just another form of grooming”.

Such thinking has seeped into broader counterterrorism discourse, but perhaps worst of all it has allowed now-stranded jihadists in Syria to play back Western tropes for domestic consumption. In their versions of events, they were groomed, manipulated or brainwashed into joining Isis, just as they were only ever cooks or engineers in the Caliphate. It’s “only following orders”, updated for the therapy era. The type of people Prevent interacts with has helped to crystallise this notion. No doubt many of those referred to Prevent have various sources of instability in their lives, but this should not be surprising for a policy which relies on local authority services such as mental healthcare as some of its main vectors of delivery. Drawing conclusions about radicalisation based on Prevent referrals and interventions tells us about the type of people referred to Prevent, not necessarily those joining terrorist movements.

Likewise for the increasing concern over the radicalisation risk to children and young people, particularly online. Of course children make up large numbers of referrals for a strategy which is a legal duty for schools. But the involvement of children in political violence is exceptionally rare: the majority of Isis recruits were in their 20s (many much older), and most terror attacks in Western countries to further a racist worldview are being perpetrated by, as Naama Kates puts it, “grown-ass men”.

Prevent may well be doing a fine job of diverting genuinely vulnerable people away from extremism, but it should be just one part of the strategy’s function. What of the people unlikely to appear on the radar of local services — those who are stable and confident enough in their convictions to justify violence? The man considering killing a human being for eternal reward or the survival of his race is not simply misled or a walking checklist of needs and vulnerabilities; he has never been more assured. It’s not clear Prevent has an answer.

Another concern identified by the review has proven the most controversial — and already the most mischaracterised. Shawcross found that there is a disproportionate focus on the far-Right, and that while Islamist extremism is defined so narrowly as to only take in the likes of Isis, far-Right extremism is defined so loosely as to sometimes include Brexit, populism and garden-variety conservatism. To explain this, it’s necessary to describe the Prevent sector as a whole, which extends well beyond the civil servants, local coordinators or police officers it employs. It includes Prevent-funded civil society organisations, academic centres, NGOs and think tanks (one of which I belong to). Not all of them have a formal connection to Prevent, but all of them help to shape and guide the discourse on extremism and terror. And where the discourse goes, policy praxis follows.

It’s easy for a headline to blame “woke civil servants” for not wanting to talk about Islamist extremism, but the reality is: delivery is bent out of shape by parts of the Prevent sector which have nothing to do with government at all. These are the institutions which churn out paper after paper on the video game-extremism nexus or the trauma of their own work, but which are deafeningly silent when a schoolteacher is decapitated across the Channel and another is forced into hiding closer to home. Some of the organisations which influence thinking are based in North America, which has an entirely different threat picture, but the online discourse flattens this distinction. The effect is clear in Shawcross’s observation that, inside Prevent, resources are distributed concerning organisations with no actual presence in Britain.

Those delivering Prevent are also subject to external pressures which help pull the strategy “out of kilter” with Britain’s counterterrorism apparatus, as one senior official put it. On one school visit, I was anxiously informed by the concerned headteacher that some of his students’ parents are Daily Mail readers. I have seen third-sector organisations show slides of Mail headlines immediately after Dabiq — Islamic State’s blood-soaked propaganda rag. Others I worked with had slides counted by audiences to ensure equal time was given to the EDL as to ISIS. This was in 2014-15 when hundreds of Brits were travelling to the Caliphate, and in parts of London with no far-Right presence whatsoever. These are the external pressures, but in other cases the call is coming from inside the house, such as the suspicion and accusations identified by Shawcross against those who focus or specialise on Islamism. I’ve seen this for myself, and it’s not clear the strategy can ever function properly while this persists.

Given these pressures, it is not hard to see why some will opt for the easy life or go along with the mantra that the far-Right and jihadists are simply two sides of the same coin. They are of course worthy of a response, but the street hooligans of Britain First or the EDL (let alone the Daily Mail) simply do not exist in the same tactical or moral universe as the present-day génocidaires of Isis — in that they are not orchestrating the mass killing of civilians or exterminating minorities in the Middle East. Since my own experiences some years ago, this trend of equivalence has accelerated and entirely new categories of extremism have come into the Prevent sector’s purview, in what one insider described as the “Andrew Tate-ification of counterterrorism”. Any strategy which concerns itself as much with the EDL as with Isis is probably suffering a lack of conceptual clarity, but any strategy which concerns itself as much with adolescents watching Andrew Tate’s videos as Anwar al-Awlaki’s is probably so broad as to be rendered meaningless.

It means, for instance, that in the past week, violent demonstrations in Knowsley have been used to discredit the Shawcross review and its alleged dismissal of the far-Right threat. Having slugged through all 188 pages, I can confirm no such dismissal is made. In fact, this narrative rather makes the review’s point: that there is a clear difference between unrest — even law-breaking and violent unrest — and the bombing of children at a pop concert or the assassination of an MP. After all, if there is no such distinction, then to remain ideologically fair, Prevent must consider the frequent law-breaking and unrest perpetrated by Left-wing environmentalists. But it largely doesn’t, and nor do I think it should.

While some of the findings of the review will be shocking to many on the outside, the actual demands made of those delivering Prevent are hardly earth-shattering. In fact, amid years of controversy, the review is potentially a lifeline. Shawcross’s only demand is that it returns to its core purpose: preventing the next Thomas Mair or Salman Abedi, not the next online shitposter or Andrew Tate.


Liam Duffy is a researcher, speaker and trainer in counter-terrorism based in London.

LiamSD12

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Nell Clover
Nell Clover
1 year ago

Woman can now mean man.
Science can now mean conformist dogma.
Empirical evidence can now mean wonky computer model.
Mostly peaceful protest can now mean arsonist riot.
Violence can now mean hurty words.
Silence can now mean violence.
Religion of peace can now mean death cult.
Equity can now mean discrimination based on immutable characteristics.
And terrorist can now mean anyone who has a dissenting thought.

The pattern is clear. When reality conflicts with progressive beliefs, the progressive chooses to redefine words. And if that doesn’t work, they simply categorise words as problematic and coerce others to stop using them. We are being robbed of our ability to disagree and the range of thought is being diminished.

Last edited 1 year ago by Nell Clover
Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
1 year ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

My personal favorite:
Freedom means do what we say or else you are an evil authoritarian.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” 
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” 
And now we add “Submission is safety” to the original manual.

Jim M
Jim M
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

You forgot: “Diversity is strength.”

Jim M
Jim M
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

You forgot: “Diversity is strength.”

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

Nice post

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
1 year ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

My personal favorite:
Freedom means do what we say or else you are an evil authoritarian.

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” 
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” 
And now we add “Submission is safety” to the original manual.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

Nice post

Nell Clover
Nell Clover
1 year ago

Woman can now mean man.
Science can now mean conformist dogma.
Empirical evidence can now mean wonky computer model.
Mostly peaceful protest can now mean arsonist riot.
Violence can now mean hurty words.
Silence can now mean violence.
Religion of peace can now mean death cult.
Equity can now mean discrimination based on immutable characteristics.
And terrorist can now mean anyone who has a dissenting thought.

The pattern is clear. When reality conflicts with progressive beliefs, the progressive chooses to redefine words. And if that doesn’t work, they simply categorise words as problematic and coerce others to stop using them. We are being robbed of our ability to disagree and the range of thought is being diminished.

Last edited 1 year ago by Nell Clover
Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

“Shawcross’s only demand is that it returns to its core purpose: preventing the next Thomas Mair or Salman Abedi, not the next online shitposter or Andrew Tate”
Unfortunately, in so far as Prevent relies on the input of those whose ideological beliefs oblige them to look away from the individuals who present a real threat and instead seek to present a false equivalence between them and those who they ideologically disapprove of they will be unable to focus their energy on combatting the real threat.
Instead they will waste their time and concern on the millions who read the Daily Mail and the like.

Douglas McNeish
Douglas McNeish
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

…and taxpayer’s money advancing their ideological mission.

Douglas McNeish
Douglas McNeish
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

…and taxpayer’s money advancing their ideological mission.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago

“Shawcross’s only demand is that it returns to its core purpose: preventing the next Thomas Mair or Salman Abedi, not the next online shitposter or Andrew Tate”
Unfortunately, in so far as Prevent relies on the input of those whose ideological beliefs oblige them to look away from the individuals who present a real threat and instead seek to present a false equivalence between them and those who they ideologically disapprove of they will be unable to focus their energy on combatting the real threat.
Instead they will waste their time and concern on the millions who read the Daily Mail and the like.

John Dellingby
John Dellingby
1 year ago

After reading this (as well as other analysis of Prevent), it is pretty galling to claim that Prevent has an Islamophobia problem when most of the people who work under it try to avoid mentioning Islam or any of its more hardline tendencies as motivations for violent attacks. Yet they’re happy to look anywhere else it seems.

This shows just how far the modern left has gone off the rails, and it’s made worse by the fact they run all these groups and organisations. I mean, associating things like Brexit or having parents who read the Daily Mail as being red flags for right wing extremism is astounding when the former was voted for by a majority of the electorate and the latter is the second most popular newspaper in Britain. Heaven offend these people speak to most ordinary folk outside their social circles after a few drinks, they’ll faint when some of the views get expressed.

I also find it amusing in a way how systems like Prevent and the people who work for them treat Islamists and far right extremists. The former are more or less mollycoddled and treated as victims having been groomed by people who aren’t “real Muslims” and such. The latter however are often lambasted, condemned for all time as racist bigots, “must have got it from home”, need to be bombarded by ED&I courses and literature etc. I remember seeing one interactive example in recent years to try and counter far right extremism on social media where you were given a choice of sharing and liking a friends happy clappy, “we love everyone”’post or a stand up for Britain post or some such. If you select the latter this somehow escalates almost immediately into meeting the admin of that group for drinks which is laughable. Safe to say, these people don’t have a clue.

Sorry for the rant.

John Dellingby
John Dellingby
1 year ago

After reading this (as well as other analysis of Prevent), it is pretty galling to claim that Prevent has an Islamophobia problem when most of the people who work under it try to avoid mentioning Islam or any of its more hardline tendencies as motivations for violent attacks. Yet they’re happy to look anywhere else it seems.

This shows just how far the modern left has gone off the rails, and it’s made worse by the fact they run all these groups and organisations. I mean, associating things like Brexit or having parents who read the Daily Mail as being red flags for right wing extremism is astounding when the former was voted for by a majority of the electorate and the latter is the second most popular newspaper in Britain. Heaven offend these people speak to most ordinary folk outside their social circles after a few drinks, they’ll faint when some of the views get expressed.

I also find it amusing in a way how systems like Prevent and the people who work for them treat Islamists and far right extremists. The former are more or less mollycoddled and treated as victims having been groomed by people who aren’t “real Muslims” and such. The latter however are often lambasted, condemned for all time as racist bigots, “must have got it from home”, need to be bombarded by ED&I courses and literature etc. I remember seeing one interactive example in recent years to try and counter far right extremism on social media where you were given a choice of sharing and liking a friends happy clappy, “we love everyone”’post or a stand up for Britain post or some such. If you select the latter this somehow escalates almost immediately into meeting the admin of that group for drinks which is laughable. Safe to say, these people don’t have a clue.

Sorry for the rant.

John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

It’s obviously moronic and frustrating, but the reality is simply this: if you were a Prevent employee on £25k a year and you had the choice of following up on a bunch of harmless young lads who want to be like Andrew Tate and will run to their mummies as soon as someone tells them they can’t, or a bunch of machete-wielding lunatics who think British people are scum who deserve to die for refusing to revere the Prophet, which would you choose?

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
John Riordan
John Riordan
1 year ago

It’s obviously moronic and frustrating, but the reality is simply this: if you were a Prevent employee on £25k a year and you had the choice of following up on a bunch of harmless young lads who want to be like Andrew Tate and will run to their mummies as soon as someone tells them they can’t, or a bunch of machete-wielding lunatics who think British people are scum who deserve to die for refusing to revere the Prophet, which would you choose?

Last edited 1 year ago by John Riordan
Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

I have read the Shawcross report in full. Prevent is hopelessly blinkered and compromised – infested with the sort of people who are terrified of being thought Islamophobic and think reading the Daily Mail is dangerous.
For me, the organisation’s silence over the Batley teacher still in hiding and its failure to condemn the thugs who drove him out (and the head teacher who failed to support him) was the last straw. The organisation’s funding should be withdrawn and the money diverted to police undercover operations.
Trigger warning: My proposals will mean keeping very close tabs on certain Imams, including some of those who are given access to prisons. If you have been harmed by this post you may find it helpful to lie down in a dark room for half an hour.

Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

I have read the Shawcross report in full. Prevent is hopelessly blinkered and compromised – infested with the sort of people who are terrified of being thought Islamophobic and think reading the Daily Mail is dangerous.
For me, the organisation’s silence over the Batley teacher still in hiding and its failure to condemn the thugs who drove him out (and the head teacher who failed to support him) was the last straw. The organisation’s funding should be withdrawn and the money diverted to police undercover operations.
Trigger warning: My proposals will mean keeping very close tabs on certain Imams, including some of those who are given access to prisons. If you have been harmed by this post you may find it helpful to lie down in a dark room for half an hour.

Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
1 year ago

The infuriating tragedy of moderate conservative do-gooders like the author is how stupidly naive they are. The efforts against Andrew Tate are not “misguided”.
The reality is that the left stole the funding and public support of anti-terrorist program and steered them towards left-wing political activism.
Jihadi allies deflect anti-terrorist funding and use it to fund political repression against conservative people. They are nto miguided or idiots, they are just vile ennemies to be fought mercilessly.

Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
1 year ago

The infuriating tragedy of moderate conservative do-gooders like the author is how stupidly naive they are. The efforts against Andrew Tate are not “misguided”.
The reality is that the left stole the funding and public support of anti-terrorist program and steered them towards left-wing political activism.
Jihadi allies deflect anti-terrorist funding and use it to fund political repression against conservative people. They are nto miguided or idiots, they are just vile ennemies to be fought mercilessly.

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
1 year ago

Bug or feature?

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
1 year ago

Bug or feature?

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

Does no-one at Prevent want to admit things which are well-known in the Islamic world? Islam is profoundly intolerant and its sequestration of women, within the context of a polygamous society in which there is statistically an imbalance of males, who are taught from infancy that they are inherently superior results in a permanent supply of low-status men willing to commit violence against an external society they have no stake in and no tolerance for, given a degree of encouragement.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
1 year ago

Does no-one at Prevent want to admit things which are well-known in the Islamic world? Islam is profoundly intolerant and its sequestration of women, within the context of a polygamous society in which there is statistically an imbalance of males, who are taught from infancy that they are inherently superior results in a permanent supply of low-status men willing to commit violence against an external society they have no stake in and no tolerance for, given a degree of encouragement.

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago

I wonder if this situation simply reflects the fact that it would be easier for Prevent staff to sit at home on the sofa reading Twitter, than do any real investigation.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Barton
Derek Smith
Derek Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

Who’s to say that isn’t what they actually do?

Derek Smith
Derek Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Barton

Who’s to say that isn’t what they actually do?

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
1 year ago

I wonder if this situation simply reflects the fact that it would be easier for Prevent staff to sit at home on the sofa reading Twitter, than do any real investigation.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ian Barton
Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
1 year ago

An interesting article and further evidence of how far down the rabbit hole we are.

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
1 year ago

An interesting article and further evidence of how far down the rabbit hole we are.

Douglas McNeish
Douglas McNeish
1 year ago

“to remain ideologically fair” does not seem to be a concern for Prevent, any more than it has for most of the media who define the meaning of words such as “terror.” The concept has been so ideologically geared up, that it applies to anyone bold enough to challenge radical leftist ideology, making its adherents feel “unsafe.”
Parents protesting children’s story hour by drag queens at the Tate were characterized by even the Telegraph as “right wing.”

Whatever the presumed mission of Prevent, it has, like so many government initiatives, been coopted by those intent on a radical transformation of society, and see it as a vehicle for weakening and targeting resistance.

Douglas McNeish
Douglas McNeish
1 year ago

“to remain ideologically fair” does not seem to be a concern for Prevent, any more than it has for most of the media who define the meaning of words such as “terror.” The concept has been so ideologically geared up, that it applies to anyone bold enough to challenge radical leftist ideology, making its adherents feel “unsafe.”
Parents protesting children’s story hour by drag queens at the Tate were characterized by even the Telegraph as “right wing.”

Whatever the presumed mission of Prevent, it has, like so many government initiatives, been coopted by those intent on a radical transformation of society, and see it as a vehicle for weakening and targeting resistance.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

I’m only surprised that he hasn’t been awarded a ToileTory ” Leife peerij”…. just the sort of self publicity obsessed oik that they love!

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

I’m only surprised that he hasn’t been awarded a ToileTory ” Leife peerij”…. just the sort of self publicity obsessed oik that they love!

Jonny Stud
Jonny Stud
1 year ago

I’ve always been surprised that we are constantly warned about the threat of the ‘far right’……and yet the evidence suggests they don’t really do a lot. Whilst the extinction rebellion types cause disruption and criminal damage with no focus on them, and jihadists murder MP’s and Priests in the street. Still, best throw more money at preventing all those neo-nazi’s throwing eggs and flour down the town hall, nothing to see here

Jonny Stud
Jonny Stud
1 year ago

I’ve always been surprised that we are constantly warned about the threat of the ‘far right’……and yet the evidence suggests they don’t really do a lot. Whilst the extinction rebellion types cause disruption and criminal damage with no focus on them, and jihadists murder MP’s and Priests in the street. Still, best throw more money at preventing all those neo-nazi’s throwing eggs and flour down the town hall, nothing to see here

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

True, but he is a dickhead though.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

True, but he is a dickhead though.

Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
1 year ago

Last edited 1 year ago by Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
1 year ago

Last edited 1 year ago by Jonathan Nash