In a speech to the Chamber of Commerce in Manchester in early June, Andy Burnham called for a cross-party review of the Prevent strategy and said his personal view was that the policy should be discarded saying, “I do feel that the brand is so toxic now that I think it’s got to go”.
On 23 June 2016, the Muslim Council of Britain wrote to the Rt Hon. Andy Burnham to express thanks and appreciation for his statement calling for the discarding of Prevent.
The full text of the letter can be seen below:
Dear Rt. Hon. Andy Burnham,
I am writing to express my gratitude on behalf of the Muslim Council of Britain for your frank, robust and important intervention at the Chamber of Commerce in Manchester on the government’s strategy on countering terrorism.
In your speech, you called for a cross-party review of the Prevent strategy, publicised your personal view that the policy should be discarded and announced your intention to oppose the government’s proposed Counter-Extremism Bill on behalf of the Labour party. Furthermore, you recognised the feeling amongst Muslim communities across the country, that the government’s approach is highly discriminatory. This position culminates a number of important interventions you have made on this topic over the past few months.
Your intervention demonstrates an understanding of many of the concerns of Muslim communities across the country and reflects the conversations we had when we met on Wednesday 9 December, and the round table briefing we put together for you on Wednesday 2 March.
You may be aware that we organised a unique, broad and diverse coalition of leading free speech advocates, civil liberties groups, security experts, journalists and faith groups, united in their concerns with the proposed Counter-Extremism Bill as highlighted in the Queen’s speech, demonstrating how widely these concerns are shared. This was reported widely, including in the Observer (see here) – and to see the full statement, see our website (here).
We have continued our conversations with Lyn Brown, and if there are any specific ways that we can support you in this field, more broadly on your work within Home Affairs, or related to some of the other topics we previously discussed, such as, for example, providing a detailed briefing and round table on Islamophobia, please let us know.
Once again, we would like to express our appreciation for your ongoing work and engagement with Muslim communities across the UK.
Thank you,
Yours
Dr. Shuja Shafi
Secretary General
Muslim Council of Britain
[Ends]
See also,
Prevent Debate
Miqdaad Versi, Assistant Secretary General at the Bindmans and UCL debate on ‘The Prevent Guidance: Preventing extremism or promoting prejudice?‘on 20th June 2016.
Chaired by David Anderson QC (Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation), the debate examined whether the policy is too broad in defining extremism – whether Prevent is effective in stopping ‘radicalisation’ or does it simply alienate the very communities it hopes to engage? And are the curbs on our liberties justified?
The panel included, Anjum Khan (Director, Collaborative Ventures); Malia Bouattia (President-elect, National Union of Students) and Simon Cole (National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on Prevent).