Now is not the time to weaken our defences against REAL terror

Trying to manage other people’s minds and opinions is a tricky business, and free societies have generally steered away from it for the past few centuries.

England’s greatest monarch, Elizabeth I, declared she would not ‘make windows into men’s souls’, during the era of ferocious religious disagreement between Catholics and Protestants. It remains one of the wisest things ever said by any political leader.

If we wish to diverge from this historic common sense, we need good reasons to do so. Many will argue that the terrorist threat, hideously displayed in the London bombings of July 7, 2005, provide that reason. 

Such merciless carnage cried out for strong measures to ensure that it was not repeated – even measures that weakened our long traditions of freedom of speech and thought.

New limits were placed on civil liberties at the same time, again with popular and cross-party support. And the Blair government, then in office, had widespread backing for its Prevent programme, designed to detect Islamist extremism before it had grown to full power, and to nip it in the bud wherever possible.

Police and others have engaged in attempts to ‘deradicalise’ potential future terrorists, a complex task whose success is rather difficult to judge. It is perhaps too soon to decide how successful it has been. The fear, in the Blair era, that we were entering a new age of widespread terror on our streets has – thank Heaven – so far not been wholly borne out.

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Some might say that the actions of Prevent may have contributed to this outcome, and to have saved substantial numbers of lives, in which case its existence is justified. Even so, there are still worrying incidents of apparent Islamist violence, and complacency would be foolish now or later.

Then, last year it emerged that Prevent had begun to turn its searchlight on a new target, supposed ‘far Right extremism’, a problem which has not remotely attained the importance of Islamist terror and cannot be clearly defined. 

A highly critical report by former Charity Commission boss William Shawcross urged a return to dealing mainly with the Islamist danger. This was far-sighted, as the events since the horrifying anti-Jewish pogrom by Hamas – a year ago tomorrow – have shown.

The pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests which have erupted since then, though largely legitimate expressions of free speech, have provided a new route for Islamist terrorists to exploit. The rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Britain in the last 12 months gives an indication of the problem.

So it is strange and perplexing that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper currently seeks to widen the Prevent remit to cover the growing incidence of woman-hating propaganda and actions among young males.

No doubt people such as ‘influencer’ Andrew Tate are spreading revolting ideas and thoughts among the young. We are repelled by Mr Tate and his anti-woman sentiments, as any civilised person must be. And the spread of such things is alarming and needs to be fought.

But there must be other methods of doing so which do not involve Prevent. It is not just that combating extreme misogyny would take up a huge part of Prevent’s resources and efforts, though it would. It is not just that this would be a very bad moment to weaken Prevent’s efforts against Islamist terror and its precursors. Though it would be. 

It is also that it is an entirely different task, better left to those who help to form opinions than to the forces of law and order.

Open debate may not protect us from the apostles of terror. But it will defeat Andrew Tate and those like him.