We're all far-right now
At least, according to Prevent
The news broke yesterday in The Telegraph that Prevent - the government programme with the goal of “stopping people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism” - has issued new guidance advising that “concern about mass migration is a “terrorist ideology” that requires intervention”.
This is specifically in relation to what Prevent calls “cultural nationalism”, (very) loosely defined as “a conviction that “Western culture is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups”.”
No doubt Prevent will now be inundated with complaints about nearly 85% of the country who want immigration to be below its current levels. Polling only tells half the story - the numbers - about an issue, and without exhaustive qualitative data about the opinions of respondents, it’s nearly impossible to tell if the vast majority of Brits object to mass immigration because it will lead to “Western culture” being “threatened”. At the very least though, we know that most Brits do not want the current levels of mass migration.
Now I personally don’t believe there is such a thing as “Western culture” - I think culture is something that fosters the creation, and perpetuates the existence of, a people, and I do not consider the entire West to be a single people. This does not mean I’m right, of course - merely far-right, apparently - but I do think there is such a thing as Western civilisation.
I’ve tried to make this argument before, but to summarise, the rules governing the relation between the citizen and the state, as well as the aesthetic and spiritual sources of the identity of those stats, bear similarities across the Western world, but the actual substance of those rules and how they are practiced is an issue of culture, and “fills in the gaps” between them.
Nevertheless, this is not the first time Prevent has come under fire for a ridiculously expansive list of “warning signs” of radicalisation. In 2019, Prevent’s “Research Information and Communications Unit” examined social media users they describe as “actively patriotic and proud”. As Douglas Murray wrote, “there were warning signs if people absorbed information or opinions from ‘pro-Brexit and centre-right commentators’” which included Jacob Rees-Mogg (then an MP), as well as himself.
Thereafter, Prevent managed to include the excellent Great British Railway Journeys by Michael Portillo in such warning signs. Would the magnificently eccentric Francis Bourgeois be considered a right-wing loon for standing on platforms and marvelling at the different locomotives that pass-by?
Prevent’s strategy risks branding most, if not all, of the country as “at risk of radicalisation”, which falls deeply into a realm of what we call securitisation.
Despite the title of this little post, we should not make the mistake of thinking that Prevent has egregiously targeted the right-wing only (or even that objections to mass migration are the reserve of the right - consider Denmark’s left-wing government’s anti-mass migration policies). Just as equally, the left has come under the baleful eye of Prevent, with beliefs such as “socialism, communism, anti-fascism” to be causes for concern. They might well be, but are they likely to lead to “radicalisation”?
Considering that I used to teach at universities, and we were (oddly, I must say) tasked with spotting “signs of radicalisation” amongst our students, I’m pretty sure half of our political theory reading lists would land them on a watchlist - The Communist Manifesto, The Second Sex, Essays on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions - while encouraging students to discuss, and be honest about their thoughts on, issues of serious social and political importance, almost felt like a trap.
What if one of my students genuinely, and with conviction, believed the capitalist system should be torn down? Do I refer her to Prevent, or to the local Labour Party association? If a student tells me that integration is an absolute necessity in the contexts of migration, mass or otherwise, do I tell them to read Enoch Powell, or get on the blower to the police?
Prevent’s strategy risks branding most, if not all, of the country as “at risk of radicalisation”, which falls deeply into a realm of what we call securitisation - the socio-political governing strategy of seeing risk-management as the primary principle of government. Such a strategy enters the realm of seeing people as risks, and if a person is a risk, then any measure is necessary to mitigate that risk. Or person.