UK: Mainstream Beliefs Meet the Terror Watchlist

By now, if you believe Britain has taken leave of its senses, you’re not alone. The government has decided that worrying about immigration or caring about British culture might make you a terrorist.

This gem of bureaucratic genius comes courtesy of the “Prevent” program, that once well-meaning initiative designed to stop actual terrorism, like bomb plots and people with a fondness for Kalashnikovs, now apparently more concerned with sniffing out your aunt’s Facebook posts about British bulldogs and Yorkshire pudding.

Prevent, for those lucky enough not to be familiar, is the UK’s flagship anti-extremism strategy. It was born in the post-9/11 panic and was originally tasked with steering vulnerable individuals away from radicalization.

What started as a good-faith attempt to stop kids from being lured into jihadist cults has since mutated into something far less noble: a state-sponsored snooping operation that now treats the phrase “too much immigration” like it’s a secret handshake for neo-Nazis.

The smoking gun is a government-hosted training module advising public sector workers, nurses, teachers, librarians, and probably the guy who does your recycling collection, that “cultural nationalism” should be seen as a potential marker for extreme right-wing terrorism.

According to this new definition, if you express concern that British towns are changing faster than a TikTok trend, you might not just be a grumbler, you could be a pre-terrorist. Somewhere, Orwell is weeping into his gin.

This bureaucratic meltdown is, unsurprisingly, setting off klaxons among those who still cling to the quaint notion of free speech. According to the Telegraph, Lord Young, of the Free Speech Union, has penned a letter to the Home Secretary that might as well have been written in block capitals and underlined in red ink. He warned that the term “cultural nationalism” is so fuzzy it could apply to “politicians across the mainstream political spectrum.”

And he’s absolutely right. The line between criminal intent and awkward dinner conversation is vanishing.

We’ve now got a scenario where a guy like former government minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg can be flagged as an extremist for saying something any newspaper in 2003 would’ve put on page one without blinking.

But the real horror show here isn’t even the nonsense definitions. It’s what happens after someone gets flagged. Prevent doesn’t simply have a peek at your file and move along. It keeps your name in its sprawling, dystopian database for six years.

And who gets to see this little dossier of shame? Intelligence agencies, of course. The police. And, bizarrely, tax authorities.

The result is a system where absolutely no crime needs to be committed, no law needs to be broken. Merely being politically incorrect is enough. Like the 24-year-old autistic man who got referred for watching edgy comedy and browsing the wrong corners of the internet. No evidence of extremism. No plans to do anything remotely illegal. But into the database, he went, like a suspect in a crime that hasn’t been invented yet.

It’s not just columnists and freedom-lovers who are worried. Even people who used to run the counter-extremism efforts are now saying, “Hang on, folks, this has gone completely mental.”

Professor Ian Acheson, one of the people who advised the Home Office on extremism, has warned that we’re now criminalizing beliefs. “We are now beginning to see the consequences of a referral mechanism built on training like this,” he said, “which skews away from suspicion by conduct to the mere possession of beliefs that are perfectly legitimate.”

Sir William Shawcross, the man who used to review Prevent’s operations, found that even former Cabinet ministers were being swept up in the net, thanks to their views on, you guessed it, immigration and national identity. If even the Tory old guard are being branded extremists, you really have to wonder who’s not on this list.

His review was brutal. Prevent was inconsistent, wasteful, and politically biased. He called for ideological neutrality and actual standards, both of which, in government circles, are treated like exotic endangered species.

Naturally, the Home Office isn’t backing down. According to them, Prevent is “not about restricting debate or free speech.” Which is sort of like saying speed cameras aren’t about catching drivers.

They’re just there. Watching.

But as the gap widens between what Prevent claims to be and what it actually does, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to believe it’s just a case of mission creep. At best, it’s institutional incompetence dressed up as concern. At worst, it’s state ideology masquerading as national security.

So if you’re reading this and thinking this sounds a bit crazy, congratulations. You may already be on a list.

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