Labour’s proposals to combat the ‘radicalisation’ of young men at the hands of online influencers like Andrew Tate by categorising misogyny as extremism risks becoming a form of thought policing.
It follows the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s announcement last month of a new approach to fighting extremism that will crack down on people pushing what she describes as “harmful and hateful beliefs”, including “extreme misogyny”.
News that this category of speech and expression may soon be added to the rapidly expanding list of “extremist” beliefs of “concern” to the government comes amid claims that online influencers like Andrew Tate – the former kickboxer and self-proclaimed “misogynist” who rose to global fame after appearing on Big Brother in 2016 – are ‘radicalising’ teenage boys online.
Civil liberties campaign groups have long argued that the legal duty imposed on teaching staff by the Prevent programme to report ‘suspicions’ about students is incompatible with freedom of expression. Staff on the ground have also expressed confusion about whether there is a minimum threshold warranting a Prevent referral.
Despite this, Ms Cooper’s proposals will effectively expand the Prevent duty, requiring teachers to be on the lookout for any pupils exhibiting behaviour that falls under the vague and potentially capacious heading of “extreme misogyny”.
One obvious risk is that woke teachers will interpret “extreme misogyny” in a highly subjective way, with teenage boys who engage in laddish banter at risk of being referred to Prevent as potential terrorists. Even comments about a “woman’s place being in the kitchen” could be enough to spark a referral to the unit, according to Prevent sources quoted in the Mail on Sunday.
Lord Carlile of Berriew, the former Independent Reviewer of Counter-Terror Legislation, has also warned that “Prevent is not there for every expression of a thought that might be misogynistic”. It is, he said, a “counter-terrorism measure, not a counter-extremism measure, so if cases are going to be referred to Prevent, they have to be of quite a high level”.
Last year, the government-commissioned Independent Review of Prevent by Sir William Shawcross accused Prevent of a “loss of focus” and warned the public were increasingly at risk because the body had become distracted by far-Right and mental health cases rather than concentrating on Islamists.
According to Sir William’s report: “Prevent takes an expansive approach to the Extreme Right-Wing, capturing a variety of influences that, at times, has been so broad it has included mildly controversial or provocative forms of mainstream, right-wing leaning commentary that have no meaningful connection to terrorism or radicalisation.”
Security officials have also previously expressed fears that Prevent’s mission has become confused, sometimes under political pressure, and moved towards trying to capture those with unpopular extremist views who are not committing a crime.
Prevent has been subject to ‘mission creep’ for many years, regularly capturing in its dragnet people who happen to hold and express perfectly lawful views that some people in society find ‘triggering’.
In total, there were 6,817 Prevent referrals in 2022-23, with the highest proportion of referrals classified under the broad category of “vulnerability present but no ideology of counter-terrorism risk”, at 37 per cent, followed by extreme Right-wing at 19 per cent and Islamist extremism at 11 per cent.
At the FSU, we know of Christians who have been referred to Prevent simply because they don’t believe in gay marriage – a minority view, to be sure, but it remains the right of people for religious or other reasons to say that marriage is between a man or a woman.
Earlier this year, a 12 year-old schoolboy from Northumbria was investigated by counter-extremism officers after he declared there “are only two genders” and produced a YouTube video in which he stated: “There’s no such thing as non-binary.”
In a recent report, Amnesty International accused Prevent of encouraging a culture of “thought policing”, noting that: “The breadth of discretion permitted in Prevent decision-making has resulted in a significant risk of discrimination,” and “[a] disproportionate number of neurodiverse people and children also feature in Prevent referrals.”
One case cited by Amnesty is that of Connor, a 24-year-old autistic man who was referred to Prevent in 2021, after his social worker noted a number of concerns, including that he was looking at “offensive and anti-trans” websites and “focusing on lots of right-wing darker comedy”.
What’s clear is that the Prevent strategy rests on an assumption that no-one has ever convincingly been able to demonstrate, namely, that a causal relationship exists between undefined ‘extremist’ views and ideas, which may be espoused by lawful non-violent groups, and acts of ‘terrorism’.
Inevitably, this leaves the strategy wide-open to politicisation, depending on which views and ideas a particular government or government minister – in this case, Yvette Cooper – happens to find distasteful.
Indeed, given Ms Cooper’s zero-tolerance approach to misogyny, it’s worth noting that the government also recently announced plans to slap Asbo-style orders on children found to be downloading or possessing “terrorist content”, forcing them to undergo psychiatric treatment.
In an interview with the Telegraph, the Head of Counter Terrorism Policing, Matt Jukes, said that these civil orders could provide a route to faster action to divert children away from terrorism.
If Ms Cooper has her way, the trigger for police intervention may soon include Carry On films and copies of Portnoy’s Complaint. Don’t be surprised either, writes FSU Head Toby Young in the Spectator, if young boys are referred to Prevent for claiming that women’s football isn’t as exciting as men’s. “The message to teenage boys thinking of trading mildewed copies of Men Only behind the bike sheds is: Yvette Cooper is watching you.”
