A 12 year-old schoolboy has been investigated by counter-extremism officers after he declared there “are only two genders” (Mail).
The pupil self-produced a video, which was posted to YouTube by his mother, in which he also stated: “There’s no such thing as non-binary.”
In response to school bullies who mistakenly believed he supported gender identity ideology, he went on to clarify: “[I’m] gay not queer.”
On this basis, the school told the boy’s mother they would need to refer him to Prevent, which is part of the government’s counter-terrorism programme and is intended to stop people from becoming terrorists, amid somewhat implausible fears that her son, who is Jewish, was at risk of being radicalised by the Nazi-sympathising far-right.
Prevent and Northumbria Police officers visited the boy’s family home earlier this week.
“We sat down with the Prevent officers and there was an interrogation,” the boy’s mother said, adding that “[t]hey had an attitude of ‘we’ll ask the questions’.”
Officers proceeded to list a string of allegations to illustrate the boy was at risk of radicalisation.
Fears were raised over comments he made to school bullies, stating he wanted to “exterminate” them. He is said to have made the remark in relation to classmates who subjected him to appalling antisemitic slurs and Nazi salutes.
Prevent officers also suggested the boy had an unhealthy interest in weapons on account of another online video – again uploaded by his mother – which showed him demonstrating a toy crossbow bought from English Heritage. (“Completely harmless but lots of fun, this replica crossbow is a great way of getting kids away from their electronic devices and outside in the fresh air,” the charity’s website says of its best-selling crossbow.)
Later during the interrogation, the officers expressed concern that the child might inadvertently have just revealed his extremist views, when in response to a question about whether there were any groups that shouldn’t exist he had replied: “Hamas [i.e., the Gaza-based terror group whose videos of its October 7th attack on Israel set a new standard in graphic evidence of unrivalled human atrocities] should be wiped out.”
The Prevent strategy is part of CONTEST, the strategy for countering terrorism originally published by the government in July 2011. Based on four themes – Prevent, Pursue, Protect, Prepare – the Prevent strand aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.
Following an Education Committee report into the Birmingham Trojan Horse affair, in 2015 the government took further action to strengthen the duties Prevent imposes on schools with the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (CTSA), which effectively placed this strand of CONTEST on a statutory footing.
Under s.26 of the CTSA, all schools and colleges are now subject to a duty to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism”. The protection of children from radicalisation and the promotion of British values is also part of the Ofsted inspection regime to which schools are subject.
To comply with the Prevent duty, schools, colleges and further education independent training providers must work in partnership with local Prevent staff, the police and local authorities.
According to the latest government guidance for schools, “all staff should look out for concerning changes in behaviour and report them to the designated safeguarding lead”.
They are also told that learners who are at risk or susceptible to radicalisation into terrorism include those with an interest in “multiple extremist ideologies”, a fascination with “conspiracy theories”, and who “voice anti-establishment and anti-LGBT grievances”.
Critics of the government’s counter-extremism strategy have long argued that Prevent’s legal duty on teaching staff to report their suspicions was “fundamentally incompatible” with international human rights law, which protects freedom of expression, including political speech and activism.
Security officials, for instance, have 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.
Last year, Amnesty International called for the abolition of Prevent, accusing it of encouraging a culture of “thought policing”.
The campaign group’s report, called This is the Thought Police, said the Prevent strategy “rests on the idea that there is a causal relationship between undefined ‘extremist’ views and ideas, which may be espoused by lawful non-violent groups, and ‘terrorism’… but the alleged link between the two is not clearly articulated, nor is it clear where legality ends and potential criminality begins.”
In this context, practitioners like school teachers “appear confused about whether there is a minimum threshold warranting a Prevent referral, and how significant the expression of extreme political or religious views is in meeting this threshold.
“As a result,” the report continued, “people are being referred to Prevent largely for expressing political views and opinions, and this is a violation of their right to freedom of expression.”
It added: “The breadth of discretion permitted in Prevent decision-making has resulted in a significant risk of discrimination… A disproportionate number of neurodiverse people and children also feature in Prevent referrals.”
Cases cited by Amnesty include an 11-year-old, Zain, who was referred by his school in northern England. During a fire drill, he said he hoped the school “burned down”. Zain had told the school the comment was a “joke” because he was “stressed with the homework” and school rules.
Michael, 14, was reported for writing “God is great” in Arabic, sharing pictures of guns, soldiers, and anti-abortion material with another student, and talking to a rabbi about converting to Judaism. It led to a police visit to his home.
Also cited is the case 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”.
The FSU has also come across other examples of Prevent being misused in this way.
An 11-year-old primary school pupil was previously referred to Prevent after his teacher misheard “give alms to the oppressed” as “give arms to the oppressed”.
The solicitor representing the boy’s parents, Attiq Malik, said at the time that although the police eventually closed the case having concluded the young boy showed no sign of radicalisation, the initial referral could still cause issues for the family, because “every time a Prevent referral is made, it generates a record with the Home Office and various other intelligence agencies”.
Earlier this year, a former school chaplain who was sacked and reported to the national teaching regulator, the Disclosure and Barring Service for the ‘crime’ of preaching a sermon on identity politics, was also reported to the government’s counter-terrorism programme Prevent.
Supported by the Christian Legal Centre, the ordained Church of England (CofE) minister Rev. Dr Bernard Randall, originally took legal action against Trent College in Derbyshire following his dismissal for a sermon he gave in 2019 on the CofE’s own teaching on marriage, in a CofE chapel, in a school with a CofE ethos.
The sermon, which you can read here, was a model of fair-mindedness, reminding the pupils that no-one has a monopoly on moral truth, whether it’s traditional Christians or LGBT activists, and stressing how important it is to approach ethical disagreements with humility, tolerance and courtesy.
During this sermon – titled ‘Competing Ideologies’ – he encouraged pupils to “look at some of the claims made about gender identity, and think that it is incoherent to say that, for example, gender is quite independent of any biological factor”.
“You should no more be told you have to accept LGBT ideology,” he added, “than you should be told you must be in favour of Brexit, or must be Muslim.”
Following his dismissal by the College, Dr Randall was blacklisted by the CofE’s Derby Diocese safeguarding team as a “risk to children”. A safeguarding report then concluded that Dr Randall’s CofE and Biblical teaching on marriage and sexuality was a “risk factor”, which resulted in him being reported to the government’s terrorist watchdog, Prevent.
The Prevent police team subsequently dismissed the referral but said “we would rather receive the referral than not, as it’s always good to get our professional opinion in these circumstances”.
