29/06/2025
‼️According to Prevent, the British government’s counter-extremism programme, expressing concern about high levels of immigration is to be treated as a mark of terrorist ideology.
The terrorist ideology in question is defined by government documents as ‘cultural nationalism’. This, apparently, is the belief that ‘Western culture is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups’. In other words, if you express worries about the social and cultural impact on Britain of a huge influx of people from around the world, you could find yourself being referred to the government’s deradicalisation scheme.
This is further evidence – if any were needed – that Prevent is not fit for purpose. This is a critical part of the UK’s counter-terrorism architecture. Yet instead of being used to identify potential threats to the public, it is now focussed on demonising perfectly legitimate views as symptoms of a so-called terrorist ideology.
Categorising concern about mass migration as a sign of radicalisation is really not a good use of the UK’s counter-terror infrastructure. It effectively turns Prevent into another vehicle of state censorship.
People ought to be free to question the negative social and cultural impacts of mass immigration – which has reached record levels in recent years. While it’s important not to generalise about the hundreds of thousands of people who have arrived in the UK over the past few years, many are from countries such as India, Pakistan and Nigeria – all of which have serious problems with religious fundamentalism and ethnic violence. Should someone really be considered a radicalisation risk if they express concerns about the effect of large inward flows from such countries? This is not an unreasonable fear, given that the UK has long been struggling to integrate newcomers into a shared national culture – not least because its political and cultural elites have spent years waging war on any shared national traditions and history.
There are also legitimate concerns about the threat to public safety posed by mass migration. Indeed, it’s worth noting that Britain’s lax borders are putting British women, in particular, at risk, with foreign nationals being vastly overrepresented among those convicted of s*x crimes. When compared with British citizens, Afghans and Eritreans are more than 20 times more likely to account for convictions connected to s*x crimes. This is not to cast aspersions on everyone from Afghanistan or Eritrea. But when so little effort is made to identify who is entering the UK – especially via illegal-migration routes – is it any surprise that some unsavoury characters are taking advantage? Yet, according to Prevent, just raising questions about any of this could have you marked out as some sort of far-right terrorist sympathiser.
