Politicians too willing to turn blind eye to extremism, says ex-minister

Politicians "are too willing to turn a blind eye" to extremism and extremist ideology because they "consider the challenge too great", the former communities secretary has said.

Robert Jenrick, who lost his job at the last Cabinet reshuffle, told the BBC the government's Prevent strategy has "lost its way".

Prevent aims to intervene where people may be at risk of radicalisation.

Mr Jenrick said the strategy needed to be "less woolly".

The programme - which costs £40m a year - was set up under the last Labour government.

In 2019, the government launched a review into the Prevent strategy and Mr Jenrick said the report would be arriving on the "home secretary's desk very soon".

He noted that past reports on the subject in 2016 and 2019 had been "largely unimplemented" and that now would be the moment for "a vigorous renewal of our policy to really confront extremism".

Under the strategy, people such as teachers, council workers and NHS employees can report an individual's risk of exposure to extremism, or their suspected radical opinions or behaviour to Prevent officers in the local police force.

A committee then decides whether or not to refer that person to the Prevent programme and, in the more serious cases, to the Channel mentoring scheme.

Those who are referred do not have to attend and their names are not routinely passed to MI5.

Speaking to the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Jenrick said the number of people involved in assessing individuals should be slimed down, refocusing on those who are best placed to make difficult judgments "like members of the police and the security services".

He also said the programme needed to focus on those "most likely to cause members of the public harm".

"We have a real problem in this country with far-right extremists, and that must be tackled - but the overwhelming majority of people who are on MI5's watch list, for example, are from the Islamist extremist side of the spectrum and so I think we need to focus again on that and get the balance right."

The Home Office runs the Prevent programme, but sections are managed by the communities department which Mr Jenrick ran up until last month.

The Newark MP said the UK needed to confront difficult questions about integration within the country amongst the many different communities.

He said "the vast majority of our fellow citizens" want to live in a "pluralistic society" but a minority of people take "a different view".

"We can't allow our country to go down the wrong path where we have a divided society and we allow grievances to fester."

He added that the UK "needed to be less passive in confronting extremism, and have a more muscular form of liberalism".

"I think for some reason, perhaps because of events, because ministers come and go, there hasn't been the consistency and the focus that's been necessary - and I think that's what's required now, as we renew our policy."