Prevent Watch threatens legal action over Shawcross review

Prevent Watch, an organisation which monitors the government’s Prevent counter terrorism programme, has sent a formal letter to the Home Office threatening legal action over the delayed governmental review into Prevent.

The programme has been under review by the independent commissioner William Shawcross since January 2021, but no report has yet been published. Extracts leaked in the Guardian suggest it finds that Prevent is too focused on rightwing extremism and should instead focus on Islamic extremism.

Shawcross is a Senior Fellow at the organisation Policy Exchange which has previously criticised Prevent Watch in a report published in April 2022, where it was suggested that organisations which raise concerns about Prevent are “enabling terrorism”.

Prevent Watch, one of 500 organisations and individuals that boycotted Shawcross’s review because of controversial comments he has made previously about Islam, also sent a formal letter to the Home Office threatening to bring a legal action due to fears that the organisation is mentioned in Shawcross’s unpublished review.

A government spokesperson has said:

“The government is currently reviewing the recommendations of the independent reviewer and will publish the report and our response in due course. It is only right that the government takes the time to prepare and deliver a considered response.”

William Shawcross was appointed Independent Reviewer of Prevent in January 2021. He was the Chair of the Charity Commission between 2012 and 2018 and became the Special Representative on UK victims of Qadhafi-sponsored IRA terrorism in March 2019.