Members of UK military referred to Prevent scheme

At least 16 members of the armed forces have been referred to the UK’s terrorism prevention programme, because of concerns regarding far-right activity.

According to figures obtained by the Guardian under freedom of information, soldiers, air force and naval personnel were among those investigated over the past two and a half years under Prevent, which aims to stop people becoming radicalised.

Of the 14 investigations that were carried out in 2019 into serving armed forces personnel, 11 stemmed from far-right concerns.

The campaign group Hope Not Hate said the MoD had publicly committed to have a zero-tolerance approach to far-right extremists operating within the armed forces, but warned that ‘strong words have not always led to strong action’.

According to the Guardian, the Ministry of Defence would only say that the number of investigations in 2020 was ‘less than 10’ and that the number so far this year was ‘less than five’.