Long-Bailey pledges to scrap Prevent programme

Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey has vowed to make it party policy to scrap the Prevent programme if she is elected to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

Currently serving as Shadow Business Secretary, Long-Bailey said she wanted to ban the anti-extremism scheme and then conduct a review aimed at setting up a new government-funded system that involves Muslim leaders, in an effort to stop the ‘alienation’ of Britain’s Muslim communities. This would involve the Muslim Council of Britain, the Muslim Leadership Foundation, charities, the police, social services and youth service providers.

It has previously been Labour policy to review Prevent, a notion that was included in their 2019 General Election manifesto. The programme was founded by Tony Blair’s government in 2003 and was expanded to its current form under the coalition government in 2011.

It has been highly criticised by school leaders, who claim that it targets Muslim students, as well as religious leaders who often argue that they are being spied on and unfairly monitored.

Holding a roundtable event with Muslim community leaders at al-Manaar mosque in Kensington, she said: “The government’s counter-terror strategy is clearly failing. The Prevent programme has alienated the Muslim community, set back our freedoms and not made us safer. The evidence is clear: it’s got to go.

“We would be better served by a new cross-service approach, working in partnership with affected communities. This new approach would build trust [and] protect those vulnerable to recruitment propaganda, alongside proper funding for local services like youth clubs.”