For all the talk of a Tory ‘war on woke Whitehall’, more examples just keep cropping up. In an article for Fathom Journal, Anna Stanley, a former civil servant, this week painted a vivid picture about the kind of counter-terrorist training which is being given to her colleagues. Stanley writes that she recently attended a Kings College London (KCL) course called ‘Issues in Countering Terrorism’.

It was, in her words, a ‘deeply, existentially depressing experience.’ Examples were reportedly cited on how such educational institutions are delivering what Stanley called ‘politically biased, anti-government training, amounting to indoctrination’. According to her the ‘overriding emphasis’ of the KCL course was that ‘Islamist extremism is exaggerated’ with right-wing extremism being given disproportionate weight. This, of course, is in direct conflict with the findings of William Shawcross, in the latest government commissioned review of its anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent. According to Stanley:

One lecturer derogatively described Shawcross as “the type of person who would say all current counter-terrorism professionals are woke…He is of that ilk.” This of course discredited Shawcross to the course attendees. The lecturer further argued that Douglas Murray and Joe Rogan are both examples of the far right. “To what extent should Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray be suppressed?” he asked. “They have millions of followers. To de-platform them would cause issues.” Concluding his talk, the lecturer told a room full of government professionals, “so, society needs to find other ways to suppress them.”

Stanley also argued that ‘extremism and terrorism are misunderstood by civil servants to the point of being a national security risk.’ According to her, one of the civil servant participants have a presentation on the UK’s Counter Terrorism Strategy, Prevent, in which ‘she argued Prevent is inherently racist because it focuses on Islamist extremism.’ Attendees were subsequently shown an ISIS propaganda recruitment video filmed in Syria in which ‘the same attendee’s face lit up. Laughing and pointing at the Jihadi in the video, “He used to go to my school! I know him!” she exclaimed.’

The Home Office told Steerpike that ‘Civil servants attend a variety of training courses in order to learn. As required by the Civil Service Code, and as the public rightly expects, all civil servants must act impartially.’ When asked for a comment on the claims in the article, a King’s College London spokesman said to Mr S:

This private, invite-only course for civil servants was delivered on behalf of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and as with all our courses, attendees were taught by eminent experts using impartial and evidence-based resources in an environment where different theories, concepts and questions are shared to prompt discussion.’

‘Impartial’ and ‘evidence-based’ – Steerpike will leave it to his readers to be the judge of that…