What is the core mission of the Government’s ‘Prevent’ strategy? When William Shawcross presented his review of our flagship counter extremism programme last year, he was clear: it was to stop people turning into tomorrow’s terrorists. The Home Office agreed, at least politically. How’s that going? A year after Shawcross reported on Prevent’s departure from counter terror watchdog into a lop sided safeguarding creche for every sort of ‘vulnerability’ under the sun, the Government has reported mission accomplished.

Shawcross has now disagreed publicly. The Home Office had, he said, ‘ignored’ key recommendations to beef up Prevent’s performance and the glass remained only ‘half full.’ I have some experience of bureaucratic sleight of hand at work when it comes to reviews and recommendations. When I was tasked by the Government to look into the Prison Service’s colossal and unforgivable failures in containing Islamist extremism a few years ago, I made 69 recommendations which were mysteriously repurposed into 11 without my consent; eight were finally accepted.

Hamas has used a freedom denied it in most Middle Eastern countries

The main complaint from Shawcross is that Prevent still has a bias towards screening and intervening with those who are believed to hold dangerously extreme right-wing views. While MI5 say 75 per cent of their business is focused on combatting the Islamist threat, Prevent referral data shows just 11 per cent of it’s caseload was related to that ideology. Despite a growing workload, fewer referrals result in deradicalisation intervention through the ‘Channel’ process. This may be more evidence of continuing dysfunction.

Shawcross told the Daily Telegraph that he believes behaviour he identified in his original review continues to skew the data. Specifically, that practitioners are reluctant to address the reality of these figures in case they are accused of racism or Islamophobia. That is identical to my findings with front line prison officers in 2017 who refused to challenge hateful ideologies on the landings for the same reasons. And why should we doubt this deeply troubling timidity? The day after Shawcross made his views plain, the Speaker of one of the most secure pieces of real estate in Europe subverted the rules of the House in part for fear that Labour MPs would be targeted by Islamists.

The shocking rise of antisemitic hatred for British Jews that we have seen since October 7th reveals what happens when legitimate public sentiment on the horrors of Gaza is whipped up into support for a proscribed terrorist organisation who deliberately ignited an orgy of destruction. This has not happened by accident and it underscores what Shawcross is saying about the continuing inability of our early warning system for extremism to pivot in the right direction.

Across Europe, Hamas has used a freedom denied it in most Middle Eastern countries to exploit religious institutions and educational centres to advance its malign agenda. It has been allowed to leverage the Palestinian diaspora to create sympathy for its cause – often carrying the risk of radicalisation. Arrests in Germany and Denmark in December smashed alleged Hamas plots to obtain and use weapons for terror attacks on Jewish sites. This is a real and present danger. These people need a hinterland to operate in. They need people pushed over the edge to facilitate and take part in violence. Hamas has extended its influence in Europe through intricate financial networks using charities associated with the group for fundraising. Hamas needs support to achieve its aims – from useful idiots to money launderers to online propagandists to those who set the bomb or pull the trigger. Or rape the women.

Neo fascists in this country are rubbing their hands in glee

But how do we intervene to spot and divert people on the cusp of turning hateful thoughts into violent actions? It is as much an art as a science. And the professionals who operate our terror screening system are not immune to the bigger picture either. If they see police failing to stop a mob besieging an MPs home or a message effectively calling for the destruction of the state of Israel on the side of parliament – or a teacher exiled for breaking defacto blasphemy laws, how are they meant to react? Prevent’s senior civil servants, who were revealed by Shawcross to be giving money to organisations who then set about trying to undermine it, have never faced any public sanction and they never will. They are almost certainly still working at the top of the Home Office. Behaviour without sanction and the fear of the mob at your doorstep are powerful inhibitors when it comes to doing the right thing.

The Government has accepted that Prevent has been far too focused on extreme right sentiment and that it needs to focus more on the sort of people who may have the capability to turn hatred of Jews and the Jewish state into dead bodies on British streets. But as we have found repeatedly when ministers make grandiose announcements, pulling the levers of power is only effective if they are attached to something. Sound and fury signifying nothing is all the rage these days as we have seen from the floor of the House of Commons this week. It is no coincidence, and certainly little comfort, that the charity Tell Mama has just released figures that show anti-Muslim hate incidents reported to it has rocketed in the four months following the October 7th atrocity. Neo fascists in this country, long denied any meaningful traction electorally, are rubbing their hands in glee at growing perceptions that the UK state and its agents do not have the capacity or appetite to take on Islamists. Increasingly slick propaganda is radicalising young people into a belief that this is no longer their country. If the state continues to demonstrate that, beyond the spin, it has no real taste for dealing with the manifestations of Islamist extremism poisoning public life and polarising its citizens ever further apart, it cannot be surprised at the consequences.