Once upon a time, the British government concerned itself with real threats: bomb plots, jihadis, knife-wielding radicals chanting death to the West. Today, it seems more worried about 70-year-old pensioners watching The Dam Busters and quoting Shakespeare.
This is not satire. It's Prevent.
The UK's £49 million-a-year counter-terrorism scheme, once intended to stop Islamist radicalisation and homegrown jihad, has now swerved so far off course it's flagging elderly citizens for holding "extreme right-wing views" that amount to... cultural conservatism! According to Home Office figures, a record number of over-60s were referred to Prevent in 2023–24, with 43 flagged specifically for Right-wing beliefs. What counts as extreme? Apparently watching classic British war films, quoting "there are only two genders," or expressing concern that mass immigration is threatening social cohesion.
Welcome to the Ministry of Counter-Common Sense.
The New Criminal Class: Your Grandparents
It's now an act of radicalism for your dad to say Western culture is under threat. Or for your mum to admire Shakespeare's Henry V. One wonders if humming Land of Hope and Glory too loudly at the wrong bus stop will get you put on a watchlist?
We're told that these referrals are "precautionary," and that "low-risk" cases are quietly closed. But that's not the point. The point is that an entire government system is now surveilling, and pathologising, views held by half the British electorate.
You think Western culture's under threat from mass immigration and a lack of integration? You're no longer a concerned citizen. You're a suspected extremist.
You find gender ideology incoherent and think there are only two sexes? Congratulations. You're now flagged for deradicalisation, alongside jihadi bomb plotters and incel forum dwellers.
You enjoy Yes Minister or The Dam Busters? That's now listed as "key content" in a Prevent training document for white nationalist radicalisation. (Presumably because Sir Humphrey is too articulate, and the Lancaster pilots didn't use inclusive pronouns.)
A Programme in Collapse, a Culture in Denial
This would be darkly amusing if it weren't also a monumental failure. While Prevent fixates on cultural conservatives, the number of Islamist referrals has plummeted, down 75% since 2016. Yet Islamism remains the deadliest source of ideological violence in Britain. Terrorists like Axel Rudakubana, who murdered three children in 2024, slipped through the system despite being referred three times. Meanwhile, 12-year-old schoolboys are interrogated by Northumbria Police for saying "there are only two genders."
This is what happens when ideology replaces intelligence: real threats go undetected, while the harmless are hounded for thought crimes.
Even William Shawcross, hardly a far-right firebrand, concluded in his 2023 report that Prevent had suffered a "loss of focus" and was allocating too many resources to chasing phantom Nazis rather than tackling actual jihadist networks.
But rebalancing the programme would require moral courage, the sort of courage that might involve admitting that Islamism remains a more lethal threat than a retired couple watching Dad's Army in matching slippers.
And we can't have that. It might upset the Guardian comment section.
Britain's New Domestic Extremists: Middle-Class Civility
The logic of Prevent has become indistinguishable from political profiling. "Cultural nationalism" now sits alongside white supremacism on internal documents. But what is cultural nationalism, really? Loving your country. Valuing tradition. Wanting borders, order, heritage. In other words: views once held by Churchill, Thatcher, and a sizable chunk of postwar Labour voters.
This isn't counter-terrorism. It's ideological conditioning. It's a soft inquisition aimed not at violence, but at non-compliance. And it's doing precisely what Orwell warned about: criminalising thought.
The Conservative Party ought to be up in arms. But silence. Because deep down, too many Tories have internalised the same assumptions: that traditionalism equals extremism, that masculinity is suspect, that patriotism must always be qualified by guilt.
And so the Prevent state marches on, clipboard in hand, compiling watchlists of grandfathers who listen to Elgar and use the phrase "British values" without irony.
The Final Irony: You're the Terrorist Now!
While grooming gangs rape children and courts seal the transcripts, while diverse killers are waved through with a shrug, we are the terrorists.
If that sounds insane, it's because it is.
But in 2025 Britain, insanity is official policy.
"Record numbers of over-60s are being referred to the Government's troubled anti-terrorism scheme, the Daily Mail can reveal today.
Home Office figures show 127 adults in their 60s or beyond were put on Prevent's radar in 2023/24 - the most since records began in 2016.
Of them, 43 had sparked alarm for expressing 'extreme right wing' views.
Extreme right wing ideologies 'can be broadly characterised as cultural nationalism, white nationalism and white supremacism', officials say. Guidance published online states they also use violence to further their aims.
Yet free speech campaigners fear that anyone critical of mass immigration might be being wrongly labelled an 'extremist'.
Last month, it was revealed how Prevent training documents listed sharing the view that Western culture was 'under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration' was a 'terrorist ideology'.
And in 2023, it emerged that popular British sitcoms, including comedies Yes Minister and The Thick Of It, were marked as 'key texts' for white nationalists.
Even the 1955 epic war film The Dam Busters and The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare were flagged as possible red flags of extremism by Prevent's Research Information and Communications Unit.
Across all age groups, more than 1,300 people were referred to Prevent last year for 'extreme right wing' behaviour, including 27 kids under the age of ten.
While 'extreme right wing' referrals have been stable since records began in 2016, the reports for over 60s in all categories has more than doubled - rising from 59 in 2016, to 127 in 2023.
Over the same period, the overall number of referrals under the Islamist umbrella has plunged by 75 per cent, from 3,706 to 913 - or 13 per cent of the total.
Islamist terrorism relates to 'the threat or use of violence as a means to establish a strict interpretation of an Islamic society'.
A damning public report warned in 2023 that Prevent had been experiencing a 'loss of focus' as it had become distracted by far right cases, rather than concentrating on Islamists.
In his long-awaited 188-page report, William Shawcross claimed too many resources were being focused on right-wing terrorism rather than its Islamist equivalent, which has been responsible for far more deadly attacks.
Since 2015, the law has placed public bodies, such as schools and the police, under a legal duty to identify people in danger of turning to extremism.
But the £49million-a-year Prevent scheme has faced huge criticism over its failures in spotting Islamist terror sympathisers, including those with links to notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary.
Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana was also missed, despite being referred to the deradicalisation body three times before he went on to knife three children to death in July 2024.
The scheme works by local council-appointed Prevent coordinators taking referrals from public servants like teachers and social workers, with each individual of concern categorised by their ideology.
Less serious cases are dealt with by councils, who can offer services like mentoring or parenting support, while the more serious ones go to Channel, where a panel of local officials, including police, will recommend the next steps.
If Prevent officers find no risk of radicalisation while conducting initial checks, the case is immediately closed.
Potential threats from left wing organisations are also included in the annual Prevent figures, although an exact toll is not provided as counter-terror chiefs view the risk as slim.
Expressing sympathy or admiration for the likes of Adolf Hitler or praising extremists would be enough to risk being flagged to Prevent if overheard by a teacher, social worker or even work colleague.
However concerns have been raised after Prevent has also been flagging far more mainstream views.
Pictures from a Prevent online training course emerged last month which highlighted 'dangerous' beliefs such as 'Cultural nationalism' and the idea 'Western culture is under threat'.
Critics warned the definition of 'cultural nationalism' is too broad and could even encompass the likes of Sir Keir Starmer's 'island of strangers' speech - despite polling showing most Brits agreed with him.
Prevent faced a barrage of criticism last year when a 12-year-old schoolboy was investigated by counter-extremism officers after he declared there 'are only two genders'.
The child made a video, posted online, in which he also stated: 'There's no such thing as non-binary'.
But the school told the boy's mother they would refer him to Prevent amid fears he could be at risk of being radicalised by the far-right. The boy's mother was visited by Prevent and Northumbria Police officers, in a meeting she described as 'an interrogation'.
Other teenage boys face investigation by anti-terrorism officers if they make sexist remarks in the classroom, it was claimed.
One source said previously comments about a 'woman's place being in the kitchen' could be enough to spark a referral to the unit.
The personal details of those referred to Prevent are retained on its databases for at least six years and duplicated across police and intelligence systems.
It comes as counter terrorism officers urged parents to keep an eye out for signs that their child could be drawn into extremism after Netflix's Adolescence became a topic of mainstream political debate.
In April, the Met Police's Prevent co-coordinator told parents to 'take an active interest' in their child's online activities so they can be aware of signs that they could be vulnerable to radicalisation.
Adolescence examines so-called incel (involuntary celibate) culture, which is related to violence and hating women. However, the latest data shows incels make up less than one per cent of Prevent referrals.
Prevent is the first tier in the Government's anti radicalisation strategy."
https://www.gbnews.com/opinion/matt-goodwin-british-state-free-speech-borders