Shawcross and Private Faith

FEBRUARY 2023
When Tim Farron MP was Lib Dem party leader, campaigning to be Prime Minister in  2017, I met him. He was, like many politicians you meet, charming and immensely likeable: intelligent, witty, humble. He visited our school on the campaign trail for a media shoot. He came with no entourage of obstructive flunkies defending his right to a quiet moment. He spoke to everyone with equal gratitude and interest, regardless of his impending onslaught of five successive TV interviews. 

Seeing him under fire from Robert Peston (‘you’re just Nigel Farrage in reverse’), I warmed to him further. Throughout that election campaign, he was ridiculed and derided for his Christian faith and placed under pressure specifically to state whether he thought gay sex was a sin. It became the only question anyone was interested in him answering and largely defined the performance of the Liberal Democrat party at the polls.

In a sense it is a very reasonable question. How can a party of ‘liberals’ be led by someone who judges the private lives of others? In another sense, it was predatory and invasive, an attempt to make headlines about someone’s innermost religious commitments. Kate Forbes, one of the hopeful SNP leadership candidates, is enduring similar questions, having taken a much more forthright approach than the erstwhile leader of the Lib Dems. Yet the world seems to have shifted in Kate Forbes’ case. Certainly at the time of writing, the consensus is that her admission (that she would not have voted to legalise gay marriage if she had been an MSP at the time) has not done her leadership bid fatal damage. I cannot personally determine with any confidence the rights and the wrongs of this situation. Is probing political leaders’ anachronistic views on sexuality essential to the upkeep of democracy and a liberal society? Or is it fundamentally illiberal to demand public answers to private faith?

And these reflections have resonated further following the publication of the Shawcross Review into Prevent. The central question linking the two seems to be this: must a private matter of conscience have such an inescapable bearing on public life, that it protrudes into the public sphere? 

To extend this thought, can it be possible to hold a private political or religious view and also to carry out a public role in tension with it? Does a commitment to transparency ultimately oblige everyone in public office to declare all matters of faith and conscience? And are there some views that the state should monitor, not because they are thought crimes, but because they might be relevant indicators of risk? With each of these questions, the porous boundary between public and private poses some specific practical problems for the counter-terrorism strategy, and for those of us in Education who are duty-bound to uphold it.

The first problem is the matter of public confidence in the strategy. Prevent and the Shawcross Review are not short of their detractors. Nevertheless, the Prevent Duty obliges a wide range of public authorities to act and report - regardless of their own personal outlook. Those Muslim teachers and social workers who sympathise with the Muslim Council of Britain’s assessment (made some years ago) that Prevent ‘has flawed analytical underpinnings and leads to the Muslim community being viewed through the prism of security’ are required to work alongside Prevent, and discharge their Prevent Duty, irrespective of this view.  To compound the problem further, the Shawcross review challenges criticism of Prevent, stating ‘The caricature of Prevent as an authoritarian and thinly veiled means of persecuting British Muslims is not only untrue, it is a grotesque insult to all those in the Prevent network doing such diligent work in preventing terrorism.’ There is an uncomfortable tension here, notwithstanding MCB and Prevent’s shared opposition to terrorism. Whatever one’s personal views, this discomfort cannot be helpful to Prevent’s efficacy.

The second problem, a problem that compounds the first, is the question of the definition of ‘extreme’ outlooks. Shawcross expresses concern that Islamist referrals to Prevent are increasingly limited to ‘violent’ outlooks, and that in order for Prevent to be successful it is important not to ignore ‘the contribution of non-violent Islamist narratives and networks to terrorism’. He also emphasises that there should not be a reliance on the list of ‘proscribed organisations’ to determine actors who ‘create an environment conducive to terrorism’. In relation to being risk averse, this seems reasonable. If one’s aim is to widen the range of those with whom the programme has contact, it is sensible to lower the threshold. Indeed, prevention of violence is likely to be more successful if intervention takes place before the disenchanted and disillusioned turn towards, or consider, violence.  But in relation to defining what counts as ‘conducive to terrorism’ and being sure that the decision to refer is not only risk averse, but also consistently applied and fairly arrived at, the definition needs sharpening.  As Shawcross himself acknowledges on this matter: ‘Training of frontline staff should be strengthened’. Failure to clarify this may further inflame the grievances already expressed by the MCB and similar organisations.

The diagnosis of extremism is not simple. It is not just islamists, but many on the left who raise criticisms of America, of global capitalism or of NATO-led activity, for instance. Whilst these could not be described as mainstream views, whether they are expressions of extremism is another matter entirely. A minority view is not by definition an extremist one. Similarly, the vast majority of people accept gay marriage as a fundamental right, an absolute in a secular society committed to equality of sexual orientation. But a liberal society accepts that whilst it is a majority view, it is not a universal one. The right to think differently has to be a cornerstone of liberalism. 

Can there be any reconciliation here? Is liberal society an inherent self-contradiction, like the all powerful God, able to create a rock so heavy that he himself cannot lift it? 

We have to believe otherwise. If Prevent were a school or college, it would not just be judged on its policies, but on everyone’s use of those policies and how effective they are. Headteachers are responsible not just for their own behaviour and actions, but for the behaviour and actions of their staff and students. Similarly for the counter-extremism strategy to work, it needs not only to be sensibly conceived, but widely supported.  When lockdown guidance was being written, policy writers did not just weigh health factors against economic ones, they formulated regulations that would result in a high degree of compliance, knowing this was a key ingredient in efficacy. Similarly, the presentation of the counter extremism strategy must secure the widest possible consensus for it to be effective. 

It is therefore understandable that William Shawcross suggests public servants have a duty to be proud of Prevent: for the organisation to be successful it must have widespread confidence. In the same breath, he recognises pride should not lead to complacency: ‘Government, and other institutions, ought at the highest levels to express pride in Prevent, while always seeking to improve it.’  It is the responsibility of everyone, not just civil servants and ministers, to work towards widespread support for the counter-terrorism strategy. Widespread support will come of course with cooperation and good will, with prudence from public authorities making referrals, and trust from all communities that the strategy is acting effectively to keep everyone safe. All of these factors of course await further clarity and better training to identify ‘non-violent’ narratives that merit referral. But, as with everything in democracy, the responsibility does not just lie elsewhere. It is for all of us to operate the protocol with integrity and good faith, to offer explanations to our community that inspire understanding and trust, and to be part of the bigger process in improving the system. Only that way can public protection work in partnership with public confidence.