LBWF’s policy on Prevent reaps what it sows…
In a recent post, I warned that LBWF’s Prevent strategy, and the secrecy that surrounds it, invite trouble.
As if on cue, up pops the stage army of the Left, guided by the ubiquitous ‘red vicar’, Canon Stephen Saxby, with a meeting tonight aimed squarely at denunciation:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/waltham-forest-against-prevent-tickets-20742107201
The blog Harry’s Place does a public service by revealing the true identities of some of those involved:
http://hurryupharry.org/2016/01/31/steven-saxby-corbynista-vicar-for-extremism/
Meanwhile, a report by Andrew Gilligan in the Sunday Telegraph supplies further background germane to Waltham Forest, beginning as follows:
‘An organised campaign to undermine Britain’s fight against terrorism can be revealed today.
Islamist activists linked to Cage, a group known to sympathise with terrorists, are using coordinated leaks to mainstream news organisations, including the BBC, to spread fear and confusion in Muslim communities about the Government’s anti-terror policy, Prevent.
Investigations by the Telegraph reveal that several widely reported recent stories about Prevent are false or exaggerated – and many of the supposedly “ordinary Muslim” victims are in fact activists in the campaign, known as Prevent Watch. The stories include a claim which became a cause célèbre for Prevent’s opponents – that a Muslim schoolboy from London was “interrogated like a criminal” for using the phrase “ecoterrorism” in class’.
It is well worth reading in full.
The broader point is obvious. If you shroud a policy in secrecy, and refuse to engage with residents at all, you inevitably cede ground to those with their own very different agendas, and thus allow them a measure of influence which, if their true objectives were publicly and honestly stated, would be inconceivable.
PS for those who are unfamiliar with the antics of the Socialist Workers Party, this is a revealing read:
http://madammiaow.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/swp-sex-implosion-its-dehumanisation-in.htm
