News & events

11-01-2017

UK counter-extremism agenda: ‘Safeguarding’ as routine punishment and collective self-policing


The programme’s operation depends on collective self-policing through fear of punishment. These practices become yet another bureaucratic performance indicator. - Les Levidow, Open Democracy, 11 January 2017.

The UK’s New Labour government abandoned the ‘war on terror’ discourse under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, yet its anti-democratic aims have been extended through a ‘counter-extremism’ agenda. The government programme ‘Preventing Violent Extremism’ was established a decade ago to identify individuals vulnerable to extremist ideas, ostensibly to prevent ‘violent extremism’, i.e. terrorism.

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