When the Independent Review of Prevent by Sir William Shawcross was published earlier this year, many in the counter-terrorism field applauded what Shawcross had said. If implemented, the reforms he proposed would be the biggest overhaul of Britain’s national counter-radicalisation programme in a decade. Yet despite the Government saying that it was committed to implementing all 34 of the Prevent review’s recommendations, some supporters I spoke to were quietly doubtful. They seemed convinced that the Prevent review and its recommendations would soon fall into obscurity and that nothing would really change. The release of the new Prevent Duty Guidance earlier...

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It has been two years since Brenton Tarrant’s grisly attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. By the end of his rampage, Tarrant had murdered 51 Muslims. In the aftermath, Ben Wallace, who was the UK security minister, warned that something similar “absolutely could happen here”. Read the full article here.

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The UK has suffered repeated terrorist attacks in recent years. At least one of the perpetrators was on the radar of Prevent, the UK government’s strategy to stop people from carrying out or supporting acts of terrorism. Prevent plays a key part in keeping the UK safe from terrorist atrocities. Those facts may seem contradictory, but all of the above can be true at the same time. Read the full article here.

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At 9 a.m. yesterday morning, a 21-year-old called Brahim Aouissaoui entered Notre Dame Basilica Church in Nice carrying a bag of knives. Just a few minutes later, three people had been stabbed to death. A 60-year-old woman — unnamed at time of writing — had been decapitated. The mayor of Nice subsequently said that “everything points to a terrorist attack.” Aouissaoui was shot by responding French police and is currently under arrest. Read the full article here.

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