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Sunak’s Plan to Criminalise ‘Hating Britain’ Is a Throwback to Empire
Strategic Culture Foundation (RSS)

The former chancellor wants to refer Britain’s critics to Prevent. He’s obviously terrified of the truth

By Sita BALANI

In Rishi Sunak’s latest attempt to revive his floundering leadership bid, he has announced that he would widen the definition of extremism to include those with an “extreme hatred of Britain”.

Anyone expressing anti-nationalist views could be referred to Prevent, the government’s anti-radicalisation scheme. Though the government claims participation in the ‘deradicalisation’ programme is voluntary, when referrals lead to the police banging on your door at dawn or pulling your child out of maths to interrogate them, the government’s definition of ‘voluntary’ starts to seem as vague and inconsistent as its definition of ‘extremism’.

There’s a long history of British governments criminalising dissent. Sedition laws were a cornerstone of the counterinsurgency strategy that Britain used to quell anticolonial rebellions. The Indian Penal Code, drafted by Thomas Macauley, makes displaying ‘disaffection’ towards the government a criminal offence. India, like many other postcolonial nations, kept this repressive law on the books. The Modi government has used it to cement its shift towards a virulent, authoritarian nationalism. Now the postcolonial boomerang is rebounding once again on British shores.

Even an analysis such as this one – which draws attention to Britain’s colonial legacy, the violent impact of its laws, its resemblance to fascist regimes elsewhere – could be viewed as ‘anti-British’. Given that anyone who wants to understand the modern world would need to engage with the history of empire, the making of nation-states, and the political function of racism, it’s difficult to see how any serious intellectual work is possible under these conditions.

When Prevent became statutory in 2015 with the Counter Terrorism and Security Act, it was clear that this marked a serious escalation in criminalisation. Prevent targeted Muslims specifically, but it did so through a profound transformation of the terms of ordinary civic life. Teachers, doctors, social workers, and nurses were expected to monitor their students, patients and clients for signs of ‘radicalisation’. In the process, they were conscripted into the state’s surveillance machinery.

Prevent trainings were rolled out across the crumbling remains of state services, embedded into safeguarding structures to make it harder to boycott or disrupt the programme. As a result, Prevent is now firmly lodged in our institutions. Even if the legislation were repealed (and there appears little chance of that in the near future), a wider transformation would be needed to prise systems of surveillance and punishment out of schools, healthcare, and social work.

Prevent does not work on the basis of intervening in genuine threats – it relies on prejudice, paranoia, and rumour

Now Sunak wants to extend the reach of Prevent even further. Of course, subjecting everyone who speaks ill of Britain to a ‘deradicalisation’ programme is entirely unworkable. Social media is awash with people expressing their rage at ‘rainy fascist island’. As Andrew Neil’s recent diatribe in the Daily Mail points out,...

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The Telegraph

People with ‘extreme hatred of Britain’ could be deradicalised under Prevent scheme

Rishi Sunak says he plans to widen the definition of extremism to include people who vilify the country

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