Mick Hartley

Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham, in a cynical appeal to the Muslim vote, has said that the anti-radicalisation Prevent strategy is failing, and suggested that Muslims should be able to bypass the police to report all those "Islamophobic" hate crimes. Because, you know, that's the real threat to the country at the moment – not this demonising talk of Islamist terrorism. Naturally the Guardian left are very much on board with this.

Douglas Murray:

In the views of the man who is still (remarkably enough) shadow home secretary it appears that it is not Islamist extremism that is the main threat to British security but the strategy set up to deal with that extremism. In the views of Andy Burnham the government’s solution is in fact the cause of the problem and he has called for the whole strategy to be scrapped while having no viable alternative strategy to put in its place.

Now as I have often said, I am far from being the greatest fan of the Prevent strategy which I think has all sorts of flaws and is arguably too limited in its range and ambition. But it is something. And it is striking that in the past the people who have sought most publicly for the policy to be scrapped are those who quite simply do not want Britain to have a counter-radicalisation strategy because they themselves favour the radicals or are radicals themselves. Only now that the left’s ability to exercise the most basic hygiene has reached its current level could a Labour shadow home secretary join such people.

And Maajid Nawaz:

"It's true, Prevent is suffering from a serious brand deficit, it is suffering from a image problem."

"This motley crew  of dogmatists they consists of islamist sympathisers, far-left agitators and then on top of that well meaning liberal multi culturalists…

"These groups have gathered around opposing Prevent and attempts to try and get this scheme scrapped."

"These groups are in effect like climate change deniers, they have to get around the very real fact that extremism exists, its real and its all our responsibility to do something."