Conservatives accuse Prevent scheme of failing to spot Islamist extremism

The Conservative Party has criticised the Government’s anti-extremism scheme Prevent for allegedly neglecting Islamist extremism.

New figures from the Home Office show that only eight per cent of referrals to Prevent in the year to September 2025 related to Islamist extremism.

In total, a record 10,293 referrals were made to Prevent over the year, including 860 (8%) concerning Islamist extremism—a decrease from 945 the previous year. By contrast, referrals for extreme right-wing ideology rose to 2,103 (20% of the total), up from 1,480 in the prior 12 months.

Other categories included 818 referrals (8%) for fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks, 95 (1%) for InCel extremism, and 32 (0.3%) for left-wing extremism. There were also 353 referrals (3%) for cases involving multiple ideologies without a dominant ideology.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp commented: “Prevent is ignoring Islamist extremism, despite it remaining the deadliest terror threat our country faces. The failure to address this and intervene is putting the public in danger. Prevent’s role is vital to national security, but it must be fit for purpose.

“Labour does not have the backbone to confront this reality, and that is a national security failure. Islamist terror has caused 94 per cent of terror murders in the last 25 years and is 75 per cent of counter terror caseloads—but only accounts for 8 per cent of Prevent referrals.

“This is completely wrong. Only the Conservatives will restore focus and make sure Britain never turns a blind eye to Islamist extremism.”

The Home Office also published data on the ethnicity of Prevent referrals. Ethnicity data is not mandatory on referral forms and covers only 5,315 referrals in the year to September 2025—52 per cent of the total. Of these, 3,600 (68%) were white, 949 (18%) were Asian, 401 (8%) were black, and 365 (7%) were listed as “other”.

Referrals deemed at risk of radicalisation may be passed to a multi-agency “Channel panel,” chaired by local authorities, for further assessment and support. Of the 1,100 Channel cases in the year to September 2025 where ethnicity was known, 835 (76%) were white, 159 (14%) were Asian, 59 (5%) were black, and 47 (4%) were “other”.