Introduction
This article travels some of the murky passageways of counter-terrorism activity especially in the UK.
My interest was sparked by a report published in February 2023, that reading the works of Christian writers, such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, could lead to far-right “radicalization.” The government’s blacklist included—in an instance not lacking irony— George Orwell’s 1984 and even a BBC documentary series following former Conservative minister, Michael Portillo, on train journeys across the country.
Additionally, according to the report, key signs that people have an affinity for the “far-right and Brexit,”—apparently associating Brexit with right-wing extremism—include watching the TV series, Civilization and The Thick of It, and reading classics of political philosophy, such as Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, and Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. The works of Thomas Carlyle and Adam Smith are also on the list.
The references to Tolkien and Lewis especially caught my attention. I have already written about the suggestion that Tolkien is favoured by people associated with alt-Right especially after Vice-Presidential candidate J.D. Vance expressed an admiration for The Lord of the Rings.
However, the possibility of radicalization was suggested in a Government document which seemed to lend a little more authority to the suggestion. However, as will be seen, tracking down the precise information has not been possible.
The Background
The UK has had plenty of experience in dealing with terrorism, as has France for that matter. The French had to deal with terrorist activity surrounding Algeria in the early 1960’s and the UK had to deal with terrorism emanating from the various factions during the Irish Troubles on the 1970’s. So dealing with more contemporary manifestations of terrorism is based on the lessons that have been learned.
The UK Government’s overall counter-terrorism strategy is called CONTEST. The aim of CONTEST is to reduce the risk from terrorism to the UK, its citizens and interests overseas, so people can live freely and with confidence. Details of CONTEST strategy can be found here.
The Strategy document states:
“The core CONTEST framework empowers government departments, devolved administrations, local authorities, frontline emergency services, intelligence agencies, and other partners, to work together to counter terrorism. Our global allies, and independent experts, recognise the core CONTEST Framework – Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare – to be a world leading counter-terrorism programme. A significant majority of people feel safe from terrorism and are confident in the government’s ability to protect the UK from terrorism.”
One part of the CONTEST strategy is a programme known as PREVENT. The aim of PREVENT is to tackle the ideological causes of terrorism. intervene early to support people susceptible to radicalisation. PREVENT sits alongside long-established safeguarding duties on professionals to protect people from a range of other harms such as substance abuse, involvement in gangs and physical and sexual exploitation. Details of PREVENT duty training surrounding radicalization can be found here.
Some aspects of the PREVENT programme are run by the Home Office’s Research, Information and Communications Unit, or RICU. RICU could be described as a propaganda unit although its officials prefer the term “strategic communications.”
RICU is based in the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), in the Home Office’s Westminster HQ. Charles Farr, a former MI6 officer and head of the OSCT, set up the unit shortly after arriving at the Home Office in 2007.
RICU was modelled on the Information Research Department (IRD), a propaganda unit established in 1948 by the Attlee government. The IRD’s exploits included hoodwinking journalists and academics and targeting trade unionists, before it was shut down in 1977.
In 2016 it was reported that some of RICU’s funding came from the budget for the counter-radicalization programme PREVENT. This funding has risen steeply. For 2015-16, the unit’s budget was £17m, more than five times as much as three years earlier.
“When the Home Office revised PREVENT in June 2011, it declared that RICU’s impact had been “variable”, and that more effort to “identify credible partners” and develop powerful narratives and “more professional counter-narrative products” was needed.
The following January, the home secretary, Theresa May, informed the intelligence and security committee that RICU was “road-testing some quite innovative approaches to counter-ideological messages”.
By the end of the year, the unit had a new head, Richard Chalk. A former Conservative parliamentary candidate and communications chief, Chalk arrived after working in Baghdad for Bell Pottinger, the British PR firm. That work – some of which remains classified – included “information operations” intended to help undermine the insurgency.
On his return to the UK he became chief of staff for the then Tory party co-chair, Sayeeda Warsi. The Home Office says he was hired to head RICU because of his expertise in counter-terrorism strategic communications.
Under Chalk’s leadership, RICU began communicating with British Muslims in a manner more reminiscent of counter-insurgency operations than a traditional public information campaign: disseminating messages through the use of subterfuge.”
The target of RICU's work are British Muslims, especially males, aged 15 to 39. The aim of RICU’s work is to bring about "attitudinal and behavioural change" among young British Muslims as part of a counter-radicalisation programme.
It is part of the government’s Strategic Communications which is described as
"the systematic and coordinated use of all means of communication to deliver UK national security objectives by influencing the attitudes and behaviours of individuals, groups and states"
As of 2016 much of RICU’s work was outsourced and a favoured contractor was Breakthrough Media Network Ltd, a company operating from an anonymous office block near Waterloo station in central London. Nothing inside, other than a series of locked doors and CCTV cameras, suggested the nature of the company’s work.
RICU employs social psychologists and anthropologists as well as counter-terrorism officials and marketing strategists and staff monitor conversations and forums to track shifts in narratives. In April 2022, RICU signed a £1.07 million deal with the Media Monitoring and Associated Services framework.
Material developed by RICU is hard to come by. Recruitment efforts and procurement notices are among of the few occasions on which – albeit limited – information on the work of RICU is published openly.
Despite having been founded 17 years ago, there are fewer than 10 mentions of RICU anywhere on GOV.UK, including the site’s archives of thousands of announcements, documents, and ministerial speeches.
The Shawcross Review
PREVENT and its operations (including RICU) were the subject of an Independent Review of PREVENT carried out by Sir William Shawcross.
That report examined some of the thresholds that were to be applied by PREVENT across ideologies to ensure a proportionate and effective response. The review of the analysis products produced by PREVENT’s RICU over the past 4 years has shown this not to be the case. (3.45 – future references in brackets are to the paragraphs in the Shawcross Report))
The report states:
“While the products related to Islamist terrorism focus on the most serious material relating to violent Islamist ideology, mostly Islamic State and al-Qa’ida, much of the material covering extreme right-wing falls well below the threshold for even non-violent extremism.” (3.46 – my emphasis)
Thus a differing and more flexible standard was applied to right wing activity.
The report goes on to say:
“This material tends to deal with broader themes and often covers content that relates to narratives on social media. These products not only covered non-violent far right extremism, but also examples of centre-right debate, populism, and controversial or distasteful forms of right-leaning commentary and intolerance. Some of this material falls well short of the extremism threshold altogether.” (3.47)
I saw one RICU analysis product from 2020 on right-wing terrorist and extremist activity online which referenced books by mainstream British conservative commentators as “key cultural nationalist ideological texts”. The same document listed “key texts” for white nationalists as including historic works of the Western philosophic and literary canon. (3.48)
A RICU analysis product from 2019, which discussed a cohort of social media users it termed “actively patriotic and proud”, listed a prominent Conservative politician and former member of the government as being among figures “associated with far-right sympathetic audiences, and Brexit”. (3.49)
Another RICU product about far-right radicalisation online named a highly popular American podcast host, claiming that this individual had been described as a gateway to the far right. It was suggested that he had hosted a disproportionate number of influencers from the “far right of the political spectrum,” although no examples were provided. (3.50)
I do not consider the above to be appropriate subjects for RICU analysis or PREVENT’s attention, particularly as little care was made to clarify that these mainstream conservatives should not actually be considered part of the far right themselves. The analysis products in question did not present sufficient or convincing evidence that this material is relevant to countering terrorism or meeting Prevent’s objectives. Their inclusion in RICU’s output is liable to confuse practitioners about where they should focus efforts to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. (3.51)
I have seen nothing to suggest that RICU has formally adopted an official policy of applying radically different standards to different ideologies. In practice, however, the bar for what RICU includes on Islamism looks to be relatively high, whereas the bar for what is included on extreme right-wing is comparably low.(3.52 – my emphasis)
This risks creating false equivalence in the minds of PREVENT practitioners about the scale and nature of the threats from extreme right-wing and Islamism. That makes it more difficult to respond proportionately to the unique challenges of these two different ideologies. It also short-changes those, such as Muslim communities, who are threatened by extreme right-wing terrorism and deserve a robust response to this threat. Conflating the dangers posed by the extreme right-wing with the vote to leave the European Union and the views of mainstream Conservative politicians fails to help provide that response. (3.53)”
Tantalisingly no detail other than that which appears in the report tells us precisely what material was cited by RICU as being of the sort that would encourage radicialization. But the media was quick to investigate.
The Media Revelations
On 18 February 2023 Douglas Murray wrote an article in “The Spectator” entitled “Can you really be radicalised by Great British Railway Journeys?” He referred to the Shawcross Report and noted what Sir William
“uncovered about PREVENT’s saunter into ‘right-wing extremism’. Because of course it was never going to be enough for a government programme set up to tackle one form of extremism to look only into that form of extremism. It is almost inevitable that the people taking part will come to feel that there are other forms of ‘extremism’ that they must also focus on and that there is something almost bigoted about pursuing the specific thing they were set up to address. Thus does the great boondoggle of government justify itself.”
PREVENT’s attempts to address right wing extremism were characterized by Murray as “inept” partly because
“The PREVENT programme was advised by left-wing activist groups like Hope not Hate. Such groups have long believed that the definition of far-right should encompass, for instance, many people who supported Brexit. From campaigning against the National Front and the BNP, such groups ended up campaigning against Ukip. In other words, they ended up trying to stigmatise opinions that were in many cases (such as on Brexit and immigration) shared by a majority of the British people.”
We have seen reliance in New Zealand by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet upon left-wing activists. The Disinformation Project immediately comes to mind along with others who adopt neo-Marxist critical theory rhetoric.
Work done by RICU in 2019 looked into social media users described as ‘actively patriotic and proud’. According to RICU there were warning signs if people absorbed information or opinions from ‘pro-Brexit and centre-right commentators’. These included Jacob Rees-Mogg, Melanie Phillips, Rod Liddle and Mr. Murray himself.
Mr. Murray also managed to look over some of the material in which RICU singled out a number of books, the possession or reading of which “could point to severe wrongthink and therefore potential radicalization.”
Mr. Murray comments:
“But then I read on and saw that these same taxpayer-funded fools provide lists of other books shared by people who have sympathies with the ‘far-right and Brexit’. Key signs that people have fallen into this abyss include watching the Kenneth Clark TV series Civilisation, The Thick of It and Great British Railway Journeys. I need to stress again that I am not making this up. This has all been done on your dime and mine in order to stop ‘extremism’ in these islands.”
Included in the list of “wrongthink” texts are Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, as well as works by Thomas Carlyle and Adam Smith.
Elsewhere RICU warns that radicalisation could occur from books by authors including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Aldous Huxley and Joseph Conrad.
In a supreme piece of irony the list of suspect books also includes 1984 by George Orwell.
Unsurprisingly Fox News picked up the story noted a comment from John Kyle, an Ulster Unionist Councillor who noted the following about Anglo-Irish author C.S.Lewis
"I know that communist and totalitarian regimes have viewed Christianity as dangerously subversive, but when the British Government labels C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books a terrorist threat its counter-terrorism unit has lost touch with reality"
The Christian Institute came out in support of Lewis noting ironically that as well as his works on Christianity, included would be his fairy stories which could potentially radicalize readers.
The Institute went on to observe:
“ Since 2011 PREVENT has been more focused on ‘non-violent extremism’. Its definition of extremism — “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs” — has been widely criticised for endangering free speech.”
The Institute updated its Little Book of Non-Violent Extremists which makes the big point that some nonviolent ‘extremists’ turn out to be heroic people of global significance. These were people willing to be in a minority of one. People who shook up the consensus of the day. They were contrarians.
Yet they were still vilified as extremists who incited violence and revolution. Their beliefs were so out of kilter with the thinking of the time that all were accused of infringing fundamental values, attacking others’ rights or being subversive in some way. They could easily have breached modern ‘non-violent extremism’ thresholds.
Examples given are Rosa Parkes and Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Tyndale who translated the Bible into English. Wiliam Wilberforce, Lord Shaftesbury, John Bunyan and John Wesley are also cited as those who challenged established thinking and, by the standards employed by RICU and PREVENT would be dangerous extremists.
Actually locating the RICU document that contained the “reading list” – and which Mr. Murray had obviously seen was not possible. RICU keeps its cards close to its chest as I have already observed.
In the House of Lords on 22 February 2023 Lord Dobbs asked of the Home Office
“To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to publish in full the analysis reportedly prepared by PREVENT's Research Information and Communication Unit (RICU) that identified certain books, films and TV shows as far-right and white supremacist; and what assessment they have made of whether such an analysis is within RICU's official remit.”
The obfuscatory answer by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Home Office, Lord Sharpe was as follows:
“This question was answered on 7th March 2023
The Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) was established in 2007 under the PREVENT strand of HMG’s CONTEST strategy. RICU aims to understand and counter terrorist and extremist ideologies to reduce the risk to the UK, its citizens, and its interests overseas.
RICU currently has 22 allocated staff. This is subject to annual review depending on operational requirements. RICU’s spend by financial year for the last five years is provided below. Spend increased significantly from financial year 2012/2013 to support RICU’s response to the threat posed by Daesh. 2022/23 figures are based on spend to date.
Financial Year Total spend (£)
2018/2019 19,087,916.67
2019/2020 17,399,192.00
2020/2021 20,461,482.00
2021/2022 8,599,531.00
2022/2023 5,072,290.00
RICU provides internal analysis on terrorist use of propaganda and exploitation of the internet to inform the UK’s counter-terrorism system. To support this crucial objective RICU undertakes open-source monitoring to better understand the terrorist and extremist media, online and communications environment. This open-source monitoring identifies a range of material that is shared and discussed within these spaces, including topics or media that terrorist and extremist groups are seeking to exploit. All RICU data collection and analysis complies with relevant legislation.
The work of RICU is crucial to the delivery of PREVENT and has helped to position the UK at the forefront of the battle against terrorist propaganda, particularly online terrorist content. The unauthorised disclosure of classified information damages the ability of the Government to keep the public safe from threats to national security.
PREVENT remains a vital tool to divert people from dangerous and poisonous ideologies. We are now implementing all recommendations from the recent Independent Review of PREVENT led by William Shawcross, paving the way for a more transparent, efficient and sustainable programme.
The answer, therefore, was no.
Comment
It is quite clear from Sir William Shawcross’s Report that PREVENT and RICU had employed tests and standards which were not even across the board. When one considers the titles of some of the works on the reading list as being likely to radicalize far-right extremists any credibility that might attach to these important organisations becomes seriously eroded.
Sir William’s recommendations, all of which were accepted by the former Government, did not specifically address reading lists but the fact remains that by some extraordinary means these relatively benign works managed to attract the attention or dare I say fevered imagination of left-wing RICU bureaucrats.
Of all the works probably 1984 and Leviathan are the most political. I would think that many readers would struggle with Hobbes. Orwell would be astonished at the suggestion the Far Right may be attracted by his dystopian vision of a totalitarian State which may be either Right or Left.
Of course literature has long been a target of the authorities. The early history of the printing press tells of attempts by the State to control both content and the operations of print technology.
What is of concern is that an arm of the State has deemed a number of books to be effectively subversive in that they could contribute to far-right radicalization but those books are not to be identified in the interests of “national security”. Thus, if I were in the UK and, as is my wont, collected various editions of The Lord of the Rings I could come under the unwelcome attentions of PREVENT and RICU as a consumer of “poisonous ideologies”. Given RICU’s “open source monitoring” it is more likely than not that the reading and book purchasing habits of those beyond the shores of the UK are under cyber-surveillance.
As technology has increased the modes of communication so has the interest of the State in its control. Broadcasting in particular has attracted the interest of the State and in New Zealand was State controlled. Fortunately, however, the iron grip of the State on content has loosened. The law relating to indecent publications was reviewed resulting in the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act with its limited scope for censorship.
Yet there are those in the community and in Government for control of content and, as the steps in the UK would suggest, control of what we should be reading.
Lest it be thought that all that was proposed in the RICU reading list were works that might lead to radicalization, it is a very short step, based on that assessment, for a full scale ban of such works
As I have suggested earlier in this piece, the appetite within Government organisations for this sort of judgmental nonsense is voracious.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority would like to see its remit extended to online material.
Those who would favour banning children and young people from social media platforms (and there are a few of them) come from the same paternalistic State stable.
The Safer Online Services and Web Platforms proposals slumber in a grave awaiting the day when a new Government will revive them and zombielike they will rise to join the appetite for censorship and content control that sadly is alive and well.
Reading lists like those devised by RICU are just a start. And the fear of terrorism is sufficient accelerant to start the fires of book burning.