Bartholomew's Notes

From the Daily Telegraph:

Concern about mass migration is a “terrorist ideology” that requires intervention by the Government’s anti-radicalisation Prevent programme, according to official documents.

An online training course hosted on the Government’s website for Prevent lists “cultural nationalism” as a belief that could lead to an individual being referred to the deradicalisation scheme.

This encompasses a conviction that “Western culture is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups”, staff taking the course are told.

…Prevent’s official “refresher awareness” course, hosted on gov.uk, states that “cultural nationalism” is one of the most common “sub-categories of extreme Right-wing terrorist ideologies”, alongside white supremacism and white/ethno-nationalism.

One might expect the url link there to click through to the primary source, but it instead bizarrely takes readers to an irrelevant opinion pice by Daniel Hannan from last year complaining about Labour in general terms.

Also oddly, the article fails to explain where the three “sub-categories” have come from. The impression is that Prevent has come up with the terms itself, and that they perhaps reflect a new government directive. Readers are not told that the terminology described instead reflects usages adopted in May 2019 by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), MI5 and Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP).

The reason for this omission, I suspect, is that the article is primarily a vehicle for promoting Toby Young:

Lord Young, the general secretary of the Free Speech Union (FSU), has written to Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, urging her to reconsider the classification urgently.

…He said: “While not defined in law, nor subject to statutory constraint, the definition in the training course expands the scope of suspicion to include individuals whose views are entirely lawful but politically controversial.

It is reasonable to suppose that Toby Young (sorry, “Lord Young of Acton”) came to the Telegraph with the story and the “gotcha” screenshot from the Prevent course, and the grateful hack then set about rounding up pundit quotes rather than digging into the actual background.

I previously noted Toby Young’s own “lawful but politically controversial” views here.

Background

A 2022 report from the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament that has the missing background:

The following are MI5 and CTP’s definition and categorisation of ideologies that potential terrorists might adopt: as with Islamist terrorism there is no suggestion that all those who hold these views or subscribe to these ideologies have terrorist intent – this categorisation process is used as a means of assessing those who might be potential terrorists:

• ‘Cultural Nationalism’ is a belief that ‘Western Culture’ is under threat from mass migration into Europe and from a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups. The ideology tends to focus on the rejection of cultural practices such as the wearing of the burqa or the perceived rise of the use of sharia law. In the UK this has been closely associated with anti-Islam groups.

• ‘White Nationalism’ is a belief that mass migration from the ‘non-white’ world, and demographic change, poses an existential threat to the ‘White Race’ and ‘Western Culture’. Advocates for some sort of ‘White’ homeland, either through partition of already existing countries, or by the (if necessary forced) repatriation of ethnic minorities. Much of this rhetoric is present in the ‘Identitarian’ movement.

• ‘White Supremacism’ is a belief that the ‘White Race’ has certain inalienable physical and mental characteristics that makes it superior (with some variation) to other races. Often associated with conspiracy theories that explain the decline in ‘white’ political and social status over the last hundred years. This can also encapsulate a belief in the spiritual superiority of the ‘White Race’, often describing racial differences in quasi-religious terms (such as the ‘Aryan soul’).

A 2019 article in the Guardian has further details:

Counter-terror officers said the rightwing terrorists are being inspired by three distinct sets of ideology, all of which have associated individuals and groups.

Cultural nationalism and the far-right is anti-Islam, anti-immigration and anti-government. Groups that display this ideology include, but are not limited to, the Football Lads Alliance and the English Defence League. The ideals of cultural nationalism inspired in part the actions of Darren Osborne, the terrorist who drove a van into worshippers outside Finsbury Park mosque, killing 51-year-old Makram Ali.

The ideology escalates to white nationalism and identitarianism… Finally, the ideology heightens further to white supremacism and the extreme far right.

The Prevent “refresher awareness” course expresses the three sub-categories more concisely, as provided by a Telegraph screenshot:

Extreme right-wing

We define extreme right-wing terrorism as the active or vocal support of ideologies that advocate discrimination or violence against minority groups. The 3 most common sub categories of extreme right-wing terrorist ideologies and their narratives are:

• Cultural nationalism: ‘Western culture’ is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups.

• White/ethno-nationalism: Mass migration from the ‘non-white world’ and demographic change poses an existential threat to the ‘white race’ and ‘Western culture’.

• White supremacism: The ‘white race is biologically, culturally and spiritually superior to all other races. An alternative form of government, ranging from fascist regimes to ethno-tribalism, should replace Western parliamentary democracy.

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