Ed Miliband calls for overhaul of Prevent

BBC News and the London Evening Standard cover details of the Labour leader, Ed Miliband’s People’s Question Time event in Lincoln yesterday in which he spoke of the “real fears among Jewish families, among Muslim families” about “rising intolerance” in the UK and Europe.

Miliband, who was canvassing with the prospective Labour candidate in the Lincoln seat, Lucy Rigby, took part in a question and answer session with residents from the area. Addressing the events in Copenhagen last week and Paris last month, Miliband said, “This was a free-speech event where people were attacked and people were killed. That goes to the heart of what we stand for as a country. Defending those rights to freedom of speech.”

He said that the fears felt by minority communities in the wake of reports of rising levels of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism had to be recognised, adding “but recognising it is not enough.”

Miliband urged European leaders “to show a unity of purpose in tackling these issues”.

In a post on his Facebook page yesterday, Miliband wrote at length of the impact of hatred and intolerance stating:

“[R]eligiously motivated crimes in Britain have almost doubled in the last year, with more attacks on Synagogues and Mosques, Jews and Muslims. The number of anti-Semitic attacks is the highest since records began.

“We need to renew our vigilance and ensure every family of every faith can be secure in our country.

“It means we need to work to build stronger communities that give no hiding place to violent ideologies that threaten us all.”

Miliband criticised the Government’s Prevent programme, calling for an overhaul of it “so that parents, families, neighbours, mosques, and friends are all in the first line of defence against violent extremism.”

The Labour leader also called on social media companies to do more to tackle online hatred writing, “Twitter and Facebook need to act swiftly to take down offensive material, block offenders’ accounts and stop them setting up different accounts. It means we need increasing co-operation between security and intelligence services across jurisdictions, borders and, especially, across the EU.”

The issue of online hatred and the effectiveness of current legislation in dealing with hate crime offences and prosecution was raised by MP Keith Vaz last month. The Lords Communications Committee in a report on social media offences noted the low level of prosecutions suggesting that Parliament play a role in “determining the circumstances in which such offences should be prosecuted”.

Dr Tanweer Ahmed, from the Islamic Association of Lincoln, praised the Labour leader’s remarks about community cohesion telling the Lincolnshire Echo, “At a Government level there must be more work to promote cohesion and I think the media needs to publish more positive stories that do not label Muslims as extremists.”

Earlier this month the Observer reported on the Labour party’s policy proposals to tackle Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and other forms of racism and intolerance. It will be interesting to see how this shapes up in the party’s manifesto which is expected to be published next month.