Peter Kent-Baguley

Lord Patel's plan to seek views on Preventing Violent Extremism in Muslim Communities turned into crisis of confidence  

Last Friday, the 6 Group Leaders on the Council were invited by the Assistant Chief Executive to meet Lord Kamlesh Patel, an advisor to Hazel Blears MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. The 30 minutes meeting was scheduled for today at 11.15am. An hour before an officer telephoned me in my Town Hall office to say that the meeting had been cancelled, with no reason given. Later in the morning a Group leader informed me that Lord Patel refused to meet with the BNP Group Leader present. This evening, the Council's Head of Public Relations telephoned me to say that the reason for the cancellation was that Lord Patel had run out of time.

Our briefing contained: 

A new strategy ‘Preventing violent extremism - Winning hearts and minds' was announced in April 2007 to step-up work with Muslim communities to isolate, prevent and defeat violent extremism. Stoke-on-Trent City Council secured funding from the new Preventing Violent Extremism Fund to take forward a programme of activities to tackle violent extremism at a local level.  There is a LAA performance indicator relating to this agenda, NI35 but it has been decided that in Stoke-on-Trent this will be a delivery plan item and not one of our 35 selected targets.

The government's strategic objectives for this programme are to develop a community in which Muslims in our communities: i) identify themselves as a welcome part of wider British society; ii) accepted as such by the wider community; iii) Reject violent extremist ideology and actively condemn violent extremism; iv) Isolate violent extremism activity and support and co-operate with the police and security services; v) Develop their own capacity to deal with problems where they arise and support diversionary activity for those at risk.

Lord Patel would like to talk about three issues: i) How do people think violent extremism can best be prevented at local level - based on their personal experiences and views; ii) How do people think they can best work together e.g. communities, LAs, Police, Education etc on preventing violent extremism; in particular, how can grass roots organisations and ordinary people be effectively involved; iii) What future support do they think they need

Please think about these issues in advance and come prepared to share your views and experiences. This is also your opportunity to talk to Lord Patel about the Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) agenda, the reality on the ground, how the agenda affects you, your community or organisation. It is important that people are open and honest when expressing views and opinions. (My emphasis)

Unfortunately, there is now considerable doubt about the veracity of that final briefing sentence.