LEICESTER MAYOR SET TO REJECT GRANT TO HELP PREVENT TERRORISMism

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Leicester mayor set to reject grant to help prevent terrorism

City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby looks set to reject a grant of £50,000 a year aimed at preventing terrorism in Leicester because it will upset Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The Home Office has identified Leicester as a place where potential terrorists could live and offered the funding for Leicester City Council to appoint a "Prevent" co-ordinator to work on community schemes to help stop people being recruited by extremists. Today, the city council's Conservative member Ross Grant blamed Sir Peter Soulsby for dragging his feet in taking up the offer.

He said: "In light of what happened in Norway last week I think this is ridiculous."

But Sir Peter said while the new post could be useful for policing the city, it might have a bigger negative effect because the Muslim community might feel there is too much focus on Islamic extremists.

He said: "As a programme, Prevent is resented by Muslims who feel they are being singled out, while other communities feel they are being left out because more money is being spent giving Muslims favourable treatment.

"I'm asking the questions we need to ask before we sign up."

A Home Office spokesman said: "The post is an optional grant local authorities can apply for."

It was announced Leicester had qualified for the Prevent scheme last month and the deadline for making a bid for funding is August 18.

Councillor Grant said: "I know there's a sense in Leicester that if you accept the money for Prevent it stigmatises the Muslim community.

"But this could be useful for combating terrorism and I don't want to see it being a missed opportunity."

Leicester Council of Faiths chairman Manjula Sood, who is one of Sir Peter's assistant mayors said most faith leaders were against the Prevent scheme.

She said: "The general view is it would harm the city after all the work we've done in bringing different faiths together.

"It's up to the city council to decide whether or not to take the funding but we don't feel comfortable about it."

Suleman Nagdi, of the Leicester Federation of Muslim Organisations, said: "The discussions about the Prevent co-ordinator have focused too much on the Muslim community.

"Even if it was done very fairly and looked at far right extremism as well, I think Muslims would still be concerned about it."

Leicester East MP Keith Vaz said he did not have enough information to comment on whether Prevent did more harm than good, but said the Home Office parliamentary select committee would be investigating its usefulness.