Hope not Hate, a campaign group, argues that the government Prevent program has identified an alarming increase in university students.
According to recent data, the number of university students red-flagged under the government’s Prevention counter-extremism program has increased by 50% in just two years, with the largest increase being those with mixed, unclear, or unstable (MUU) ideas.
According to the Office for Students, England’s higher education regulator, the most recent Prevent monitoring data indicates that the majority of students are now classified as holding MUU extremist ideas.
Mixed, Unclear, or Unstable (MUU) is a term used to describe individuals who display various aspects of numerous ideologies, such as conspiracy theories, men’s rights, incels, or people who lack a clear ideology but are nevertheless susceptible to being dragged into terrorism.
In the higher education sector, 210 Prevent cases were escalated in 2022-23, compared to 165 cases in 2021–22 and 139 cases in 2020–2021. However, the lower numbers in the previous year may be partially due to the shutdown of campuses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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According to Patrick Hermansson, senior researcher at Hope Not Hate, a racism and anti-fascist organization, the rise of referrals from universities is worrying. It corresponds with the increased interest in extremist ideologies among young people in the United Kingdom. Patrick Hermasson added, “This is a broad and poorly defined category, making it difficult to make a detailed analysis of the MUU numbers.”
However, the category encompasses people with extreme beliefs about people in a single topic, like misogyny, which does not neatly fit into a particular ideology, as well as more esoteric and difficult-to-define worldviews like conspiracists and the Order of the Nine Angles, Satanist organizations.
The number of instances labeled as MUU extremism had nearly doubled in the last two years despite a minor increase in Islamist and extreme right-wing radicalization during the past year.
A total of 95 MUU cases were escalated to the point at which institutional Prevent lead officers became involved, compared to 50 cases in 2020-2021. 55 cases were deemed so serious that outside Prevent advice was requested. The corresponding number in 2020-21 was 31.
Data for the 2022-23 academic year revealed that the number of cases of MUU extremism subject to formal Prevent referrals had increased to 30 from 13 in the previous years. Despite relatively tiny figures, the tendency of the clear.
The number of cases involving suspected Islamist radicalization has also increased slightly in the past year, from 35 cases in 2021-22 to 40 in the case of extreme right radicalization increased from 35 to 40 students.
The most recent data cover 2022–23 and, therefore, do not include the period since the October 7th Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza. It does not also include external speakers, and it shows that less than 1% were rejected in 2022–23 in most cases for procedural reasons.
