Keir Starmer is being urged to replace Yvette Cooper as Home Secretary amid growing concerns she has ‘lost her grip’ of the Government’s anti-terror agenda.
Senior Labour insiders fear that lives are being put at risk by a ‘squeamish and timid’ failure to target Islamic suspects.
Tensions have risen in the fallout from the Southport murders, with No 10 understood to be frustrated the Home Office has shied away from focusing on Islamist violence – despite a report warning about the dangers of such an approach.
Two years ago the previous government vowed to ‘swiftly implement’ a major overhaul of Prevent, the scheme to stop people being radicalised into becoming involved with terrorism.
It came after the report by William Shawcross concluded it was not sufficiently focused on Islamist terrorism, despite it being responsible for
94 per cent of terror-related deaths since 1999. Sir William believes the public have been put at risk because his recommendations have been ignored by ministers.
Critics say that ‘woke’ Home Office officials, fearful of appearing racist, are happier targeting far-Right activists such as Tommy Robinson.
Last night, a Prevent source said the ‘squeamish and timid attitude to the issue in the Home Office comes from the top’.
A Home Office report, commissioned in the wake of 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana killing three young girls and injuring ten others at a Taylor Swift–themed dance workshop last year, caused outrage by suggesting the authorities adopt a ‘behaviour-based and ideologically agnostic approach’ to combating extremism rather than ‘ideologies of concern’. It meant, for example, that misogyny could be put on a par with Islamism.
Ms Cooper rejected it, but No 10 is understood to believe there should have been more ministerial control of officials in her department before its delivery.
A Labour source claimed a number of Ms Cooper’s ministerial colleagues were furious at being ‘blindsided’ by Home Office civil servants.
They said the rift could lead to her being moved in the next Cabinet reshuffle, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting tipped to take over. The source said Downing Street was ‘furious with Yvette over Prevent’, adding: ‘They don’t think she’s across her brief.
‘The Government was blindsided by the post-Southport report. There was zero ministerial oversight. Yvette just left the civil servants alone to get on with it. It was never on the No 10 political risk register. Yvette never flagged it with them.’
The Mail on Sunday reported claims a fortnight ago that Sir Keir blamed Ms Cooper for Labour’s faltering response to the grooming gangs row, with insiders saying her department failed to alert No 10 when calls for a Home Office-led inquiry were first raised.
It led to ministers refusing a full-scale national investigation, only for Ms Cooper to announce local probes into the scale of the sexual exploitation of young women.
The Prevent source said it ‘preferred’ to class referrals as ‘MUU’ – ‘mixed, unstable or unclear’. More than half are in that category, compared to roughly a quarter classed as ‘Islamist’. A Home Office source said it worked ‘closely’ with No 10 on Prevent.