Much stronger support for families, a relentless battle for hearts and minds and a stronger “counter-narrative” are needed to prevent increasing numbers of young Britons going to fight in Syria, MPs have said.
The Commons home affairs select committee said there was now a real danger that the police, security services and others are failing to prevent more departures. “We are at the edge of a cliff,” said the committee’s chairman, Keith Vaz.
The MPs mounted their investigation after three teenage girls from east London flew to Istanbul last month with the apparent intention of crossing the border into Syria to join Isis. The police fear that more than 600 young Britons have travelled to Syria, about half of whom have since returned.
The MPs said a special advice line should be set up for parents and others to raise concerns, and far better communication was needed between the police, schools and parents.
“The police must engage in a regular and open dialogue with schools and community groups to ensure that information is exchanged and new initiatives can be explored at community level,” says the committee’s report. It says the Metropolitan police’s anti-terrorist hotline is the wrong point of contact for parents who believe that their children might have been radicalised.
Vaz said the case of the three girls – Amira Abase, Shamima Begum and Kadiza Sultana – in which no immediate action was taken to prevent their departure was in sharp contrast with the speed with which the police worked to return three teenage boys from Brent who tried to do the same thing.
“Radical groups from abroad are preying on young British citizens through social media to encourage them to travel abroad to join them. The number of cases being brought to public attention should ring alarm bells,” said Vaz.
“Schools and police must inform parents immediately, and work with them even if there is the smallest hint of radicalisation, or a close association with someone who is thought to have been radicalised.”
The MPs said that when social media companies were provided with evidence that their services are being used to promote violent extremism, they should take swift action to suspend these accounts.
The committee said it also wanted the Home Office to work more closely with airlines that serve Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria to develop stricter controls on passengers using those routes. The MPs also want much stricter enforcement of no-fly lists and a push to share them more widely internationally.
