Record 10,000 Prevent referrals reveal growing UK extremism challenge

A record 10,293 referrals were made to Prevent for 9,957 people in the year to September, figures show.

The scheme, which aims to stop people turning to terrorism, saw referrals rise 39 percent from 7,408 in the previous 12 months.

This is the highest number of referrals in a single year since records began in 2015, according to Home Office data.

The spike comes after officials noted a sustained significant increase in referrals in the wake of the Southport attack in July 2024.

Axel Rudakubana, who killed three girls at a dance class and tried to murder eight others as well as two adults, was referred to Prevent three times, but his case was closed over a lack of clear ideology. 

Where age was known, 11 to 15-year-olds made up the largest proportion of Prevent referrals (3,655 or 36 percent), followed by 16 to 17-year-olds (1,379 or 13 percent), the Home Office said.

Some 393 referrals (4 percent) were for children aged 10 or under.

The figures published on Thursday also show 2,103 Prevent referrals were because of concerns over extreme right-wing ideology (20 percent of the total), up from 1,480 in the previous 12 months, while there were 860 referrals (8 percent) about Islamist extremism, down from 945.

Some 818 referrals (8 percent) related to fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks, 95 (1 percent) were for InCel extremism and 32 (0.3 percent) for left-wing extremism, while 353 (3 percent) were for multiple ideologies with no dominant ideology identified.

More than half (56 percent) of referrals were for individuals with no identified ideology.

The Home Office has also published data showing the ethnicity of referrals to the Prevent programme.

The collection of data on ethnicity is not mandatory on the Prevent referral form and the figures cover only 5,315 referrals in the year to September 2025, or 52 percent of the total.

Of these 5,315 referrals, 3,600 (68 percent) were white, 949 (18 percent) were Asian, 401 (8 percent) were black and 365 (7 percent) were listed as “other”.

Following initial screening and assessment, Prevent referrals who are deemed at risk of radicalisation may be passed to a multi-agency “Channel panel”.

Chaired by local authorities, these panels determine the extent of a person’s susceptibility to radicalisation and whether a tailored package of support is necessary to address the risk.

Of the 1,100 referrals taken on as a Channel case in the year to September 2025 where ethnicity was known, 835 (76 percent) were white, 159 (14 percent) were Asian, 59 (5 percent) were black and 47 (4 percent) were “other”.