"Liam Duffy, an adviser to the Counter Extremism Project, said Islamist extremists should be perceived as 'more than a terrorist threat'. He said the UK should not fall into complacency despite no deaths from terrorism being recorded last year. 'There are long, long periods between terrorist attacks, between recruitment flows to overseas conflicts, where to our eyes nothing happens,' he said. 'But that’s not the case. There is a lot happening and we need to know what is happening.'"

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "It is impossible to imagine how frontline staff operating in this squalor could raise their game enough to manage the inevitable confrontation of denying extremist prisoners the material they need to spread their hateful ideologies. They can’t even keep the bins empty. Taylor observed that ‘there is no better sign of decline in a prison than a lack of cleanliness’. He’s right. It’s one thing to remove any ambiguity in the rules to avoid staff being bamboozled and intimidated by people using religion as an excuse to undermine security. It’s quite another to make sure staff enforce these rules and deal with the kickback."

CEP Strategic Advisor Liam Duffy writes: "Britain’s blasphemy incidents are catching authorities off guard, leaving teachers, mothers and cinema managers alone to face intimidating and disorientating campaigns. The first step in a coherent response is understanding that this is not Islamism and it is not something animating all Barelvis, much less all Muslims. It is a particular phenomenon with a fundamental supply and demand issue, making trivial and accidental “transgressions” such as the Wakefield incident more likely, especially when authorities acquiesce to complaints. This means blasphemy controversies are likely to continue, and with them the looming risk of violence and unrest."

"That being said, we must guard against those in senior positions who say that it is inevitable people like Abedi will fall through the net. That rather depends on the strength of net. This report sets out clear failings in the handling of intelligence that may have contributed to one of the most heinous acts of terrorism this country has ever endured. These failures aren’t new, they are part of a dispiriting trend that needs urgent and decisive attention, not window-dressing and bromides about ‘lessons learned’."

CEP resources and experts quoted throughout: "Read William Shawcross CVO, the Independent Reviewer of Prevent’s report and how the government is responding to the recommendations outlined in the report."

"The recommendation was welcomed by Professor Ian Acheson, a senior adviser to the Counter-Extremism Project and a former prisoner governor.

'It’s the idea that everyone can be redeemed that is infecting the approach, which is always looking for improvement and for reduction of risk,' he said.

'It means officials are particularly vulnerable to psychologically sophisticated, ideologically-motivated terrorists. The terrorists don’t have to be particularly intelligent, they just have to be cunning and adept at hiding their true motivations.'"

"Home Office officials responsible for the decision to fund groups that have spread Islamic extremism should be sacked, according to a former counterterrorism official.

Professor Ian Acheson, who is now a senior adviser to the Counter Extremism Project, said the UK should take a far tougher approach to non-violent Islamist groups who 'undermine social cohesion' by spreading hatred."

"Prof. Ian Acheson, a senior adviser to the Counter Extremism Project, which contributed to the long-delayed Shawcross review of the government’s anti-extremism Prevent program due to be released this week, called for a stricter approach to Muslim groups that 'undermine social cohesion.'"