The number of schoolchildren who have been picked up by the Government’s Channel programme – designed to identify kids at risk of radicalisation – after being radicalised by the far-right has QUADRUPLED
The number of children exposed to online hate speech and being radicalised by far-right extremism has soared, we can reveal.
Worrying figures show a steep rise in how many children were considered vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism or violent fanaticism. The government’s Channel Programme was set up to help dissuade potential Islamist terrorists but now deals with as many youngsters at risk from the far-right.
In the past nine years, the number of kids referred to it by teachers and police has rocketed from 377 to 652. And those deemed serious enough for specific help rose by four times, from 49 to 216. This frightening trend comes against the backdrop of a rise in activists using social media and online platforms to spread their views, including English Defence League co-founder Tommy Robinson.
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Chris Phillips, the former Head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said: “Much of the radicalisation of all forms has been done through the internet. They get themselves into an echo chamber saying the same things over and over again, and gradually people become entrenched in something.
“You need to see the other side as well and that’s the point of the Channel Programme. The internet is unpoliced. It needs to find a way to police it. The trouble is the whole system is set up so that if you’re interested in a subject you just get fed more and more of that subject.”
Exit Hate Trust UK charity said: “With figures showing last year there were a record 652 schoolchildren aged under 16 referred to the government’s Channel scheme, this highlights why it is so important for everyone – frontline staff, families and young people who have friends exhibiting extreme right-wing views – to do something to reduce extremism. Families, friends and educational staff all have a vital part to play in spotting the signs of radicalisation and then reaching out to get support.”
Figures also show 265 schoolkids were referred to the de-radicalisation programme because of concerns they were fixated about mass casualty events. These include school massacres and nine fascinated by incel-inspired women-hating, such as Plymouth shooter Jake Davison, who killed five people in August 2021.
There have been a spate of convictions of children for terror plots. In August, a boy of 13, obsessed with far-right killer Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011, was locked up after being found with an arsenal of weapons including high-powered crossbows. He also owned a tactical assault vest adorned with a Nazi black sun patch.
Joe Metcalfe, of Haworth, West Yorkshire, was jailed in November 2023 for 10 years for terror offences and rape. He was just 15 when arrested after crashing his dad’s car while conducting a scouting trip for an atrocity at a mosque in Keighley.
A 14-year-old boy from Darlington, Co Durham, was believed to have wanted to carry out a school shooting. He owned manuals on making weapons and bombs, regularly used “racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic language” and contacted other far-right extremists online. In May 2022, he was sentenced to a referral order.
And in 2021, a teenage neo-Nazi group leader, aged just 13, downloaded a bomb-making manual and joined an online fascist forum where he expressed racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic views. The boy, 16 when caught and prosecuted, was the head of the British branch of a neo-Nazi group he led from his gran’s house.
MI5 director general Sir Ken McCallum has revealed that spies are having to investigate teenagers as young as 13 who are being sucked into extreme right-wing terrorism. He warned that “misguided teenagers” presented a “sharp risk” and the terror threat from youngsters obsessed with weapons and drawn in by “cult-like” online “extremist echo chambers” has “grown and morphed” in recent years.
Criminology lecturer Dr Gina Vale, of Southampton University, said: “To date, a child has yet to carry out a terrorist attack on UK soil, but there are concerning and increasing cases of intent and potential. Teenagers have proven to be influential amplifiers and even innovators of violent extremist activity across the ideological spectrum.”
She said their activities had been shaped by online content and information, adding: “While the Online Safety Act 2023 has increased regulation of illegal terrorist-branded content, it has fallen short of providing holistic safeguards for children, who can still access hateful and violent content that doesn’t quite reach this threshold.”
The fatal stabbing and shooting of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016 during the EU referendum campaign brought the issue of far-right terrorism in the UK to prominence. Attacker Thomas Mair, now 62, who was jailed for life, was said to have been inspired by white supremacism and while attacking the MP in Birstall, West Yorkshire, said “Keep Britain independent” and “This is for Britain”. After the attack, police found that he was obsessed with Nazis, notions of white supremacy and apartheid-era South Africa.
A Home Office spokesman called Prevent, which incorporates the Channel Programme, “a vital tool stopping people from becoming terrorists”. They added: “We’ve taken over 8,000 referrals in the last year and supported nearly 6,000 people away from radicalisation since the introduction of the statutory Prevent duty in 2015.”
