Andrew Tate-style misogyny falls through the cracks of current UK counterextremism policy

Counter-extremism workers in the UK’s Prevent programme are reporting a “rapid rise” in Andrew Tate-related cases being referred to them by schools concerned over male students. ISD’s Tim Squirrell, who recently co-authored a publication on Incels, spoke to The Guardian about how Andrew Tate-style misogyny is “falling through the cracks” of current UK policy.

“Tate clearly represents a risk of radicalising young men into misogynist extremism. This kind of extremism is not currently considered for support under Prevent unless it is accompanied with a recognised ideology, eg incel/extreme rightwing/Islamist. That’s a problem,” he said.

The reported rise in cases comes days after the long-awaited review of Prevent by controversial figure William Shawcross concluded that misogynistic incel subculture did not fall under UK’s counter-terrorism mandate.

Tim explained to the Guardian that this is incorrect since the ‘ideology had demonstrated itself as a driver of mass violence in numerous instances worldwide, such as the killings in Isla Vista, California, in 2014; in Toronto in 2018 and 2020; and in Tallahassee in 2018.’

“Incel ideology isn’t the only misogynist ideology, or even the one that causes the most damage in absolute terms, but claiming that it is not and shouldn’t be considered a terrorist threat is misguided,” he said. “It also cannot be dealt with under hate crime because – and you would hope that Shawcross would know this – misogyny isn’t included in hate crime legislation.”