Secret Home Office Campaign Unveiled
The UK Home Office has been revealed to have secretly funded a little-known boyband to perform anti-radicalisation songs in schools across predominantly Muslim areas of England.
According to documents obtained by Politics Home, the department's covert campaigns division, the Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU), orchestrated school visits by boyband Mr Meanor during 2016.
The School Tour Programme
The band, featuring singers from Essex and Los Angeles, visited educational institutions in northern England including Burnley, South Manchester, Leeds and Blackburn. One of the targeted schools had previously seen a student travel to join ISIS two years earlier.
Publicly, the tour was presented as being organised by the Warrington-based Foundation for Peace charity, which had received £400,000 in funding from the government's Prevent programme shortly before the school visits commenced.
The band members stated they had approached Foundation for Peace chief executive Nick Taylor with their song Think About It, which they wrote following the 2015 Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people. However, LinkedIn posts from former contractors indicated the Home Office was actually directing the operation.
Covert Communications Strategy
Leaked documents show that BreakThrough Media, which handled communications for the tour, worked closely with RICU. The same media company was previously discovered to be operating a social media channel called 'This is Woke' targeting young Muslim women on behalf of the Home Office.
A former Home Office worker disclosed that RICU campaigns also focused on other sensitive areas including far-right extremism and channel crossings.
There is no evidence suggesting that members of Mr Meanor were aware of the true source of funding behind their school tour.
The Home Office confirmed the campaign has been discontinued, stating: "This campaign was delivered under the previous government and has now been discontinued. A range of activity was designed and implemented in partnership with stakeholders, aimed at reaching audiences who may be vulnerable to radicalisation."
