ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyses an array of counter terrorism laws and policy programmes that impinge on political expression that might well have encountered stiffer constitutional resistance in other polities. It explains the important matter of the adequacy of parliamentary scrutiny. The book reviews the evidence on the impact of Prevent on campus, drawing in part on the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights report of 2018. It argues that universities might be considered to enjoy a privileged space of exception in which free speech norms are given more weight than elsewhere in the public sector, where the Prevent duty bites more obviously on expressive interests. The book shows how the findings of the investigations fed into the drafting of proposals that would ultimately find their way into the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015.
