ABSTRACT
In January 2007, the British Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, declared the ‘war on terror’ to be a ‘dangerous concept’, making the case that ‘the fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war but the prevention of crime’ (Macdonald 2007: 2). Other British authorities rapidly followed this example, warning of the provocative political implications of the concept and favouring instead a turn to counter terror as the prevention of crime. In a speech to the US Center on International Cooperation, International Development Secretary Hilary Benn argued that ‘in the UK we do not use the phrase “war on terror”, because we can’t win by military means alone’ (Benn 2007: 1). One year on, the UK Home Office had produced a ‘phrase book’ for civil servants, calling for them to reject the phrase ‘war on terror’ and adopt a language of ‘assisting vulnerable communities in building resilience against violent extremism and criminal murder’ (Guardian 2008).
