The writing, as ever, was on the wall.

“Blacks Out,”  was daubed in white on the dirty blond bricks of a municipal golf clubhouse in Glasgow one evening last week. Then, in dark grey on light, was added the lightening flashes of the SS, a Swastika and the words of the Nazi salute: Sieg Heil.

A day earlier the newly elected leader of Scottish Labour was racially abused outside Holyrood by a man clutching a camera and spouting far-right tropes about Muslims. Anas Sarwar, the son of a migrant from Pakistan, did not rise to the bate. He knows how to handle extremists. Because they exist.

Vandalisms and other race hate incidents happen in Scotland. But in recent years security and law enforcement officials are worried by a lot more than street abuse or graffiti.

There are people whose far-right ideology is so concerning they spark a counter-terror response. After all, an MP, Jo Cox, was assassinated by a fascist in England, where other terror attacks have taken place.

Right across UK policing there is a system for referring people vulnerable extremism to specialist programmes to wean them off terrorist ideology. It’s called Prevent. 

In Scotland, by far the single biggest reason people are referred to it is because they are being sucked in to far-right thinking.

New numbers reveal 100 people were referred to Prevent in Scotland in 2019-2020 ( Figures are always quietly released by Police Scotland and well in arrears). 

Of these, 35 were related to concerns about far-right extremism and 12 for concerns about violent islamism. Another 20 were flagged up because of “concerns related to other types of extremism (including, for example, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim concerns),” said Police Scotland.

 “The remaining third (33%) were referred with a mixed, unstable or unclear ideology, over half of whom (18 individuals) were identified as having no basis for concern following an initial assessment”.

In fact, about half of these people referred to Prevent were judged not to need any further action. But of those who caused enough worry to be signposted to various de-radicalisation programmes, the proportion of those with far-right sympathies was even higher. “Of the 49 cases identified as suitable for Prevent,” said Police Scotland, “43% (21 people) were referred for concerns related to right-wing extremism and 10% (five) were referred for concerns related to Islamist extremism. Just under a third (31%; 15 people) were referred for concerns related to other types of extremism, and 16% (eight) were referred with a mixed, unstable or unclear ideology.”

Troubled people on the edge of violent extremism or prone to terrorism do not always fit neatly in to pigeonholes such as far-right or Islamist. But the trend is clear.

The latest figures represent a slight drop in overall numbers. Police Scotland more than a year ago - in its previous update - said 126 people were flagged to the authorities under Prevent in 2018-19, up from 104 a year before that.

Police then said that 39 individuals were seen as being at risk of being exploited for far-right extremism, up from 23  in 2017-2018. The reality as rightist ideology as the single main concern for counter-terror programmes in Scotland is now well established.

Not everybody who has extremist views, of course, poses a potential terror threat, sources stress. Prevent has been criticised. Last year, Professor Denis Fischbacher-Smith, of Glasgow University, questioned the tools authorities used to identify individuals for referrals. “These may generate lots of false positives,’ he said. “This is not an absolute science.”

In 2019-20 education authorise were the biggest single source of referrals, reflecting the generally young age of those being flagged to the system. 32 of the initial 100 came were referred by a school, college or university.

“Individuals aged 15-20 made up the largest proportion of the 100 referrals (44%),” said Police Scotland. “Around a fifth of individuals referred were under the age of 15.” 
Youngsters in their late teens were also the biggest cohort - two-fifths - of those who were sent to Prevent programmes after referral. The vast majority of referrals were for boys and men - only 6% were female. 

These numbers are small. But so are those for other terror actors, who can do huge damage. The context, for politicians, is the resilience of far-right thinking in Scotland.

A neo-Nazi group first exposed in The Herald, Scottish Dawn, has been banned. It was widely seem as an offshoot of a UK-wide group called National Action, which has also been proscribed. The investigative journalism website The Ferret, which has been cataloging Scottish far-right groups and activity, has reported efforts by a European wide movement Generation Identity to recruit in Scottish higher and further education.

Anti-lockdown protests have featured supporters of QAnon, the extremist conspiracy theory which thrives among Trump supporters.

Politicians expressed frustration that people are surprised at concerns, from police or civil society, about the far-right. Fascism, after all, is not something many Scots associate with their country.

Sarwar, who, among other things, chairs of Holyrood’s Cross-Party Group on Tackling Islamophobia, said: “Scotland is an open and diverse country, but we should never allow our national pride to blind us to the fact that good and bad people live everywhere.

“In recent years we have seen the rise of Scottish exceptionalism – the idea that somehow we’re less intolerant than our neighbours. It is not talking Scotland down to expose this as a myth.”

Martin Docherty-Hughes echoed his sentiments.

“The threat of the far right has never gone away, and it’s infuriating each time that the issue is raised along these lines that so many express surprise when confronted with stark proof like this,” the SNP MP for Clydebank said. “Hatred and intolerance have always been with us, there are new features which can add to the potency — we’ve known about the challenges that social media poses for quite a while, in allowing disparate groups of far right sympathisers to come together: but what has had less attention is the way that they have shared campaigning and rhetorical techniques.

“So whether it be Generation Identity offshoots appearing in Scotland, or fellow Scots getting involved in pro-Trump organisations, the tentacles of the European and American far right will continue to reach as far as Scotland.” 

That does not mean that Prevent - which is a UK wide policy, albeit implemented in Scotland - does not raise questions.  

Lawyer and anti-racism campaigner Aamer Anwar is no stranger to the rise of the far right. But he is not a fan of Prevent. “It  is fundamentally flawed and failed strategy that has no support from the Muslim community,” he said. “While a raging debate has taken place on England on the harm caused by the Prevent, in particular to the Muslim community, there has been total silence on its role in Scotland.

 “By and large it is a strategy set up to criminalise dissent and target Muslims. For many years experts have been saying the greatest threat society faces is from the far-right, but police forces have continued to focus on the Muslim community.

 “The danger of Prevent is that it has a chilling effect on free speech, whilst giving  the real extremists freedom to recruit as debate is driven underground.” 

Scottish police sources have long argued their way of handling Prevent is generating fewer false positives - with half of those who are referred being signposted to one scheme or another - and affecting far, far fewer individuals. 

The rate of referrals south of the border is much higher. There were 6,287 in the year to March 2020. Only one in 10 of these referrals led to an individual being signposted on to one scheme or another. Of these,  43% were far-right, and 30% radicalised Islamist. 

Police Scotland’s Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie said: “The Prevent Strategy promotes early intervention and the adoption of a multi-agency approach to safeguard individuals and communities. We remain absolutely committed to building strong partnerships with communities and other stakeholders to address the underlying causes fuelling radicalisation.”