Harry’s Place and Conservative Home have been reporting over the last few days that the Quilliam Foundation – the counter-extremism think-tank set up by Ed Hussein and Maajid Nawaz – is going to be either shrinking in size dramatically or possibly even closing.

That would be a shame. Though not always the most popular in some quarters, some of their work has been really important in raising awareness about the issue of Islamism. Ed and Maajid, and I know both of them personally, are active media commentators who demonstrate that Muslims – as much as anyone – can and do believe that Islam and democracy are compatible, and are steadfast in their opposition to Islamism. Its detractors sometimes forget how important this is.

However, the way this has been reported is inaccurate. It has been presented as the Home Office deciding to 'shut them down'. When it was founded, the Quilliam Foundation never wanted any government funding, because they recognised how important it was be independent of government. In the end, they took Home Office money only when other funding fell through. It was always intended to be short-term, seed funding: the aim was that Quilliam would become financially independent. Now the Home Office is reducing its money, as it has always planned to.

Not only that, reducing government funding makes some sense in respect of the review of the Prevent strand of counter-terrorism. With less money to go around, Prevent needs to be more focused on public safety – working primarily to target individuals who have adopted al-Qaeda ideology but have not acted on it. The Quilliam Foundation finds it difficult to access these people, and even more difficult when receiving government money. So I’m hopeful that the Quilliam Foundation keeps going, and receives its funding from elsewhere. This would make it more effective too.

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