The Home Office secretly funded a boyband to tour Muslim areas of Britain and sing songs with anti-radicalisation themes, it has been revealed.
The British-American pop trio, known as ‘Mr Meanor’, visited schools across the north of England in 2016.
At the time, the Islamic State terror group were in control of vast swathes of Iraq and Syria and hundreds of Britons had travelled to the Middle East to join the extremists.
Social media posts from the time document how the boyband performed to pupils in towns and cities such as Sheffield, Manchester, and Runcorn.
The posts also promote their charity single ‘Think About It’, which includes references to the 9/11 terror attacks in New York in 2001, and 7/7 bomings in London in 2005.
The schools tour was publicly stated to have been organised in partnership with a Warrington-based charity, The Tim Parry and Jonathan Ball Foundation for Peace.
But the Politcs Home website reported it was part of a ‘covert’ Home Office initiative to deter potential Islamist extremists.
Financial records are said to disclose the charity received £400,000 in funding from the Home Office’s counter-terrorism Prevent scheme shortly before the tour.
This was labelled in accounts as ‘Panther [programme]’, according to the website.
The British-American pop trio, known as ‘Mr Meanor’, visited schools across the north of England in 2016
Social media posts from the time document how the boyband performed to pupils in towns and cities such as Sheffield, Manchester, and Runcorn
LinkedIn posts by former contractors are also said to indicate the tour and campaign were organised by the Home Office.
Communications for the tour were reported to have been handled by BreakThrough Media.
The firm has previously been revealed to be a favoured contractor of a ‘propaganda’ arm of the Home Office, the Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU).
RICU documents from 2015 are said to show how BreakThrough Media had worked with the Foundation for Peace charity.
One school visited by Mr Meanor during their 2016 tour was reported to have been Parrs Wood High School in Manchester.
A former student at the school was believed to have travelled to Syria in 2013.
The song ‘Think About It’ was released by Mr Meanor in 2016 and was written after terror attacks in Paris.
It includes the lyrics: ‘See these hashtags all night, Turn the TV on and something else ain’t right, More people gone don’t know how we sleep at night.
‘What I’m hoping is we can lead a precious life, 9/11 changes how we view these things, People want to terrorise, And 7/7 left behind more broken lives right before our eyes.’
The Home Office is understood to have undertaken a range of activity aimed at reaching audiences who may be vulnerable to radicalisation.
It is not suggested that any members of Mr Meanor knew they were secretly being funded.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘This campaign was delivered under the previous government and has now been discontinued.’
The Tim Parry and Jonathan Ball Foundation for Peace confirmed it had worked with Prevent coordinators and said there was ‘nothing secret’ about its funding.
It said it was granted a three-year grant by the Home Office in 2016, as part of the department’s ‘anti-radicalisation’ strategy, to take their work into schools across northern England.
The Foundation added it was approached by ‘Mr Meanor’ shortly after the Paris terror attacks in November 2015 and the group joined its team for a two-week period to perform their ‘Think About It’ song.
The boyband were provided with accommodation and meals by the Foundation during this time, it said.
