Home Office ‘secretly paid for boyband to sing anti-extremism songs in schools’

The Home Office was behind a covert effort to combat radicalisation in Muslim areas through the power of boyband music, according to reports.

In 2016, pop group Mr Meanor embarked on a tour of schools in the north of England to spread a message of anti-violence.

The effort was backed by Warrington-based charity The Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace, which was set up in memory of two young victims of a 1993 IRA bombing.

But news site PoliticsHome has now reported the entire campaign was organised by figures inside the government.

The outlet cites LinkedIn posts by former contractors and the involvement of communications company Breakthrough Media, which worked with the Home Office’s Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU).

A 2016 investigation by the Guardian f