Politics: missing the point

By Richard North - March 16, 2024

Gove’s initiative on extremism, it seems, is invoking the wrath of free speech campaigners and their fellow travellers, with Toby Young raising concerns that the revised definition might be tweaked or deliberately misinterpreted by Labour, making life easier for Islamists to “fly under the radar”.

This seems an odd objection as a new Labour government (if the party ever gets into office) would be entirely free to craft its own definition, with or without Gove’s intervention. And, as the Labour Party has already signalled that it would change the law on “hate crime”, this would have a far greater impact than Mr Gove’s relatively modest measure.

Spiked online takes the objections further, effectively arguing in principle against what it calls “blacklists”. Gove might not be proscribing the Muslim Association of Britain, Patriotic Alternative or any of the other groups he has named, editor Tom Slater remarks, but he is using the pen of officialdom to deem them beyond the pale.

This, he complains, can only chill the civil liberties of organisations that – while undoubtedly composed of unsavoury scumbags – are not engaged in illegal activity. And while universities are technically exempt from applying Gove’s list, Slater is concerned that vice-chancellors might be deterred from allowing student-run events featuring someone labelled “extremist” and a “threat to democracy” by central government.

This, in Slater’s view, wouldn’t just curtail the free speech of Islamist or far-right hotheads. It would, he says, curtail our ability to hear and challenge them out in the open.

Also demonstrating his grasp of the issues is the famous Farage, given space in the Telegraph to “warn” that Gove’s definition “could be abused by Governments to shut down debate on issues that they did not like”.

Even the Telegraph understands, though, that the role of the definition is to aid identification of organisations that should not be given “a platform or legitimacy to advance extremist ideologies”, or other forms of support and, especially, government cash.

Farage, like Toby Young, concedes that attempts to shut down free speech might not take place under this government but, he says, “who knows what may come in the course of the following years?” – again apparently failing to understand that a new government could do exactly as it pleased, with or without Gove’s intervention.

But what none of these pundits seem to appreciate is how dangerous the current situation is, and how deeply embedded in British society are some groups (and individuals) which have agendas which run contrary to any idea of democratic values.

Gove himself in parliament raised the example of Shakeel Begg. Before being outed as an Islamist extremist by a high court judge, ha had been an NHS chaplain and regular speaker at state schools. He had run the Lewisham Islamic Centre and had been on both the Metropolitan police’s independent advisory group in Lewisham and Lewisham’s standing advisory committee on religious education.

In 2016, Begg had sued the BBC after Andrew Neil had described him, accurately, as an extremist, whence judge Haddon-Cave had dismissed that case, stating in his judgement that Begg was “something of a Jekyll and Hyde character”.

He appeared, said Haddon-Cave, to present one face to the general local and inter-faith community and another to particular Muslim and other receptive audiences. The former face was benign, tolerant and ecumenical; the latter face was “ideologically extreme and intolerant”.

Begg, he added, had “worked hard to cultivate an image of himself as a highly respected figure in the Lewisham community”. However, it was clear that on occasions when it has suited him, and he was speaking to predominantly Muslim audiences and/or audiences who might be receptive to his message, he “shed the cloak of respectability and revealed the horns of extremism”.

Haddon-Cave’s judgement has been extensively critiqued, not least in terms of the inadequacy of the government’s then definition of extremism.

This critique itself sets out the difficulties in reaching a universal definition of extremism. It cites an authority on counter-terrorism and counter-extremism who argues that the suppression of non-violent extremism “increases the dangers of state repression based on a vague causal connection to terrorism”, then concluding that a single, universal definition of “extremism” is “inappropriate”.

All this points to a far more complex and nuanced argument than is offered by the lightweight pundits who currently have the floor, while the reality and deceptive nature of Muslim extremism is such that it cannot reasonably be ignored by government. The issue hasn’t suddenly cropped up – the definition has been years in the making and is long overdue.

That said, The Times has been telling us that Gove’s own social cohesion advisor is of the view that he hasn’t gone far enough. This is Sara Khan – in post since March 2021 – whose particular brief has been to look at extremism at local level.

She is now urging ministers to go further than just a non-statutory definition of extremism and wants a legal definition of “hateful extremism” which would enable all extremist groups to be cut off from mainstream society. She would then have “hateful extremism proscription orders”.

They would apply in a similar way to banned terror groups and would put a legal duty on all public bodies, such as Ofcom and Ofsted, to tackle extremist groups in their remit.

Between the diverse viewpoints, it is evident that Gove has had to chart a course which, in the manner of grown-up government, was not going to satisfy everybody – or anybody, even though the free-speech advocates don’t seem to have any of their own ideas of how to deal with what is undeniably a serious problem.

Yesterday, I referred to the independent report on anti-blasphemy activism in the UK, noting the role of Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) – which isn’t currently on the government list of extremists.

Affiliates and supporters have been seen on the streets of London (pictured), under the banner of the innocuous-sounding “Organisation For Protection of Human Rights UK”, with protesters coming from across the UK some from London but others from Bradford, Blackburn and Birmingham.

Interestingly, even the Times of India is remarking on the rise of blasphemy activism in the UK and records the recommendations of the independent report.

Going way beyond Gove’s limited measures, it calls for the government to proscribe groups such as TLP, ban its non-British members from entering the country and to investigate links between UK activists and anti-blasphemy activists in Pakistan.

Additionally, the report recommends that anti-blasphemy extremism should be specifically named as a category of extremism, while the naming and shaming of individuals accused of blasphemy should be made a criminal offence.

And yet, through organisation such as the government-funded Tell MAMA, and the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, with the active support of the Labour Party, the pressure is in the direction of creating a de facto blasphemy law, bringing the UK into line with the TLP’s agenda.

When even the Pakistani government is aware of the dangers, and the British government has yet to act, we need to have more than a collection of pundits wibbling about threats to “free speech”, when the lack of a firm response represents the gravest threat to free speech in this country since the 15th Century when translating the bible into English was banned by Henry IV.

That Farage, nominally speaking for Reform UK, should be in the forefront of Gove’s critics illustrates once again the intellectual shallowness of the party, which should be calling for more stringent and immediate measures to curtail right-wing Islamic extremism and, ultimately, to defend freedom of speech.