A while back, in response to an ‘absurd’ UK plan to silence individuals and organisations it regards as ‘extreme’, the National Secular Society launched a campaign to fight the new proposal.
Headed ‘Defend free speech: Don’t let David Cameron turn you into an extremist’, the NSS said:
The Government plans to introduce sweeping new powers called Extremism Disruption Orders (EDOs) to combat individuals and organisations it deems to be ‘extreme’.
Who are ‘extremists’? Terrorists? Of course. But what about political activists? Religious groups? Anti-religious groups? Trade unionists? Environmental campaigners? Are they ‘extremists’? They could be under the Government’s vague proposals. These plans have such a low threshold that they risk catching all kinds of legitimate speech.
The NSS quoted Cameron as saying:
For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance. This Government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach.
Well, it’s now reported by the Guardian that the counter-extremism bill, cast as the centrepiece of Cameron’s ‘legacy programme’ of legislation, is floundering because the government can’t seem to find “a legally robust” definition of extremism.
It is understood that the bill, to be announced in the Queen’s speech on 18 May, has been through “dozens of drafts” and Whitehall officials are still struggling to find a definition of “extremist” that will not be immediately challenged in the courts.
The legislation was first trailed in last year’s Queen’s speech in May last year but has so far failed to appear. Its main elements include a new power for the Home Secretary to ban extremist groups; extremism disruption orders to stop individuals engaging in extremist behaviour; powers to close down premises used to support extremism and strengthened powers for Ofcom to suspend channels that broadcast extremist content.
An official extremism strategy document published at the same time outlined a major new drive to be launched against “entryist” infiltration of sensitive posts across the public sector – including the civil service, schools, colleges, charities and businesses – by Islamists and other extremists. A full review of existing safeguards against such entryism is due to report this year before a “counter-ideology campaign at pace and scale” is to be launched.
But this “full spectrum” response, as Cameron has called it, could be fatally undermined without a legally robust definition of extremism able to survive challenges in Britain’s courts on freedom of speech grounds. A Whitehall source confirmed to the Guardian that the struggle to find a workable definition had proved problematic.
A simple definition contained in the government’s counter-extremism strategy which focuses on “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values” is believed to be regarded as far too widely drawn to survive such a freedom of speech challenge in the courts.
A Home Office source cited by the Times said:
Getting agreement about the thresholds for what constitutes extremism and what needs to be protected as free speech is not going to be easy or straightforward.
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Alistair Carmichael, above, said:
We have been round this course so many times with the Home Office over the years. They know what they dislike but they can’t describe it. Every time they try and fail they make the tackling of extremism more difficult. They hand a propaganda victory to those who preach hatred.
The correct way to tackle this would be to engage actively with the communities about which they are concerned and work with those in the communities who reject violent extremism. Working in the way they do simply alienates those who ought to be on their side. They must accept that not every problem in life is solved by passing a new law.
A Home Office spokesperson said they could not comment on the matter in advance of the Queen’s speech.
The NSS says here:
We recognise the need to tackle religious extremism, but existing powers already exist to meet this end. For example, the Public Order Act 1986 – which criminalises the incitement of violence, the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 – which creates an offence of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion, and the Terrorism Act 2006 – which prohibits statements that ‘glorify’ terrorism. The Government is yet to identify a legitimate target which could not already be captured by existing law.
Reports have indicated that EDOs would be used against those who ‘spread hate but do not break laws’. This is absurd by definition. If breaking the law is not a trigger for the state to act, at what moment does the state intervene?
Instead of new powers for the state, we would like to see more effective use of existing powers, and a robust defence of human right and freedom of speech to promote what the Government term ‘British values’ in the face of religious extremism.
We believe that objectionable ideas should be subjected to challenge, debate, scrutiny and ridicule. Society has a range of tools with which to tackle extremism; reaching immediately for new legal powers is short-sighted and risks undermining the values the Government seeks to promote.
Hat tip: Trevor Blake