Tories' "own goal" on extremism

 

According to Michael Gove’s  new definition, published yesterday, “extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to:

1.    negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or

2.    undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or

3.    intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2)”

It is difficult to decide whether the appropriate response should be disbelief, indignation or laughter.

Clearly given this definition this Conservative Government itself is guilty on  all three counts.

On Count 1, the Government has gone out of its way to reduce our democratic right to freedom of assembly  on the pretext that recent protest marches and assemblies  have been violent and dangerous (though even the police admit they have been  overwhelmingly peaceful and calm, in stark contrast to the attacks by the police, egged on by Mrs Thatcher, on the striking miners at Orgreave.)

 On Count 2 it was the Conservative  government under Johnson which tried to undermine  our parliamentary democracy by illegally proroguing parliament, and Sunaks is reducing the democratic likelihood of higher turnouts in elections by the totally unnecessary demand for voters to carry approved  ID (not to mention skewing the debate by increasing the maximum pre-election expenditure from £19m to £34m).

On Count 3, the most likely reaction to this intervention by any groups who might  want to undermine our democracy and values is to be even more angry and extreme.  Had the Government genuinely wanted to pour oil over what are potentially troubled waters they would had preceded any new definition  with extensive discussion with the bodies likely to be affected: representatives of our religions, climate activists, campaigners of every description .

One advantage of the new definition is it drops any reference to “fundamental British values.”  These, in the old definition, were described as “ including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and belief.”  It was and is  a nonsense to pretend that these values are uniquely, or even particularly, British: they are in fact the accepted basis of all liberal (ie Western?) democracies.

I well remember at least half a century ago, in an earlier Tory attempt to stir up resentment of those who are “different” by demanding that immigrants et al should adopt “British values,” someone with a foreign-sounding name writing to the Guardian to say:

 “Yes certainly.  Exactly which British values would you like us to adopt?  Putting our elderly relatives into care homes and forgetting about them; the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe; our youth drunkenly rampaging around  the Continent chanting “Two World Wars and One World Cup” whilst vomiting into the gutters?”

 Those who would like to pour oil rather than Gove’s petrol on to our troubled relationships could do well to listen to Bishop Richard Harries’s “Thought for the Day” on Radio 4 this morning.