Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Michael Gove on Thursday named several groups that will come under investigation and could fall foul of a new UK government definition of extremism, as he defended the policy against a wave of criticism.
The communities secretary used parliamentary privilege to name two far-right groups, Patriotic Alternative and the British National Socialist Movement, which he said promoted a neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology.
Islamist organisations espousing a “totalitarian ideology” that sought “to overthrow liberal, democratic principles” would also be held to account, he said in the House of Commons.
Gove mentioned the British affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as CAGE and MEND, as among Muslim groups that would be scrutinised.
He said the government was “not seeking to ban or restrict these organisations”, but that it would be “wrong to use taxpayers money” to engage with them.
Gove has drawn up the new guidelines against a backdrop of weekly pro-Palestinian protests and mounting tensions over the Israel-Hamas war. He has also faced criticism from fellow Conservatives, the Church of England and some civil society groups in the run-up to the policy launch.
On Thursday he sought to reassure critics of the new policy who fear that it will impinge on freedom of speech, or disproportionately target Muslim communities.
The government, Gove said, would take “every possible precaution” to balance the protection of fundamental rights with the need to safeguard citizens.
Environmental protest groups, trans rights groups, gender critical campaigners and those with conservative social beliefs would not be targeted, he said.
The new guidelines will not affect criminal law but are intended to stop the government funding or engaging with groups that spread extreme ideologies or hate in their communities. Those deemed “extremist” will be denied government grants, ministerial meetings, access to the senior civil service and public appointments.
Extremism is defined as “the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance that aims to negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others”.
But the guidelines have been launched into a political firestorm.
Three former Conservative home secretaries warned this week against the dangers of politicising the debate over extremism, while the two most senior clerics in the Church of England have expressed serious concerns about the new definition.
The ruling Conservatives have also been criticised for taking £10mn from a donor who expressed what they have conceded were racist views.
Asked earlier on the BBC’s Today programme whether the definition could lead to an investigation into racist and threatening remarks by Tory donor Frank Hester, Gove said: “I wouldn’t want to conflate those motivated by extremist ideology with an individual comment, however horrific, which has quite rightly been called out and which has quite rightly led to an apology.”
Miriam Cates, co-head of the New Conservatives group of rightwing MPs, criticised Gove’s proposals, arguing that “in a democratic society with a plurality of beliefs and opinions, it is surely impossible to establish robust legal definitions of terms such as ‘extremism’ or ‘British values’”.
“One man’s extremist is another man’s courageous champion of an unpopular cause,” she argued in an op-ed for The Critic magazine.
She added that she thought attempts to liberalise abortion laws and some people’s views on gender fluidity were “extreme”.
Conservative peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi accused the government of stoking “dangerous and divisive politics”.
“Michael Gove will not divide us in his ideological pursuit of a policy that has been rejected and criticised by victims of terrorism, ex-home secretaries and even the Archbishop of Canterbury,” she wrote on X.
Lord David Anderson KC, former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation in the UK, told the BBC that the definition was “extremely broad” and risked catching both sides of the trans rights debate.
He also questioned why the bill would not face parliamentary scrutiny, as it was not just a “matter for government” and was likely to affect “the freedoms and the reputation of an awful lot of people”.
Asked whether the definition might capture groups that used terms such as the pro-Palestinian slogan “from the river to the sea”, Gove said a phrase alone would not. “What we’re looking at is an ideology, a pattern of behaviour and a certain set of beliefs or actions,” he said.
