Home Office adviser criticises Government strategy on tackling far right threat
Categories: Latest News
Friday September 19 2014
Sima Kotecha’s interview with a senior Home Office adviser on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning is picked up by several news outlets highlighting the concerns raised over the Government’s handling of far right extremism in the UK.
The adviser, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed concerns that ISIS’s actions in Iraq and Syria and coverage of the Jay report into Rotherham’s child abuse scandal are fuelling a far-right backlash against British Muslim communities.
The senior advisor further stated that the government had ‘underestimated’ the threat of the far right in Britain due to its heavy emphasis on countering violent extremism among Muslim communities.
He told Sima Kotecha “This is one of the most worrying periods in right-wing extremism, given the growth in right-wing groups and the recent news events which are making them more angry.
“I have been working with people from the far-right for about 27 years now, I can see increases in some of these groups and membership in some of these groups based on things that are happening nationally here and internationally.”
Kotecha reports that the adviser claimed that since last year, at least five new groups have formed, often having splintered off from existing groups, to adopt ‘a stronger ideology’ and consisting of over 100 members. An indication of their growing popularity.
He added “A lot of the emphasis is put on the global jihadist agenda, which is fine, and it needs to be, but I really feel that this agenda, the repercussions of some of that in terms of the far-right can’t be ignored.
“I wouldn’t want to get to the point where something happens and we look back and think actually we should have addressed that as well.”
The adviser also revealed that he had spoken to a far right group member who told him that he would like to implement death camps in the UK for “everyone that he didn’t see as white British”.
He further clarified “So that was every Asian person, every black person.”
Kotecha also interviewed a former member of a neo-Nazi group who agreed that current domestic and global events have produced the “ideal recruitment ground” for far right extremist groups.
Kotecha’s report reinforces arguments advanced in the Home Affairs select committee report in 2012 which stated:
“We suspect that violent radicalisation is declining within the Muslim community.
“There also appears to be a growth in more extreme and violent forms of far-right ideology.”
The lack of attention paid to far right extremism in the UK and Europe is evident in the annual Europol reports which detail terrorism threats to EU security. In reports of recent years the threat of al-Qaida type terrorism has been far lower than the actual incidence of terrorism of based on sectarian, ethno-national or animal rights activism though government resources have rarely been in step with these facts.
While the Security Minister, James Brokenshire, has made several statements on the real and present danger posed by far right extremism, the government’s own policy framework has largely paid lip service to the threat. The Taskforce report on Tackling Radicalisation has largely focused on ‘Islamist extremism’ with little mention of policy initiatives to tackle far right radicalisation.
This policy neglect is also seen in the official response to the anti-Muslim campaign waged by far right terrorist Pavlo Lapshyn last summer. It took the Home Secretary a month from the first detected bomb plot in the West Midlands, and the subsequent murder of Mohammed Saleem Khan, to address the issue of far right extremism and terrorism in the UK.
Two other important factors that have shaped the environment in which far right extremism has flourished is the media and its portrayal of British Muslims and the speeches of political leaders which have often given far right extremist ideas a veneer of legitimacy.
Kotecha’s report draws on the programmes implemented by other EU member states to de-radicalise far right activists which have seen different degrees of success. The importance of recognising the far right threat in the UK and introducing programmes to tackle the phenomenon as rigorously as policies targeted al-Qaida inspired terrorism is also covered.