Tories' "Orwellian" attempt to promote democracy by undermining it

It was only likely to be a matter of time before the Conservative Party pushed ahead with an agenda it felt was unfairly frustrated by its former coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, and sure enough, yesterday the Prime Minister affirmed plans to introduce counter-extremism measures outlined by the Home Secretary last March into the Queen’s Speech on 27 May.

The new counter extremism strategy, which Theresa May announced in a speech delivered in March ahead of the dissolution of parliament referred to measures the Conservatives would introduce to tackle extremism and promote British values. The Home Secretary’s speech detailed policies it felt would strengthen civil society such as ‘extremism disruption orders’, ‘closure orders for premises that are owned or occupied by extremists or are used to host extremist meetings’, ‘banning orders’ on organisations not for what they are alleged to have done in the UK, but also on the basis of the ‘conduct of any organisations to which they are affiliated overseas’.

Given the measures authoritarian Middle Eastern states have deployed to classify certain groups as ‘extremist’ or ‘terrorist’, it is simply a matter of time before these dubious methods interlope into domestic calculations.

The Conservative manifesto proposed the following:

• We will outlaw groups that foment hate with the introduction of new Banning Orders for extremist organisations.

• To restrict the harmful activities of extremist individuals, we will create new Extremism Disruption Orders.

• We will develop a strategy to tackle the infiltration of extremists into our schools and public services.

• We will strengthen Ofcom’s role so that tough measures can be taken against channels that broadcast extremist content.

• We will enable employers to check whether an individual is an extremist and bar them from working with children.

• We will take further measures to ensure colleges and universities do not give a platform to extremist speakers.

It is as yet unclear how much of the above will find its way into the Queens Speech this month. The Prime Minister in his announcement yesterday made reference to the first two policy proposals and there has been some mention of the powers to be granted to Ofcom in regards to broadcasting ‘extremist material’. His claims that the UK had been ‘passively tolerant’ for too long is a repetition of his arguments over four years ago about a ‘muscular liberalism’. The irony then, as now, is the crazy pursuit of repressive policies in the name of defending liberty.

In her defence of the proposals on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, the Home Secretary failed the elementary test: defining ‘extremism’

This is not entirely surprising given that the policy looks to have been cooked up before the facts have been assembled. In her speech, the Home Secretary alluded to the creation of an Extremism Analysis Unit in the Home Office in order to develop “better evidence base for dealing with extremists and extremist organisations”.

It would seem injudicious to propose policies when you can’t define the object of the policy, ‘extremism’, or indeed have an evidence base to inform policy development itself. But then there is much that the Conservatives have done in the area of counter-extremism that shows how frequently they have put ideology above evidence. Take, for example, the Home Secretary’s reliance on the so called ‘Trojan horse’ plot to defend the new policies, this despite the ‘plot’ being shown to be a sham by the Education select committee.

In her speech, May talked about the support Government will give to civil society organisations “who want to fight back against extremism online”. And yet, the proposals announced by the PM take the distinct shape of shutting down debate, not engaging with it critically with a view to winning the argument. As Baroness Sayeeda Warsi on Conservative Home today argues, “We’re told that our protection and our freedoms can only be secured by the curtailment of freedoms. And the battle of ideas is not fought and won by bigger and better ideas but by banning, silencing through legislation and securitising communities.”

In her interview on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the Home Secretary suggested the extremism measures were necessary to curtail those groups in society who seek to divide us, who promulgate an ‘us’ and ‘them’ discourse and who undermine ‘British values’ such as democracy and the rule of law. She also argued that the promotion of these values heightened the prospect of individuals being radicalised and that was what lay behind the policy. The conveyor belt theory hypothesising a link between non violent extremism and violent extremism has been robustly refuted and yet there appears little appetite to engage with the facts, not the facts as some among the Conservatives perceive them.

The Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron in an interview with BBC News explained that laws on incitement to hatred and incitement to violence already exist negating the need for further statute in this area. He described Theresa May’s plans as “Orwellian” and “counter-productive”.

There are two interesting side issues that arise from the PM’s announcement: It is safe to say that Peter Oborne’s question on why the Conservative were ignoring the Muslim vote looks now to be answered. Second, all those who lampooned Ed Miliband’s idea to ‘outlaw Islamophobia’ as an assault on free speech and an attempt to gag individuals from speaking critically about Islam and Muslims – will we now hear them shout as loud against Theresa May’s new plan to curtail free speech?

Watch Tim Farron on BBC News here: