David Cameron is to put curbing Islamist extremism at the heart of the Queen’s Speech this month as he seeks to fend off claims that he is becoming a lame-duck prime minister.
Measures to ban organisations, gag individuals and close down premises used to “promote hatred” are to be included in an Extremism Bill that will be announced on May 18. Mr Cameron will seek to balance the action with a promise of extra help to bring PM plans new laws to stop Muslim extremists PM plans new laws to stop Muslim extremists isolated British Muslims into the mainstream.
The drive will begin with the launch of an independent review of how Sharia courts are operating in Britain. Theresa May, the home secretary, who first promised last December to investigate claims of a “parallel” justice system, has now finalised its terms of reference and is expected to announce the inquiry in the next fortnight.
That will be followed by the government’s legislative programme, which will also include reforms to Britain’s care home and prison systems.
Mr Cameron’s decision to make counter-extremism a centrepiece of the Queen’s Speech reflects concerns that his “legacy programme” planned for the aftermath of the EU referendum was insufficiently ambitious.
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The prime minister insists that he will remain at No 10 even if Britain votes for Brexit on June 23, but privately allies concede that his authority could quickly drain away even if he wins the poll. He will remind voters, however, of the tasks that he has said he will complete by the time of his promised departure before the 2020 election. The Queen’s Speech will be themed on “improving life chances”.
Mr Cameron has said that tackling Islamist extremism — blamed for inspiring the “overwhelming majority” of the seven disrupted plots to attack Britain in the past 18 months — is the “struggle of our generation”. As many as 850 people with British links have travelled to take part in the Syria conflict. Mrs May and Mr Cameron promised new legislation to take on Islamist extremism last autumn. The counter-extremism strategy pledged powers to “ban extremist organisations that promote hatred and draw people into extremism”.
The bill will also extend vetting rules so that employers will be told of known extremists to prevent them from working with children and other vulnerable groups or from carrying out roles in “sensitive areas”. There are also plans to extend Ofcom’s powers to suspend broadcasts deemed to include “unacceptable extremist material.” A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “We are not going to speculate about the content of the Queen’s Speech in advance.”
A Home Office source 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.”
In a foretaste of the controversy to come, the Home Office had to defend last night a counter-radicalisation communications scheme overseen by its Research, Information and Communications Unit. Its campaigns, aimed at Muslim men aged between 15 and 39 sometimes concealed the government’s role, according to The Guardian.
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A Home Office source defended the unit’s work with Muslim community groups. “All we’re trying to do is stop people becoming suicide bombers.”
Examples of views that the Extremism Bill would criminalise, given in an internal Home Office discussion, are said to include “hate messages” aimed at the armed forces or calls for the wholesale adoption of Sharia in the UK.
In seeking a consensus Mr Cameron will try to frame the debate in terms of helping to protect vulnerable Muslims, as much as wider society, from extremism.
Louise Casey, the adviser behind attempts by successive governments to tackle marginalised communities, is due to deliver a report on community cohesion commissioned last year. Her study is expected to recommend improved access to health and education services and employment opportunities as part of efforts to integrate “segregated communities”.
In a call for evidence, she wrote: “We must be able to step up action to prevent disaffected or vulnerable individuals from being targeted by extremists and radicalisers.”
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Mr Cameron previewed the report in an article in The Times this year in which he announced that migrants who failed to improve their English could lose their right to remain in Britain.
“Separate development and accepting practices that go against our values only emphasise differences and can help prompt the search of something to belong to,” the prime minister wrote. “When that happens, the extremist narrative gives [people] something — however ridiculous — to believe in.”
He called on “health visitors, job centres, nurseries, schools” to help to take on gender discrimination against Muslim women, saying: “We all have a shared responsibility to tackle prejudice and bigotry, and help integration.”