The Government’s own counter-extremism advisers and other leading figures in the fight against Islamism have condemned Theresa May’s plans to ban non-violent extremists as “wrong,” “totalitarian” and certain to backfire.
Ministers want the power to make “banning orders” and “disruption orders” against groups and people whose extremism “falls below the thresholds in counter-terrorism legislation” but which “undermines British values”.
The unprecedented backlash against the proposed Extremism Bill comes amid new evidence that the Government is failing to use the anti-extremism powers it already has.
Haras Rafiq, director of the Quilliam Foundation, Britain’s foremost anti-extremism think tank, said the new bill would “do the very things the extremists want us to. With these Orwellian, totalitarian powers, we are playing into their hands”.
He added: “It is very noticeable that the main Islamist groups are not really up in arms about this. They want it, because it will feed the narrative of grievance and victimhood they love. They will be able to use it to say, look, we told you so.”
Mr Rafiq described the proposed powers as “ridiculous” and “unworkable” and said that even if they survived the passage through Parliament, they would be struck down by the courts.
“That will be embarrassing and a victory for the extremists,” he said.
No definition of extremism has been given and the Home Secretary struggled to come up with one when asked. However, David Cameron appeared to suggest that even entirely legal speech could be banned.
“For far too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens that as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone,” the Prime Minister said.
“This Government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach.”
The Bill will also allow security officials to close mosques and other premises where “extremists seek to influence others”. It may give Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, the power to pre-emptively vet and ban programmes for “extremist” content.
The possible broadcasting powers have already provoked widespread alarm from senior figures in television and radio, and from the former culture secretary, Sajid Javid, who, in a leaked letter to Mrs May, warned it would turn Ofcom into a state “censor”.
However, Government advisers say the banning powers are equally dangerous. Rashad Ali, a leading figure in the Home Office’s Channel deradicalisation programme, said: “You can’t protect democracy by undermining democracy.
“The Government is obsessed with legislation but this is not something you can defeat by legislation. It is a battle of ideas and we have to defeat these ideas by argument, not by banning even having the debate.”
Adam Deen, founder of the Deen Institute, another counter-extremism body, said: “The extremist narrative is a very weak narrative.
“This will limit the opportunities to discuss and expose it.”
Mr Ali and other Channel staff, who carry out intensive one-to-one sessions with young people deemed at extreme risk of radicalisation, said they had not been consulted about the new policy and believed it would be “entirely counterproductive.”
Another Channel provider said: “It will strengthen the extremists while doing absolutely nothing to stop them spreading their ideas online. It is a stupid proposal.”
Mr Rafiq said that, as well as Mr Javid, now the Business Secretary, he knew that other Government ministers were unhappy with the plans. “I have spoken to another minister since the election,” he said. “He just doesn’t buy into this, or believe in it. The Government is saying that it was just the Lib Dems who stopped this before the election. It wasn’t.”
Several Tory backbenchers have also expressed strong concern about the proposals. The former foreign office minister and shadow home secretary David Davis said that “restricting free speech, and forcing those who hold views inimical to our own into the shadows, is an authoritarian act that will only serve to further alienate those susceptible to extremist views”.
Mr Ali said the priority for ministers should be enforcing the laws that already exist rather than passing new ones. Hate preachers were still being allowed into the country, he said, and many UK-based extremists were still allowed to operate charities with substantial tax and other benefits.
In Birmingham, the consequences of the authorities’ earlier failure to act against extremism continued to be felt last week.
The Telegraph has learnt that Springfield Primary School, one of those involved in the “Trojan Horse” plot by hardline Muslims to push out secular headteachers and “Islamise” state schools in the city, has become the latest to be placed into special measures by Ofsted.
Last year, teachers at the school told how Springfield’s head, Christopher Webb, had come under “non-stop attack” by radical members of the governing body. “Each meeting is two and a half hours of constant verbal attacks, criticism and cross-examination,” said one.
On a social media group central to the plot, one of the Springfield governors, Nasim Awan, boasted about the “battles” he had “fought and won” at a “large inner city primary school” which led to its governing body becoming “polarised on faith grounds”.
Before Mr Awan joined Springfield’s governing body, false allegations of cheating in SATs were made against the school.
“All the parents in Year 6 were texted with the allegations,” said another teacher.
“What was most alarming is that their mobile numbers could only have been obtained by someone within the school.”
A three-year row was also concocted about sex education, staff said. Radical governors and some parents also pressured the school to cancel the annual nativity play, but this was fought off after Mr Webb enlisted the local imam in support, staff said.
One member of staff was forced to remove a picture of Jesus from an Easter assembly on the grounds that images of a prophet were unacceptable.
Now, staff said Mr Webb appeared to have been successfully undermined by radical teachers and governors who clubbed together to ensure that the school got a negative Ofsted rating, complaining about the headmaster’s leadership to the inspectors.
Official reports found that the Trojan Horse plot, which saw six other Birmingham schools placed into special measures, had been allowed to grow over many years, despite the local authority knowing it was going on, because councillors and officials were afraid of being accused of racism. Only after the problems were revealed in this newspaper and other media did the Government act.
Many in the local community remain in denial, insisting Trojan Horse was an “Islamophobic hoax” even as evidence mounts that the plot existed and continues.
Mr Ali, the Home Office counter-extremism specialist, said: “What we need, far more than any new law, is a counter-argument and a policy which can inspire [Muslim] society to defeat extremist ideas.”