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”. [The Telegraph] Read more
