this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
30 points (94.1% liked)

UK Politics

3107 readers
93 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both [email protected] and [email protected] .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

[email protected] appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Government officials have drawn up deeply controversial proposals to broaden the definition of extremism to include anyone who “undermines” the country’s institutions and its values, according to documents seen by the Observer.

The new definition, prepared by civil servants working for cabinet minister Michael Gove, is fiercely opposed by a cohort of officials who fear legitimate groups and individuals will be branded extremists.

The proposals have provoked a furious response from civil rights groups with some warning it risks “criminalising dissent”, and would significantly suppress freedom of expression.

One Whitehall official said: “The concern is that this is a crackdown on freedom of speech. The definition is too broad and will capture legitimate organisations and individuals.”

...

Internal departmental documents marked “official – sensitive” says the proposed definition could “frame a new, unified response to extremism”. It lists a number of organisations which it considers would be “captured” by the new definition.

Among them are the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), Palestine Action and Mend, which has featured at some Conservative party conference fringe events and in 2021 provided evidence to parliamentary committees.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Government officials have drawn up deeply controversial proposals to broaden the definition of extremism to include anyone who “undermines” the country’s institutions and its values, according to documents seen by the Observer.

The new definition, prepared by civil servants working for cabinet minister Michael Gove, is fiercely opposed by a cohort of officials who fear legitimate groups and individuals will be branded extremists.

Among them are the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), Palestine Action and Mend, which has featured at some Conservative party conference fringe events and in 2021 provided evidence to parliamentary committees.

The definition of extremism and its usage in counter-terrorism policies like [counter terrorism strategy] Prevent is already being applied so broadly it seeks to effectively hinder people from organising and mobilising.

The government’s 2011 Prevent strategy defined extremism as the “active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”.

Under the proposed definition in the documents, extremism would be the promotion of any ideology which aims to “overturn or undermine the UK’s democracy, its institutions and values; or threaten the rights of individuals or create a permissive environment for radicalisation, hate crime and terrorism”.


The original article contains 901 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!