Michael Gove is rewriting the government’s definition of ‘extremism’ but his actions have drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. Columnist Rafael Behr reports
Why does the government need a new definition of extremism? There are two ways of answering that, the Guardian’s political columnist Rafael Behr tells Michael Safi. If you listen to the communities secretary, Michael Gove, you would hear a dark story of how certain organisations present themselves as moderate but beneath the surface are ideologically dangerous. These groups must be banned from interacting with the government at any level and blocked from receiving any funding. Another motivation, which the Conservatives would deny, is that it is an election year and they are fighting a campaign based on finding potential cultural dividing lines with Labour.
It’s been a bumpy week for the government to be highlighting its plan to deal with extremism. Rishi Sunak has spend much of it fending off demands to return a donation of £10m from a man who told a 2019 meeting that seeing Diane Abbott made you ‘want to hate all black women’ and that the MP ‘should be shot’. Downing Street eventually upgraded its criticism from ‘unacceptable’ to ‘racist and wrong’ but at the time of recording was refusing to return the donation.
The Guardian is editorially independent. And we want to keep our journalism open and accessible to all. But we increasingly need our readers to fund our work.
Source: theguardian.com
