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Once upon a time, I was deputy convenor of the UK government's working group on tackling radicalisation & extremism. When I saw the initial report last week, it also struck me as utterly fanciful to imagine we could broaden the definition of 'extremism' in this way. But.. #Thread
https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/1721442738267111540
First, it wouldn't be the first time we had a government attempt to draw up 'bad law'; law that is unworkable and utterly nonsensical; but which nevertheless achieves a political purpose. It would be a bad idea; and the Lords would probably manage to ameliorate; but still.
More than that, there's a broader issue here. @MishalHusain correctly focuses on the legislation part here. But simply the bringing up of this notion that it could be legislation by HMG achieves another purpose; it systematically degrades our public conversation around extremism.
When we declare that a thought police of this nature is actually part of mainstream, respectable conversation, it makes it that much more likely that in years to come, another, more sophisticated attempt to achieve the same goal, purely for populist reasons, becomes likely.
Hence, I'd caution not taking this seriously. It's an ugly and slippery slope, and all simply for the purpose of trying to get some votes from a reactionary right.
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