Gove’s initiative to tackle ‘extremism’ is little more than a distraction

Editorial: The government’s ‘trailblazing definition’ is a solution in search of a problem. If it is to be of any use at all, it will need far wider support and a much stronger sense of purpose

(Dave Brown)

Extremism” is something that (almost) everyone is against, it is impossible to define – and difficult to neutralise. Michael Gove, secretary of state for communities, has made a much-trailed attempt to solve the conundrum of extremism and, in large part, he has failed. To be fair, it is not entirely Mr Gove’s fault because all he has been trying to do is turn the curiously aimless speech Rishi Sunak made on the steps of 10 Downing Street after the Rochdale by-election into concrete policy.

The Rochdale contest was a fiasco, a veritable festival of extremism and the election of George Galloway a minor disaster, but there’s nothing in what Mr Gove proposes that would stop anything like that from happening again. Indeed, it is quite possible that the government’s new approach will do more harm than good: needlessly stigmatising Muslim groups, feeding the victim syndrome and paranoiac appeal of the far right, and generally dragging the kind of identitarian politics that ministers usually deprecate into the centre of political debate.

Mr Gove has issued a list of five groups that could be deemed unsuitable to receive public funds or for the government to “engage” with. He also said they would be investigated over extremism fears.