Unhappy with giant protests towards the more and more dire scenario in Gaza, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is looking for to replace the UK’s definition of extremism. This, he has argued, is required as a result of “our democracy itself is a goal” of antisemitic and Islamophobic extremists.
However, the fact is that no measures do extra harm to democracy than coverage proposals just like the one Sunak is selling.
The UK already has a definition for extremism, which is utilized in efforts to deal with terrorism. We might consider the police as main these efforts, however the UK’s Prevent technique now additionally locations an obligation on sure different authorities to “have due regard to the necessity to stop folks from being drawn into terrorism”.
These authorities embody native authorities, training establishments and the NHS. In actuality, the UK has positioned lecturers and NHS workers on the frontline within the battle towards terrorism, on prime of all their different duties that they have been really educated to do.
To assist these with an obligation underneath Prevent to establish folks susceptible to being drawn into terrorism, the federal government at the moment defines extremism as “vocal or lively opposition to elementary British values, together with democracy, the rule of regulation, particular person liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of various faiths and beliefs”. Also included are “requires the loss of life of members of our armed forces”.
This definition will not be contained in any regulation, nonetheless. Instead, it options within the authorities’s Prevent steerage. A key cause why this definition will not be contained in laws is as a result of it’s so obscure and unclear. It can be troublesome to legally oblige anybody with an obligation underneath Prevent to use the definition – and much more troublesome for a court docket to find out what it means.
Even as steerage, there are nonetheless issues with the definition. It gives monumental discretion to the folks deciding who’s susceptible to being drawn into terrorism. Discretion can result in inconsistent utility. That, in flip, can result in discrimination.
Vague to vaguer
It has been recommended that the brand new definition of extremism will embody the “promotion or development of ideology primarily based on hatred, intolerance or violence or undermining or overturning the rights or freedoms of others, or of undermining democracy itself”.
What does it imply to undermine or overturn the rights or freedoms of others? Would arguing for the UK to go away the European conference on human rights depend meet the bar?
Likewise, what does it imply to undermine democracy? Does extreme company lobbying accomplish that? What about calling for restrictions on the correct to free speech or the correct to protest? These are elementary rights which are completely needed for a democracy to flourish. Would they be extremist?
Existing legal guidelines are sufficient
Sunak is presenting the brand new definition of extremism as a response to protests he depicts as being uncontrolled. But the UK already has quite a few legal guidelines in place to deal with what it considers to be unacceptable behaviour at protests. The Terrorism Act (which can be extremely broad) can be utilized to prosecute individuals who harm property or create a critical threat to public security throughout protests.
Counter-terrorism legal guidelines may seize types of expression at public demonstrations or on-line. It is already a criminal offense to precise help for a proscribed (illegal) organisation, or to put on clothes, symbols or publish photographs in a approach which may increase suspicion that you simply help an illegal organisation. So, for instance, should you specific help for Hamas — a proscribed organisation — you might be already committing a criminal offense and will be prosecuted for it.
Meanwhile, the Public Order Act comprises offences coping with hate speech. These embody utilizing threatening, abusive or insulting phrases or behaviour, or displaying written materials which is meant to or more likely to fire up racial or spiritual hatred.
In 2022, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act expanded the legal offence of inflicting a public nuisance to incorporate “critical misery, critical annoyance, critical inconvenience or critical lack of amenity”. This can now be utilized by he police to criminalise protests which are thought-about to be making an excessive amount of noise.
It is difficult, subsequently, to see which bases are usually not already lined for a authorities seeking to prosecute folks for extremism. These mechanisms have already been used to clamp down on every kind of activism. In actuality, there is no such thing as a hole within the regulation that wants fixing. Rather, this proposal seems like a basic instance of a authorities speaking powerful on crime and terrorism so as to increase its ballot rankings in an election yr.
The proper to protest
Adding new definitions for extremism solely creates issues. The vaguer a definition will get, the better it’s to misuse. It may have a pervasive chilling impact on free speech. People might self-censor out of concern of being recognized as extremist, not least when their employer has an obligation underneath Prevent.
The truth of the matter is that human rights regulation permits for protests to be disruptive. Otherwise, they could possibly be merely ignored. Human rights regulation additionally permits folks to “shock, offend, and disturb” by speech.
The authorities might not be proud of giant public protests towards its overseas coverage nevertheless it shouldn’t be considered as extremist to march for a ceasefire in Gaza. Likewise, it shouldn’t be considered as extremist to vocalise opposition to the potential genocide being dedicated by the Israeli Defence Forces. If this have been so, then the International Court of Justice is extremist.
There is a deep hazard of conflating protest with extremism and terrorism, undermining the legitimacy of those protests. To stretch the idea of extremism to cowl these views is what is definitely undermining democracy and the rights and freedoms of others.
Alan Greene doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that might profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.