Campaign group warns against Government’s plans to widen extremism definition as risk to free speech

A leading campaign group has warned against Government plans to clamp down on extremism as a serious and unnecessary threat to free speech.

The Christian Institute says that past attempts to draft a legal definition of extremism have floundered because it risked criminalising politicians, campaigners and those with traditional views.

Although the new definition will be non-statutory, it will determine which individuals and groups Government and officials will engage with.

The Institute warns that widening the current definition would lead to greater censorship that could see those with traditional views excluded from debate.

To highlight the dangers, the Christian charity is relaunching “The Little Book of Non-Violent Extremists”, which showcases the way that many non-violent political campaigners such as William Wilberforce, whose campaign led to the abolition of slavery, and Rosa Parks, the mother of the civil rights movement in the US, were initially denounced as “fomenting revolution” and “dangerous”. Now both are rightly celebrated.

Other examples highlighted by the book include Gandhi, the Tolpuddle Martyrs and William Tyndale.

Gandhi was convicted in 1922 of sedition and sentenced to six years in prison. The Tolpuddle Martyrs were attacked as “evil”, while The Morning Post newspaper described Trade Unions as, “… the most dangerous institutions that ever permitted to take root, under the shelter of law, in any country”. And publisher William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English, was described as “a spreader of sedition” and a “devil worshiper”. He was tried, convicted of treason and burnt at the stake.

Simon Calvert, a Deputy Director of the Christian Institute, commented: “This little booklet makes the big point that some non-violent ‘extremists’ turn out to be heroic people of global significance. These were people willing to be in a minority of one. People who shook up the consensus of the day. How glad we are that they did.

“Sometimes unpopular ideas are just what a society desperately needs. Ideas put forward by people once thought seditious, dangerous or just plain crazy have greatly blessed our land and others. Democracy needs dissent, and silencing it undermines its very foundations.

“Previous attempts to widen the definition of extremism have been so broad and expansive that they would have caught many ordinary people going about their daily lives, campaigners, political activists and those holding traditional beliefs.”

Mr Calvert continued: “There is already a vast arsenal of existing laws that can be used to arrest and prosecute those who spread hatred or promote extremist ideologies. There’s no need for this new definition of extremism.”

The Christian Institute will be sending a copy of the Little Book of Non-Violent Extremists to MPs.