Security Minister Tom Tugendhat has denied that the Government is politicising extremism by seeking to redefine the term.
He told GB News: “You shouldn't politicise extremism. That's exactly what we're not doing.
“What we're doing is we're making sure that the British people are kept safe from the various forms of extremism that we sadly see in our country, that are trying to radicalise young people, by and large young people, into doing things that are incredibly dangerous not just for our whole society but for them as individuals.”
In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, he continued: “I gave a speech on Friday talking about this and talking about the fact that this is about keeping all of our communities safe and sadly, the first victims of Islamist extremism, for example, is the Muslim community.
“Now today, on the first day of Ramadan, you will appreciate the many Muslim communities are coming together with friends and family and making sure that they can enjoy this holy month, in the same way as many of us would enjoy Christmas. Now what we've got to make sure is that they're safe to do so.
“There are many different opinions in the Muslim community, just like there are in the Christian community, and many people have different ways of looking at our articles of faith. We got to make sure everybody is safe to express themselves because freedom of faith, freedom of belief, freedom of thought and expression is fundamental to our democracy.”
He added: “The reality is that what we're looking at here is we're looking at different ways of making sure we keep people safe.
“Some of the areas we’re already acting on is if you're propagating extremist views then you can lose your visa, you can, if you're a student, you can see that as an end to your course. There are various ways where we're already taking action.
“All this is building off the Prime Minister’s speech of a couple of weeks back, where we were talking about where he spoke about very clearly about the need to get on the front foot on this.
“It's absolutely right that every citizen must feel safe to be in the UK and anywhere in the UK and that's what we're working to achieve.”
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