How Justin Welby should have responded to Gove’s extremism crackdown

When the government raises big questions about our national values, one has a choice: to see it as an opportunity to say something constructive, to deepen the debate. Or one could respond like a cynical intern at the Guardian, saying, in effect: how dare they try to sound all high and mighty? Where’s some holes we can pick?

The Church of England is unfortunately inclined to the latter course, with the archbishops issuing a statement raising concerns that Muslims might be targeted by a redefinition of extremism. 

What the communities secretary Michael Gove announced was hardly earth-shattering. He gave a new but not very new definition of extremism as an ideology ‘that aims to negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or undermine, overturn or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights’. 

In a joint statement, Justin Welby and the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said labelling a multifaceted problem as hateful extremism may ‘vilify the wrong people and risk yet more division’:

‘The new definition being proposed not only inadvertently threatens freedom of speech, but also the right to worship and peaceful protest – things that have been hard won and form the fabric of a civilised society.