Same old rules

A series of selective leaks had suggested that the second edition of the country’s counter-terrorism strategy, released on Tuesday, would see a shift from trying to tackle violent extremism to tackling extremism per se. This would have been a welcome development. Counter-terrorism in Britain has been crippled by a strategic failure to match policy to the reality that terrorism is merely the symptom of a wider problem: namely the hold of extremist Islamism on a small but significant slice of the British population.

However, as so often, the spin was misleading. The document is actually deeply cautious — a reflection of the splits in government over this issue. There are some small improvements; it is encouraging to see that the government will challenge the views of those groups that reject liberal democratic values. But the government’s letter to ‘partner organisations’, leaked to The Spectator, declares, ‘We are aware of recent, inaccurate media speculation that Contest [the strategy] will widen the definition of extremism.