Sunak pledges extremism crackdown

Rishi Sunak has just appeared on the steps of Downing Street to give a speech on the need to take action after ‘a shocking increase in extremist disruption and criminality’ in recent weeks. On the day former Labour MP George Galloway was announced as the new MP for Rochdale, the Prime Minister said ‘this situation has gone on long enough’, arguing that ‘Islamist extremists and far rights groups are spreading a poison, that poison is extremism’. Responding directly to Galloway’s victory in the by-election, Sunak said:

It is beyond horrifying that last night the Rochdale by election returned a candidate who denies the horror of what happened on October 7th, who glorifies Hezbollah and is endorsed by Nick Griffin, the racist former leader of the British National party. I need to speak to you all this evening because this situation has gone on long enough.

Sunak went on to say that the events of the past few weeks involving Islamist extremists and the far right are linked as the two ‘feed off and embolden each other’.