guardian.com wrote: Theresa May set to introduce new laws to combat British extremismThe home secretary is poised to bring in laws to tackle British extremists in the wake of the killing of US journalist James Foley by a jihadist with an English accent.
Theresa May said Britain must introduce all the legal powers necessary to win the struggle against terror that is feared to last for decades.
Banning orders for extremist groups will be looked at again alongside powers to stop radical preachers.
May also underlined changes to the law that means naturalised Britons who are fighting overseas can be stripped of their citizenship and excluded.
In an article for the Daily Telegraph, she said: "We will be engaged in this struggle for many years, probably decades. We must give ourselves all the legal powers we need to prevail.
"I am looking again at the case for new banning orders for extremist groups that fall short of the legal threshold for terrorist proscription, as well as for new civil powers to target extremists who seek to radicalise others."...
http://gu.com/p/4xxh3
What qualifies as an undesirable extreme here?
This propsal might seem reasonable at first glance, but the unacknowledged condition for the type of 'British extremism' that is being cited in justification, and which had led to things like the London bombings and the Rigby and Foley tragedies, is Religion - specifically Islamic Jihadism.
Will any government of any hue be prepated to outlaw a whole religious denomination, or equally be prepared to define an individual or group into that denomination? I think that that is far to contentious at the moment, far too politically loaded, to ever happen - at least in the foreseeable future - in which case whatever new laws are invoked they will most probably be more generally framed, more vague. Hence my initial question.
The Home Secretary of the day certainly should not be granted powers to define and/or declare an individual or group 'outlawed' imo, nor should this be decided in the courts on the basis of whether the government has met its own self-defined 'rationality test' - nor should it be decided in camera under the current CMP regime either.
Without acknowledging the specific and unique religious dimension to so-called 'British extremism' we could end up with a broad law that not only recognises no distinction between beliefs and action, but also one that could be used by an untrustworthy government to undermine or outlaw political oposition or those with other non-mainstream views.
In the current climate would you trust any government of any hue not to do that if they could?
Oh, and for a government to render an individual stateless goes against its legal duty to uphold the UDHR, the unequivocal acceptance of which is a cornerstone of international law and a condition of UN membership. Simply defining someone as an extremist is not a justifiable getout.
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