Back to Westminster, where Michael Gove has revealed his brand new definition of extremism today in a bid to push back against fanaticism. The communities secretary has offered assurances that there will be a high bar for defining a group as extremist, and that a ‘rigorous process’ would be followed when identifying group of concern. Affected organisations will miss out on government grants and ministerial meetings. Critics have suggested the broader definition could have a ‘chilling effect’ on free speech however and some rather, er, unusual alliances have formed in protest at the move.
The communities secretary found himself in a tight spot this morning on the morning round. The politician was grilled on his new definition before interviewers turned to the talking point of the week: Frank Hester. Gove was asked whether Hester’s comments about Diane Abbott – in which he said that Abbott makes ‘you just want to hate all black women’ and that ‘she should be shot’ – would make Hester an extremist under his new definition. But despite having worked on it all for some time, the minister couldn’t quite find the words for a direct answer.
‘Different people will have different views,’ he told Times Radio, while on BBC Breakfast the government minister said to interviewer Naga Munchetty that ‘I take that sort of language very seriously’. But when pressed again, Gove refused to give a straight answer. He told the hosts of Radio 4’s Today programme that Hester ‘has shown full contrition’ and said ‘I wouldn’t want to conflate those motivated by extremist ideology with an individual comment’. Gove then added on Times Radio that given Hester’s apology, his ‘natural inclination is to exercise Christian forgiveness’. Some expert dodging…
But while interviewers criticised the Tories for their slow response to the Hester revelations, the party of opposition hasn’t got off scot-free. Abbott herself has now taken to the pages of the Independent to lambast both the Conservatives — and her former party. Abbott lamented the ‘disappointing’ position of the current Labour leadership, adding that ‘it seemed equally reluctant at the outset to call out either racism or sexism’ and pointing to a report that concluded ‘shocking levels of racism and sexism from within the Labour party’.
And somehow Lindsay Hoyle has ended up in the firing line too. Abbott tried to speak a staggering 46 times during yesterday’s PMQs. The Speaker, however, declined to let Abbott input to a debate about, er, herself. How bizarre…
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