DAVID Cameron will today announce that he wants to build a “national coalition” against extremism and hate crime in Britain at the first Community Engagement Forum to be held in Downing Street.
The forum, which will include some 30 multi-faith representatives from across the UK, will enable the Prime Minister to hear directly from those leading the fight against extremism as he prepares to publish later this month the UK Government’s Counter-Extremism Strategy.
New funding is to be made available to improve security at faith establishments and for the first time police forces south of the Border will be asked to record anti-Muslim hate crimes.
In Scotland, racial crime remains the most commonly reported hate crime with 3,785 charges reported last year. However, this was the lowest number since 2003/04. Hate crime against disabled people has almost tripled in the last five years. The Scottish Government is to hold a summit aimed at tackling hate crime next week.
In July, Mr Cameron announced a five-year strategy to counter extremism and identified four areas which he said attracted people to extremist Islamist ideology. They were: a failure to counter the narrative of extremists; non-violent views that acted as a “gateway” for radicalisation; the drowning out of moderate Muslim voices and a failure to integrate different groups.
The PM said: "I want to build a national coalition to challenge and speak out against extremists and the poison they peddle.
"I want British Muslims to know we will back them to stand against those who spread hate and to counter the narrative which says Muslims do not feel British. And I want police to take more action against those who persecute others simply because of their religion."
Policies to be brought forward as part of the counter-extremism strategy include: encouraging broadcasters to give more airtime to moderate Muslim voices; cracking down on radicalisation in prisons; incentivising schools to integrate pupils better; challenging extremist preachers at universities; enabling parents to cancel their children’s passports if they are worried they might try to join Isis and pressuring IT companies to remove swiftly any Isis propaganda.
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