What are the hurdles facing Michael Gove’s extremism plans?

Gove wants to ban extremists from meeting ministers or seeking public funds. He says the UK is facing a challenge from extremist groups. Tony Blair was the first to ban extremism in the UK after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U. S.

In the UK, it is illegal to be an extremist if you are under the age of 30. David Cameron twice promised an extremism ban. Each time, the government has faced the same intellectual and legal problem: nobody agrees what the word means. Terrorism is very clearly defined in British law as the use or threat of violence to intimidate government or society to follow a particular course in the name of an ideological cause.

But extremism is not a crime. And one politician’s extremism is another activist#39;s legitimate cause. Most extremist materials and activities are not illegal and do not meet the terrorism or the national security threshold. The most we have had as an official working definition of extremism dates from 2011, when David Cameron declared it meant, among other things, active opposition to fundamental British values.

This is the problem that policymakers and lawyers have struggled with. Mr Cameron had to abandon a proposal in 2015 to ban the Muslim Brotherhood. Officials looked for evidence linking the Brotherhood and its British offshoots to violence. And so it could not be banned under terrorism laws.

Nine years on, Mr Gove says his new definition of extremism is more workable. It#39;s not clear what his list will really lead to - other than accusations thrown back at him that he is driving the wedge. For a start, none of the groups he has so far named are at the centre of policy-making. As no new crime is being created, police will be under no obligation to round up suspected extremists.

A bank might decide we don#39;t want to have extremists on our books. A genuinely hateful person who is a foreign national might also be able to use the label to their advantage. They might try to challenge their removal to a despotic regime saying their naming-and-shaming in the UK means they could be tortured. Mr Gove says his aim is to protect democracy, but even some in his own party are unconvinced this will work.

MP Miriam Cates has warned it could have a chilling effect on gender-critical feminists who want to reverse law that allows people to change sex on birth certificate. It is a racing certainty that now the policy has been made real it will be challenged in the courts. One of the Muslim groups he named on Thursday, MEND, is already preparing a case. It could take nine months or longer for any group that#39;s labelled extremist to get a judgment that forces government to rethink the plan.