Far-right activists are exploiting community tensions by swooping into towns and cities and distorting the truth in an effort to turn residents against minorities, particularly Muslims, the government’s chief adviser on extremism has found.
Extremists were stirring up white populations who would not normally support the far right and deepening social division, Sara Khan, who leads the Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE), said in her first major report.
Figures such as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who is more commonly known as Tommy Robinson, Anne Marie Waters, the leader of the For Britain party, and Jayda Fransen, a former deputy leader of the fascist group Britain First, were singled out in the report for spreading anti-minority and anti-Muslim agendas.
Khan visited 20 towns and cities and sifted through 3,000 responses to a call for evidence to produce her first major report, published on Monday, titled Challenging Hateful Extremism. She concluded in her report that the government’s response to extremism was “inadequate”, “unfocused” and urgently needed a complete overhaul.
More at
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ns-report-says