‘Defeating extremism must be a shared endeavour’ – Cooper responds to Cameron’s speech

Tackling extremism is a “shared endeavour”, according to Yvette Cooper. The Shadow Home Secretary has made these comments in response to a speech by David Cameron today, in which he set out a five year plan to defeat home-grown extremism.

In her role shadowing Home Secretary Theresa May, Cooper has been critical of the Prevent programme, which aims to tackles extremism. In her comments today argues that community campaigns are often “the most effective” ways to deal with radicalisation. She argued that community programmes are able to play as big a part in preventing the spread of extremism as police and government action.

While she also highlighted the importance of the Government taking further measures to promote integration, she stopped short of criticising Cameron’s comments today. The Prime Minister said that “the failures of integration” has led to hundreds of Britons joining Islamic State (IS) militants.

Cooper says Labour will “engage seriously” with the Government’s strategy, and “scrutinise the detail”.

She said:

“Rising extremism in Britain and across the world is a major challenge for democracy. The Prime Minister is right to set out new action in this area as it is important that the Government strengthens counter extremism work and leads a strong argument against both violent and non violent extremism.
 
“We have argued for five years that more needed to be done to support communities and groups who want to tackle extremism at grassroots – including many Muslim community organisations who are working hard to do this with little support. In the last Parliament support for community led prevention work was cut right back, so it is very welcome if the Government is now changing its position to provide strong support and commitment.

“Defeating extremism of all kinds must be a shared endeavour. While we need strong action from the police and clear deradicalisation and preventative programmes from government, everyone has a responsibility to prevent extremism and challenge poisonous ideologies – and local community and youth groups can often be the most effective in preventing young people being radicalised in the first place.

“Similarly it is right for the Government to do much more on integration. We called before the election for all local councils to be required to draw up local integration strategies as it is really important that our communities aren’t divided. I would urge the Prime Minister to include that in his counter extremism plans.
 
“We will engage seriously with the government’s forthcoming strategy when it is published and scrutinise the detail.”