The government’s definition of extremism amounts to: “we don’t know what extremism is, but we know it when we see it.”

Philip Hammond, when he was Foreign Secretary, claimed: “countering Islamist extremism is, perhaps, the great challenge of our time.”

He said that fascism and communism were extremist ideologies of the past, but that “Islamist extremism” has deeper roots and wider reach.

He apparently believes  extremism is a bigger threat then the Luftwafe or the Red Army were, bigger than the threat from global warming now is.

This is craziness. It’s junk politics and junk language. It’s a confidence trick. We cannot let it rule our lives.

Barking Up the Wrong Tree – my speech at the Muslim Council of Scotland seminar on countering extremism, 2 March 2016.

Foreign Secretary speech on the challenges of extremism, 31 October, 2015