Last week, UK ministers followed up on a pledge after the Heaton Park attack to publish their plans to combat extremism. The \u201csocial cohesion plan<\/a>\u201d says the government will make it harder for extremists and \u201chate preachers\u201d to enter the UK, publish an annual \u201cstate of extremism\u201d report, and launch a crackdown on antisemitism on campuses and in public services such as the National Health Service. Regulators will also be given new powers to shut down charities that promote extremism.<\/p>\n \t Jewish groups, such as the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, gave the plan a cautious welcome \u2014 but warned that implementation and \u201cclear leadership\u201d will be key.<\/p>\n Political response<\/p>\n Both Labour and Conservative politicians say action can\u2019t come soon enough. Conservative parliamentarian Paul Goodman warned<\/a> in a debate in the House of Lords last month that the UK lacks an \u201coverarching policy that seeks to counter Islamist and other extremism in our institutions and civil society.\u201d<\/p>\n While Goodman faulted governments of both parties, he noted that Labour\u2019s response to extremism since taking office in July 2024 has been sluggish. It has left the post of Commissioner for Countering Extremism vacant and its post-election \u201crapid review\u201d of extremism policy has never been published.<\/p>\n \t Labour MP Damien Egan, chair of a newly established cross-party group on countering extremism, has similarly said<\/a> that there has been \u201can underestimation of the scale of the extremism problem and the continuing failure to distinguish the extremist threat from the terrorist threat and the wider harms the former creates.\u201d<\/p>\n In its first report, \u201cTime to Act,\u201d Egan\u2019s parliamentary group cautioned that the UK is \u201cflying blind\u201d in the face of the rising threat.<\/p>\n \u2018We are just awash with very clever human rights language on the issue, and it\u2019s just [seen as] too toxic to do anything about\u2019<\/p>\n Littlewood shares this analysis. \u201cI think we\u2019ve lost [the] uphill battle at this stage,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s always been a \u2026 battle, but now, in the post-October 7 climate, with a new government and a lot of institutional amnesia \u2026 and no real counter-extremism agenda, we are just awash with very clever human rights language on the issue, and it\u2019s just [seen as] too toxic to do anything about.\u201d<\/p>\n The government\u2019s new plan, she says, lacks a \u201crenewed counter-extremism strategy\u201d and side-steps the recommendations of an independent review<\/a> commissioned by the outgoing Conservative administration in 2023. It warned that while the focus of counter-terrorism programs on the growing threat posed by the extreme right was important, \u201cthe facts clearly demonstrate that the most lethal threat in the last 20 years has come from Islamism.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhile Islamist actors are emboldened \u2026 [the] appetite to tackle the issue is detrimentally low,\u201d Littlewood says.<\/p>\n A persuasive nihilistic world view<\/p>\n Before becoming an academic specializing in extremism, inter-community conflict and antisemitism, Littlewood worked for the UK\u2019s counterterrorism program, Prevent. She believes that one consequence of the current climate is that the Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s long-running goal of persuading non-Muslims in the West to adopt its worldview is gaining traction.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re now in a very difficult situation where you hear echoes of Islamist narratives; anti-Western, heavily pro-Palestinian, and often quite antisemitic, in the mainstream, which just shows the success of the Muslim Brotherhood strategy,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \t Littlewood believes a \u201creal concern\u201d is that Islamists are not only targeting the Jewish community because of Israel, but also as a way of forging allegiances with both the far left and the far right.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that antisemitism has become their main strategic tool for upending the liberal Western order,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s very clever, and they\u2019re using it to create collaboration and to get people engaged in their narrative and their way of viewing the world, and it\u2019s being very successful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Antisemitism has become their main strategic tool for upending the liberal Western order\u2019<\/p>\n Muslim Brotherhood strategy documents from the 1990s placed the Israel-Palestinian conflict front and center of the effort to make their message appealing to wider Western audiences.<\/p>\n If the horseshoe fits\u2026<\/p>\n In the UK, the controversy sparked by the 2003 Iraq war hastened the building of alliances between Islamist groups and far-left politicians and activists.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that [the far left and Islamists] just find common ground quite naturally, but if you look back at the 1990s Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s strategic documents, they talk about making these alliances. It\u2019s strategic, and it\u2019s planned,\u201d Littlewood says.<\/p>\n She also identifies the emergence of non-violent, \u201csoft Islamism\u201d propagated by online \u201cyoung, hip Islamists.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re young, popular, with big followings [on social media], very clever in how they articulate themselves [so as] not to come across sounding like al -Qaeda or ISIS,\u201d Littlewood says. However, she warns, the Islamist ideals they are professing \u201ccould lead someone along a similar path.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Littlewood believes that evidence is also now emerging of Islamists engaging with the far right.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s knowing how to speak to people and how to build on people\u2019s current feelings and grievances and what they care about,\u201d she says. \u201cIslamists know very well how to do that with the left, and they\u2019re just starting to do that with the right.\u201d<\/p>\n She cites the way in which 5 Pillars, a hardline Islamist website, has featured interviews on its podcast with British far-right figures including Nick Griffin, the former leader of the British National Party; Mark Collett, leader of the neo-Nazi Patriotic Alliance; and Jayda Fransen, the ex-leader of Britain First.<\/p>\n While Collett and Griffin are strongly anti-Israel, Littlewood warns that other far-right figures who profess to be more sympathetic to the Jewish state, such as Tommy Robinson, cannot be trusted.<\/p>\n \u2018The far right has the capacity to be violent and is getting more extreme in its rhetoric\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cHe has always been very divisive and dangerous,\u201d she says. \u201cI think he flip-flops according to what he wants to achieve politically at that time, and he jumps into any mess he can to stoke up as much tension as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Littlewood says that Britain needs to keep a \u201cfirm eye\u201d on both Islamists and far-right extremists.<\/p>\n \u201cThe far right has the capacity to be violent and is getting more extreme in its rhetoric,\u201d she says. \u201cWe absolutely shouldn\u2019t take our eyes off that.\u201d<\/p>\n \t But Littlewood believes that politicians and public servants have a \u201cgreater ease and comfort\u201d in dealing with the far right than they do with Islamists.<\/p>\n Littlewood says that both the current Labour government and its Conservative predecessor shied away from tackling Islamist extremists.<\/p>\n Littlewood\u2019s experience in Prevent \u2014 she worked in the northeast London borough of Waltham Forest \u2014 causes her to believe that official reticence in tackling Islamism sometimes stems from political calculation, especially in areas where there is a large Muslim vote.<\/p>\n \u2018Rightly or wrongly, the assumption is that if you get involved with tackling Islamism, you\u2019re going to lose that voting base\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cRightly or wrongly, the assumption is that if you get involved with tackling Islamism, you\u2019re going to lose that voting base,\u201d she says. \u201cThat assumption may not necessarily be correct, but there are a few loud enough voices [who] say that they have control of these votes, and that they are very influential, and that \u2026 can really intimidate government into stepping away from these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP25276286261452-1024x640.jpg\")
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\n\t\tPolice guard the scene of a terror attack carried out a day earlier at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue, in Crumpsall, Manchester, England, October 3, 2025. (AP Photo\/Ian Hodgson)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AFP__20060819__Par883534__v1001__HighRes__BritainMideastMuslimMarch-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tMuslim demonstrators from the pan-Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain, which has been designated a terror organization and which advocates for a global caliphate, protest outside the US Embassy in central London, 19 August 2006. (Photo by REBECCA REID \/ AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP24096523764153-e1773225879731-1024x640.jpg\")
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\n\t\tPro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters take part in a demonstration on Al Quds Day, in London, April 5, 2024 (AP Photo\/Kin Cheung)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-13-105427-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tIslamist influencer Mohammed Hijab, right, appears with antisemitic streamer Sneako to discuss \u2018Jewish supremacy\u2019 in this screenshot from March 1, 2026. (YouTube)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-13-110231-1024x640.jpg\")
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\n\t\tExtremist outlet 5 Pillars editor Dilly Hussain interviews antisemite and Holocaust denier Nick Griffin, the former head of the fascist British National Party, in his podcast Blood Brothers, November 29, 2023. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n
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