Theresa May’s most senior counter terrorism adviser has warned against portraying Muslim communities as “intrinsically extremist” just days after David Cameron said some were “quietly condoning” radicalisation.
Charles Farr, director general of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, said there was a “risk” of oversimplification given around 2.7 million Muslims live in Britain but just a few hundred had joined Isil in the Middle East.
Mr Farr knocked back suggestions the country was losing the online war against jihadists and suggested the government was keeping step with the waves of propaganda being uploaded by Islamist radicals.
The comments contrast with Mr Cameron’s keynote speech on radicalisation last week, when he toughened his rhetoric on the responsibilities Muslim leaders had to stamp out extremism.
Speaking at a Jewish News conference on Israel, Mr Farr warned of the dangers of playing up the numbers of Britons who have headed to the Middle East to join Isil.
He said he was “a little bit worried” by the suggestion radicalisation was a genie that had already left the bottle – the tittle of the debate he spoke at – and said people should be “really cautious”.
As few as 100 Britons may currently be fighting for Isil, Mr Farr said – compared to the 2.7 million Muslims in the country.
He continued: “It’s not to say the challenges they pose are not significant, they are. But … the more we overstate them the more, frankly, we risk labelling Muslim communities as somehow intrinsically extremist, which actually despite an unprecedented wealth of social media propaganda, they have proved not to be. So I think we need to be cautious with our metaphors and with our numbers.”
The warning not to portray Muslim communities as extremists from Mr Farr, who previously oversaw security at the London 2012 Olympics, strikes a different tone from the Prime Minister just a few days earlier.
In a Friday speech, the Prime Minister implied parts of Britain’s Muslim communities were complicit in the radicalisation that was convincing some teenagers to flee to the Middle East.
He suggested anti-Western rhetoric was something “quietly condoned online or perhaps even in parts of your local community” and could lead to extremism.
Asked about social media, Mr Farr said Facebook, Twitter and other companies had showed “good collaboration” with British security services in taking down radicalising content posted online when flagged.
However the senior civil servant said the government does have a “problem” getting the American firms to hand data on suspicious users that could help in investigations.
He also revealed the kinds of people who are drawn to Isil often have “personal problems” and can be seeking excitement.
“The background of broken families, lack of integration into what we might call mainstream society, some level of criminality, sometimes family conflict, are all more than normally apparent,” Mr Farr said of those who head east to fight with extremists.
He added: “People join terrorist organisations in this country and in others because they get something out of them beyond merely satisfaction of an ideological commitment.
“Sometimes it's about resolution of personal problems, sometimes it's about certainty in an environment which has deprived them of it, sometimes it's about excitement and esteem, and we should not omit the last two factors.
“This is the reality in Syria and Iraq but also many other contexts we’ve worked on over the past five or 10 years.”
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