Violent Extremism

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I follow all other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for initiating the debate and thanking him and his colleagues for all the hard work that went into this most valuable report. I declare an interest as an adviser and participant in an outfit called the European Foundation for Democracy, which is based in Belgium. It was instrumental in being set up by a now deceased friend of mine, Anne-Marie Lizin, a Belgian politician who, 30 years ago, was in north Africa promoting the very values we are trying to promote today. Part of that is that a European approach is needed to what is largely a European problem. It is not just a British problem. The European Foundation for Democracy believes very much in having a cross-cultural, cross-country approach.

I and the foundation welcome the report. We acknowledge that fundamental religious ideological beliefs are among the pull factors that encourage radicalisation of young people in this region, but we could have somewhat stronger recommendations on cultural and educational interventions that could be tailored alongside those in the report to help us to tackle the problem.

Although economic, civic and social factors play a role in violent radicalisation and recruitment processes, we should not forget the significant role played by ideology. Religious leaders and groups play a significant role in those communities. Their interpretation of religion is a key factor in driving people towards taking radical or moderate positions. Research shows that prominent jihadis come from the background of non-violent Islamism, the former exploiting grievances that are not necessarily legitimate as they can promote a utopian, sharia-based state approach that goes against the principles of the rule of law and fundamental rights. In such cases, rather than addressing the grievances and compromising on them, we should be promoting alternative narratives. For instance, I draw attention to the first draft of the Tunisian constitution, which mentions the complementarity of women with men, but after consultation and debate this was changed to the equality between men and women. That was done within that society as a result of debate about the way the different genders should be viewed, all within an Islamist viewpoint. It is possible.

We share the aim of devising programmes to strengthen democratic accountability and good governance and to promote debate and dialogue. To implement those, we should recognise and be ready to counter the ideologies that act against such values. The report rightly focuses on prevention. To do that, we cannot focus only on violent extremism. We also need to take a step back and look at non-violent, extremist ideologies. How is it that among the millions of poor and marginalised individuals from all over the world, some—quite a small minority—decided to embrace violence? We need to try to tease out the ideological triggers so that many people who personally believe in extremist ideology do not then carry that forward into violent action.

I have already mentioned to the Minister that I wrote to him on 13 June, asking whether he would meet representatives from the European Foundation for Democracy to explore how we can all work better together towards our common goal of a peaceful and prosperous community of equal citizens and well-adjusted families in a tolerant UK, Europe and world. I hope that he will agree to such a meeting, because I finish where I started, by saying that this is a European problem. We have much to learn also from each other and I hope that we will do that in combating this difficulty, which faces so many of us.