Prevent Strategy

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the Government take all the steps possible to make sure that there are not extremists serving in the Armed Forces. Clearly, some people hide those sentiments and the events of yesterday were clear to see. Just as we are tackling Islamist extremism, so we must tackle the far right.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend’s Question not in danger of making a distinction where there is actually little difference? In the case of political Islam, which she referred to, is this not rather well represented in both cases by the Muslim Brotherhood, which seems to me to be rather like Sinn Fein was to the IRA?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, there clearly is a distinction between people who hold extremist views and promote those views to others, and those who actually go on to commit acts of terrorism. That is why we make a distinction between the two, with the former group being tackled on all sides by some of the programmes and engagement that we have with communities throughout this country.