In November 2018, the Commission for Countering Extremism launched a consultation in order to build understanding and evidence on all forms of extremism and, to examine the Government’s current responses to it.
In July 2019, the Commission published a statistical summary of the responses received.
The report finds:
- Three quarters (75%) of the public respondents find the Government’s current definition of extremism “very unhelpful” or “unhelpful”
- Just over half (52%) of respondents had witnessed extremism in some way
- The public and practitioners associated the Far Right with propaganda and criminal offending more than with any other activities
- The public associated Muslim / Islamist extremism with criminal offending and links to terrorism, while practitioners associated it with propaganda, criminal offending and incidents in regulated spaces
- A quarter (25%) of the public respondents said they could describe extremism, while 70% described themselves as “not sure”.