‘Extremism is new buzzword in UK to attack civil liberties’

A British investigative journalist says the UK’s ruling elites create the narratives of domestic extremism and radicalism to crack down on civil liberties.

Tony Gosling has told Press TV’s UK Desk that “the problem here in Britain first started when we had our own version of 9/11 attacks; that is the 7/7 bombings back in 2005. As the result of that, we got a narrative of domestic extremism and apparently we got this Muslim Jihadi terrorist everywhere. I think most people understand the reality is very different that actually the Islamic population in Britain is almost a hundred percent peaceful. And also those 7/7 bombings were not properly investigated by the police. There was no public inquiry into the attacks and no explanation on why for example the Israeli embassy was warned not just the same day, but the day the before of the supposed, surprise attack. So, there’s a whole narrative being created in Britain about domestic extremism which is really a total fiction and just an excuse to clamp down on civil liberties by what is effectively a criminal elite.”

His comments follow the recent remarks by the chief constable of Greater Manchester, Peter Fahy, who warned about the UK becoming “a police state”

He also warned that the new counter-terrorism measures announced by the government last week may blur the lines between free speech and extremism. He said that if the issue of fighting extremism is totally left to the security system, there is the danger of drifting to a police state.

Fahy said the government, academics and civil society needed to decide where the line fell between free speech and extremism. Otherwise, he warned, it would be decided by the security establishment, or the so-called “securocrats”, including the security services, government and senior police chiefs.