The Conservatives’ inaction and politicians’ inflammatory language paved the way for the current explosion of far-right violence, a former Tory adviser has claimed.
Riots targeting migrants have broken out across the country in the last week, as far-right protesters were galvanised by social media disinformation.
Dame Sara Khan, who acted as Rishi Sunak’s independent advisor for social cohesion, and as the counter-extremism commissioner under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, thinks the Tories are to blame for not acting sooner.
Speaking to The Guardian on Sunday, she said the successive Tory government failed to tackle the far-right violence, and even stoked it with culture wars.
She said: “They’ve (the Conservatives) actually failed those people in communities who are trying to protect cohesion, you know, who are trying to push back against extremist actors.
“Ultimately, unless we address these problems, it will get worse.”
The Labour government have been in power for just one month – and, according to Khan, “the writing was clearly on the wall for some time.”
“We’ve got a gap in our legislation which is allowing these extremists to operate with impunity,” she said, pointing out that social cohesion is deteriorating, rapidly.
Khan said: “Previous governments have astonishingly failed to address these trends, and they’ve taken instead, in my view, approaches that have actually been counterproductive and actually just defy any logical rationale.”
She noted the Tories dropped the counter-extremism strategy in 2021 without any replacement, leaving local authorities to deal with issues alone.
She also said some politicians have “indirectly or directly undermined social cohesion because they’ve used inflammatory language”.
Khan explained: “There’s a serious duty on our politicians to not engage in inflammatory language.”
She said while there is a “legitimate debate about immigration”, it needs to happen without “dehumanising and inflammatory language” as that can end up being co-opted by extremists.
Khan added that the high churn rate within Westminster has not helped.
She said: “I was dealing with three different home secretaries because of the kind of political instability you had. Home secretaries who had different interests and views about how to tackle this problem, and so some were very forthcoming and supportive, but I think others were less so.
“Why it was that they didn’t respond to the reports, ultimately, is a question for them, but it’s just astonishing that they didn’t do anything about it.”
She wrote a review for then-cabinet minister Michael Gove in March 2024, noting how far-right spreading disinformation is linked to unrest.
She also wrote a report in 2021 calling for the law in extremism to change as it is still legal to stir up racial hated that is not threatening, abusive or insulting.
“Our rules have failed to evolve with this growing extremist threat,” Khan noted.
She said there was a problem with sharing knowledge between the Home Office and local authorities, too – meaning extremists were able to find the migrant hotels before authorities.
A Tory spokesperson told the newspaper: “Rishi Sunak as prime minister made it clear that we must stand up to extremism in all its forms. The police must take a zero-tolerance approach to extremist tactics, and we set out reforms to how governments deal with extremists, redoubled our support for the Prevent programme and demanded that universities stopped extremist activity on campus.
“We must stand together to combat the forces of division and give the police the powers they need to protect our country and values.”
