The Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) is a British government agency created under Prime Minister Theresa May in response to the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
The Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) is a British government agency created under Prime Minister Theresa May in response to the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
The idea was mentioned in the 2017 election platform of the Conservative Party, released four days before the Manchester bombing attack. [1] [2] May described the Commission as "a statutory body to help fight hatred and extremism in the same way as we have fought racism." [3]
Sara Khan was named head of the new commission in January 2018. The appointment was criticised by former Conservative Party chairwoman Sayeeda Warsi, Harun Khan, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, and Labour MP Naz Shah. [4]
On 24 February 2021 the Commission released a report "Operating with Impunity - Hateful extremism: The need for a legal framework". [5]
In March 2021, Priti Patel appointed Robin Simcox as CCE commissioner in an interim capacity. Before this, Simcox had worked as a research fellow at the neo-conservative Henry Jackson Society think tank, and as a Margaret Thatcher Fellow at The Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, specialising in counterterrorism. [6] [7] In 2019, he had stated that the UK's official definition of a hate crime was "far too broad" in response to a CCE report. He had also founded the Counter Extremism Group organisation. [7] Patel officially appointed Simcox as commissioner in July 2022. [6]
In October 2021, The Independent repotred that since 2019, ministers had not formally responded to any of the reports released by the commission. [8]
In December 2022, the commission held a conference involving speeches from Michael Gove and Munira Mirza. [9]
In its 2022-23 end of year report, it noted that it had commissioned research on "how blasphemy is viewed and presented by UK Islamists" and "how various fringe ideologies promote anti-government messaging online". [9]
In August 2023, a report by The Independent stated that the CCE had underspent £300,000 in 2021-22, and £680,000 (over a third of its budget) in 2022-23 which the commission stated was partially due to "delays in staff recruitment" and "setting up project work", returning both amounts to the Home Office. The paper also reported that since Simcox's 2021 appointment, the commission had "published no new research or scrutiny of government policy," but that it was mostly working on the implementation of the findings of a review of the government’s Prevent counterterrorism programme, a measure asked of Simcox by home secretary Suella Braverman. [9]
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and colloquially known as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, having won the 2019 general election, and has been the primary governing party in the United Kingdom since 2010. The party sits on the right-wing or centre-right of the political spectrum. It encompasses various ideological factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatives. The party holds the annual Conservative Party Conference, at which senior Conservative figures promote party policy.
Theresa Mary, Lady May, is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served as Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016. She has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidenhead since 1997. May is the second female UK prime minister, after Margaret Thatcher, and the first woman to hold two of the Great Offices of State. Ideologically, May is a one-nation conservative.
The Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism (CT) is a bureau of the United States Department of State. It coordinates all U.S. Government efforts to improve counterterrorism cooperation with foreign governments and participates in the development, coordination, and implementation of American counterterrorism policy.
Dame Priti Sushil Patel is a British politician who served as Home Secretary from 2019 to 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, she was Secretary of State for International Development from 2016 to 2017. Patel has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Witham since 2010. She is ideologically on the right wing of the Conservative Party; she considers herself to be a Thatcherite and has attracted attention for her socially conservative stances.
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The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cybercrime; and economic crime that goes across regional and international borders; but it can be tasked to investigate any crime. The NCA has a strategic role as part of which it looks at serious crime in aggregate across the UK, especially analysing how organised criminals are operating and how they can be disrupted. To do this, it works closely with regional organised crime units (ROCUs), local police forces, and other government departments and agencies.
Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, is an English anti-Islam campaigner, convicted criminal and one of the UK’s most prominent far-right activists. He was a political advisor to former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Gerard Batten.
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Dame Sara Khan is a British human rights activist and the chief executive officer of Inspire, an independent non-governmental organisation working to counter extremism and gender inequality. Khan is a contributor to The Guardian and The Independent newspapers, as well as The Huffington Post and has made appearances on British television and radio. She has been interviewed for the BBC's HARDtalk and Desert Island Discs.
Jayda Kaleigh Fransen is a British far-right politician and activist who was convicted of religiously aggravated harassment in 2018. Formerly involved with the English Defence League (EDL), she left due to its association with drink-fuelled violence. She then joined the far-right fascist political organisation Britain First. With Paul Golding as leader, Fransen was deputy leader from 2014 to 2019. She became acting leader for six months from December 2016 to June 2017, while Golding was imprisoned in December 2016.
The Manchester Arena bombing, or Manchester Arena attack, was an Islamic terrorist suicide bombing of the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, on 22 May 2017, following a concert by American pop singer Ariana Grande. Perpetrated by Islamic extremist Salman Abedi and aided by his brother, Hashem Abedi, the bombing occurred at 10:31 p.m. and killed 22 people, injured 1,017, and destroyed the arena's foyer. It was the deadliest act of terrorism and the first suicide bombing in the United Kingdom since the 7 July 2005 London bombings.
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