Parents may cancel children's passports in war on IS

Parents will be given the power to cancel their children's passports under the government's five-year strategy to tackle extremism.

In a speech in Birmingham, David Cameron sought to empower families worried that their children might be planning to travel to Syria or Iraq to join Islamic State or other radical groups.

He set out four major issues that needed to be tackled: extremist ideology; radicalisation; the "drowning out" of Muslim voices; and the "identity crisis" among some British-born Muslims.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Cameron said it was "no coincidence" that areas of cities and towns such as Bradford and Oldham, which had become some of the most segregated parts of the country, are also where community relations had historically been most tense – where "poisonous far right and Islamist extremists desperately try to stoke tension and foster division".

The PM said he wanted to "incentivise" schools to become more integrated, look at the allocation of social housing to prevent further segregation and find ways to emphasise British values.

He also plans to launch a study into how extremism spreads and enable Ofcom to crack down on television channels broadcasting extremist messages.

Cameron called for extremist ideology and conspiracy theories used by groups such as IS to be "de-glamorised" and warned that the group offers only a "vicious, brutal and fundamentally abhorrent existence".

In a message to any young people thinking of going to Syria or Iraq to join IS, he said: "You won't be some valued member of a movement – you are cannon fodder for them.

"They will use you. If you are a boy, they will brainwash you, strap bombs to your body and blow you up. If you are a girl they will enslave and abuse you. That is the sick and brutal reality of Isil."

Cameron attacks 'ludicrous' extremist conspiracy theories

20 July

Prime Minister David Cameron will call for an end to the "ludicrous conspiracy theories" of extremists as he sets out a five-year strategy to combat fundamentalist terrorism.

At a speech in Birmingham, he is expected to announce a new clampdown on people who hold and condone "intolerant ideas".

He will warn that the fight against extremism is now the "struggle of our generation" and urge people to challenge the view that radicalism can be justified by historic injustices.

Cameron will "single out Muslim conspiracy theorists" who believe that Jews exercise a "malevolent" power, that Israeli intelligence agency Mossad inspired 9/11 and that the UK allowed 7/7 because it wanted an anti-Muslim backlash, says The Times.

"The world is not conspiring against Islam; the security services aren't behind terrorist attacks; our new Prevent duty for schools is not about criminalising or spying on Muslim children. This is paranoia in the extreme," Cameron will say.

The prime minister is also expected to blame a failure of integration for the number of people born and raised in the UK who do not identify with British values. Louise Casey, the head of the government's troubled families unit, is due to be announced as the chairwoman of a new review of how to improve integration in the most isolated and deprived communities.

The Times describes the "landmark" speech as Cameron's "most important intervention on extremism to date".

It comes after Lord Richards, former chief of the Armed Forces, said that "sooner or later" ground troops and tanks will have to be sent to the Middle East to overcome Islamic State.

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Richards said the UK's current strategy against the extremists was "woefully insufficient". He indicated that "tanks would have to roll and there's going to have to be boots on the ground".