Responding to the revelation that Extinction Rebellion (XR) had been identified as extremists by counterterrorism police, Sara Khan, the government’s chief adviser on extremism, called for a clearer definition of extremism. Khan was quoted as saying that a clearer definition would “help build a whole-society response by providing a better understanding”.
It’s hard to disagree with this but actually developing a clear definition is not easy. The cynical view is that an extremist is simply someone whose political stance I strongly disagree with, and that there is no neutral way of determining who is an extremist. On this account, “extremist” is a term of abuse rather than a serious tool of political analysis. But the notion that there is no factual means of determining whether, say, Isis is extremist seems absurd. Isis really is an extremist group. This is not just a matter of personal opinion. But then we are back to the challenge of defining “real” extremism.
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