David Cameron.
Britain’s prime minister has unveiled a five-year plan to fight Islamic State in the Middle East and the organisation’s sympathisers in the UK. David Cameron used a landmark speech at a school in Birmingham to say he wanted to confront home-grown extremism by “de-glamourising” radical groups and putting its supporters “out of action”. “We need to put out of action the key extremist influencers who are careful to operate just inside the law but who clearly detest British society and everything we stand for,” he said. “These people aren’t just extremists, they are also despicable far-right groups too, and what links them all is their aim to groom young people and brainwash their minds. “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.” The speech, which was heavily trailed in British newspapers over the weekend, mostly covered Cameron’s ambition for tackling extremism, although there were some legislative proposals as well. Parents who suspect their children are planning to join a radical group abroad will be able to apply to have their passports removed, he announced. He also unveiled proposals to offer lifelong anonymity to victims of forced marriage and take action on foreign broadcasters carrying messages of hate and extremism. Cameron vowed to use his country’s liberal values to challenge the “bigotry, oppression and theocracy” of such organisations, but said the authorities would be tougher in enforcing them. “We have lacked the confidence to enforce our values,” he said, adding there will be “no more turning a blind eye on the basis of cultural sensitivities”. He continued: “If we have a situation where young people are being taken off and married against their will or having the appalling practice of [female genital mutilation] carried out on them, and the British state and the British Government and the British Parliament and police and courts look the other way, we are not showing great confidence in our values. “Our values are so great that we should want to enforce them for all, including new arrivals, including people subjected potentially to those practices.” The government would take steps to prevent religious and ethnic segregation in Britain’s schools and housing estates, Cameron added. He also distanced himself from reports of a UK military intervention in Iraq or Syria, insisting any “boots on the ground” needed to be from those countries, but did not rule out further British involvement from the air.