Cameron to detail plan to stop extremism

  • 20/07/2015
British Prime Minister David Cameron (AAP)
British Prime Minister David Cameron (AAP)

Conspiracy theories of a powerful Jewish cabal or a Western plan to destroy Islam must be challenged in efforts to counter radicalisation, British Prime Minister David Cameron will say on Monday (local time).

In a speech in the central English city of Birmingham, Mr Cameron is to announce a five-year plan to tackle home-grown Islamic extremism and help communities integrate in Britain.

The plan will include a review into how to increase opportunities for young people from minority backgrounds, help people learn English and promote integration in isolated and deprived communities in Britain.

"You don't have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish," Mr Cameron is to say in his speech.

"Ideas also based on conspiracy that Jews exercise malevolent power or that Western powers, in concert with Israel, are deliberately humiliating Muslims, because they aim to destroy Islam."

He will also to attack views that hold poverty and Western foreign policy responsible for terrorism.

"This argument, the grievance justification, must be challenged," Mr Cameron will say.

The prime minister's Conservative government has sought to address radicalisation since Cameron won a second five-year term in office in May.

Uncomfortable questions have been raised by waves of people who have left Britain to join the Islamic State group, which has brutally carved out regions of control in Iraq and Syria.

In his speech Cameron will say past integration policies failed.

"For all our successes as (a) multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, we have to confront a tragic truth that there are people born and raised in this country who don't really identify with Britain - and feel little or no attachment to other people here," Mr Cameron is to say.

"When groups like ISIL (Islamic State) seek to rally our young people to their poisonous cause, it can offer them a sense of belonging that they can lack here at home."

AFP