Yvette Cooper will reject internal Home Office advice to potentially widen the definition of extremism to include violent misogyny and conspiracy theorists, the Guardian understands.
A report commissioned in the wake of violent riots after the Southport murders last year suggests authorities should adopt a “behaviour-based and ideologically agnostic approach” to combating extremism rather than “ideologies of concern”.
But the home secretary is understood to believe the Home Office should continue its focus on Islamist and far-right violence, which currently make up the vast majority of terror cases.
The report, leaked to the right-leaning thinktank Policy Exchange, says the government’s approach to extremism should no longer be based on “specific ideologies of concern but on behaviours and activity”.
It comes amid deepening scrutiny of the government’s approach to extremism. On Sunday it emerged that counter-terrorism officers had not believed that the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana was “in danger of being radicalised”.
Speaking to broadcasters on Tuesday Keir Starmer said it was important to focus resources on the threats faced by the UK. The prime minister said: “When it comes to extremism, it’s very important that we are focused on the threats so we can deploy our resource properly and therefore we’re looking carefully where the key challenges are.
“Obviously, that’s now informed with what I said last week in the aftermath of the Southport murders, where we’ve got the additional challenge, I think, of a cohort of loners who are extreme and they need to be factored in.
“So that’s the focus. In the end, what this comes down to is the safety and security of people across the UK, that’s my number one focus.”
One area of the report that has drawn criticism is the suggestion that claims of “two-tier policing” are a “rightwing extremist narrative”. Senior Conservative politicians have used this language to describe a number of areas of their concern, including the policing of pro-Palestinian protests.
It says scandals about grooming gangs have been exploited by the far right and that rightwing extremist ideologies and beliefs are becoming more mainstream.
Under the heading “extreme misogyny”, the report says: “An online subculture called the ‘manosphere’ contains a significant amount of content directly focused on misogyny, and sometimes absorbs extremist rightwing tropes.
“There is an overlap between some manosphere narratives, in particular incel beliefs, and extreme rightwing [ERW] ideology including racist narratives. Globalisation and multiculturalism, which are at the centre of many ERW narratives, are often blamed as factors in incels’ celibacy.”
For the first time it identifies potential Hindu extremism. “Tensions between Hindu and Muslim communities in the UK are still evident and the events in Leicester show how disinformation can play a role in offline action,” it says, referring to unrest in the city in 2022.
The security minister Dan Jarvis, responding to the leaked documents in the Policy Exchange report, said: “Ministers have rejected this advice. As we have said repeatedly Islamist extremism followed by far-right extremism are the biggest threats we face. The home secretary set out last week our plans to carry out an end-to-end review of Prevent thresholds on Islamist extremism because we are concerned that referrals are too low.
“Ideology, particularly Islamist extremism followed by far-right extremism, continue to be at the heart of our approach to countering extremism and counter terror. But as the horrific Southport attack shows, alongside that we also need more action on those drawn towards mixed ideologies and violence-obsessed young people.”
Last week Starmer promised a review of who could be charged under terrorism laws, after Rudakubana – who had no specific ideology that police have identified but had an obsession with extreme violence and genocides – was jailed for the murders of three young girls at a dance class in Southport.
Starmer said the attack was what many people would understand as terrorism. But a former police counter-terror commander, Neil Basu, and Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said widening the definition would bring too much into scope.
On Tuesday a former Metropolitan police chief superintendent said ministers must be “very, very careful” when changing legislation around extremism.
Dal Babu told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think it’s very, very important that we do things in a measured way, we don’t do things very, very quickly when we’re outraged by incidents. Unfortunately when we have these outrageous murders of innocent people, people are quite rightly angry and want to know whether things can be done different. What are the missed opportunities?”
Asked whether the Met had the resources to cope with a broadened definition of extremism, Babu said: “I think, to be perfectly honest, we’re at the moment struggling with the resources we have to deal with terrorism now.”
A Home Office spokesperson said the report’s findings were yet to signed off by ministers. They said: “The counter-extremism sprint sought to comprehensively assess the challenge facing our country and lay the foundations for a new approach to tackling extremism, so we can stop people being drawn towards hateful ideologies. This includes tackling Islamism and extreme rightwing ideologies, which are the most prominent today.”
In October the MI5 director, Ken McCallum, said three-quarters of threats identified by security services were Islamist and a quarter involved far-right extremists.
