The UK government will expand its powers to combat extremism by establishing a new whistleblowing route for university staff and giving the Charity Commission powers to close charities, as part of a new action plan to strengthen social cohesion.
The scheme, announced by Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary Steve Reed, will invest an additional £5m into the Common Ground Resilience Fund, which has been launched to support organizations and authorities tackling divisions in communities.
“We must listen to people’s concerns about growing divisions and take action to bring our communities back together,” Reed said.
As well as a new whistleblowing service, the plan will include a new Campus Cohesion Charter to strengthen respect and shared values between universities.
The strategy will also introduce an annual report on the state of extremism which will set out the nature and scale of the threat facing the UK and the government’s response, while the Visa Watch List Task Force will be strengthened to block hate preachers and extremists from entering the country.
The action plan also prioritizes the importance of speaking English. Miatta Fahnbulleh, minister of devolution, faith and communities, said: “When a mother cannot speak to her child’s teacher, join a residents’ meeting, challenge her landlord about damp walls, advocate for a fair wage or speak to her doctor, daily life becomes a series of obstacles.
“And for many women from migrant backgrounds, language can make the difference between isolation and independence.”
Government funding for English as a second language (Esol) courses in England fell by 60% between 2010 and 2016, from £203 million in 2010 to £90 million, and migrant rights campaigners warn that the cuts have made access to English classes more difficult.
The government said the strategy would review how English language teaching is delivered and identify ways to make it more accessible, including digital options.
It is understood that the government is interested in defending the need to learn English from a progressive perspective, rather than the “reductionist” message proposed by Reform.
A Labor source said: “The right has hijacked the English language and used it as a stick to beat people with. We want to reclaim it and celebrate it because a shared language is the foundation of thriving communities.”
On the accessibility of English courses, the source said: “There are actually a lot of services already available and we want to make sure that they are used effectively, that people know that this is what we, as a country, want them to do and it is what is expected of them.”
Jon Cruddas, co-chair of the Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion, said the package was a “valuable starting point” but called for “bolder action” to “respond to the scale of the challenge”.
Professor Ted Cantle, who wrote a landmark report on integration after the 2001 riots, welcomed the measures aimed at universities and charities, but said the government must also address wider racial segregation, strengthen cohesion efforts beyond the Pride in Place program and publish an annual report on the overall state of cohesion, rather than focusing solely on extremism.
“A cohesion plan needs a strong vision, with a clear intention to address the illusion of a single identity currently promoted by extremist and populist politicians,” he said.
He also warned that the government must separate extremism and cohesion. “They are related but different. This has caused mistrust in the past,” he said.
Sunder Katwala, director of the British think tank Futures, described the action plan as an important step in laying a solid foundation. “The pattern under successive governments, from the 2001 riots to the 2024 riots, has been that you get these bursts of action when there is a major flash point, and then a less sustained strategy about what to do the rest of the time.”
The Conservatives dismissed the plan as a clear example that “Labour would rather pander to the extremes than confront the difficult causes of growing separatism in Britain.”
