Home Office Minister Jess Phillips has said that misogyny will be treated as “any other extreme ideology,” as the government pledges to crack down on those “pushing harmful beliefs.”
Phillips, the secretary of state for safeguarding and violence against women, said, “It’s not OK any more to ignore the massive growing threat caused by online hatred towards women, and for us to ignore it because we’re worried about the line [of free speech and opinion], rather than making sure the line is in the right place as we would do with any other extremist ideology.”
Phillip’s comments come after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper ordered a review of Britain’s counter-extremism strategy under plans to combat the radicalisation of young men online, on Saturday.
The review to tackle “extremist ideologies” will look at the hatred towards women and provide analysis and recommendations on how to deal with the “threat” posed by the far-right and Islamist beliefs.
Under the proposed plans, the police would be required to “relentlessly pursue” offenders who pose a risk to women, using counter-terror-style data analysis and tactics to get repeat serious offenders off the streets, with the aim of increasing women’s safety.
“For too long governments have failed to address the rise in extremism, both online and on our streets, and we’ve seen the number of young people radicalised online grow,” said Cooper.
The home secretary believes that “Hateful incitement of all kinds fractures and frays the very fabric of our communities and our democracy.”
This was echoed by Phillips, minister for Birmingham Yardley, who suggested that social media voices, such as Andrew Tate [who she refused to name] were radicalising young men in their bedrooms.
“One part of this strategy has to look at how they [young people] are radicalised,” said Phillips.
As “most young people spend their life online ... tech companies are undoubtedly going to have to be part of the solution,” she added.
Under the existing Counter Terrorism Security Advisors framework, schools in the UK have a duty “to prevent people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.”
Students who are referred by their teachers or healthcare professionals are then assessed by their local authority to see if they need to be ‘de-radicalised.’
Philips also said, “The National Police Chiefs’ Council (have) concerns about the growing rise in misogynistic attitudes among young men, largely because of online content they’re seeing.”
“This isn’t about criminalising people who are showing signs of an ideology, it is about preventing that ideology, and this piece of work the home secretary has announced today is about looking at the gaps.”
The recent jailing of people for riot-related social media posts brought into sharp focus the tension between freedom of speech and the law in the digital age.
A spokesman from the Free Speech Union (FSU), told The Epoch Times in an email on Monday, “Until the mid-1960s, Britain had its own version of the First Amendment which was the English Common Law breach of the peace principle.”
“According to that principle, speech should be permitted unless it’s going to lead directly to an imminent breach of the peace,” said the FSU.
“Once you resile from that principle, which Britain did with the Race Relations Act in 1966, you embark on a slippery slope which ends with politicians being able to punish speech they regard as ‘extreme’ or ‘offensive,’ which are often just euphemisms for anything that challenges their authority.
“Yvette Cooper is just the latest in a long line of British home secretaries since the mid-1960s to try to censor dissent,” the spokesman said.
