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The UK government will expand powers to tackle extremism by setting up a new whistleblowing route for university staff and giving the Charity Commission powers to shut down charities, as part of a new action plan to strengthen social cohesion.
The plan, announced by the housing, communities and local government secretary, Steve Reed, will invest a further £5m in the Common Ground Resilience Fund, which was launched to support organisations 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 across universities.
The strategy will also introduce an annual State of Extremism report setting out the nature and scale of the threat facing the UK and the government’s response, while the Visa Watchlist Taskforce will be strengthened to block hate preachers and extremists from entering the country.
The action plan also prioritises the importance of speaking English. Miatta Fahnbulleh, the minister for 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, argue for fair pay or speak to her doctor, daily life becomes a series of hurdles.
“And for too many women from migrant backgrounds, language can be 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 £203m in 2010 to £90m, with migrant rights campaigners warning cuts have made English-language classes harder to access.
The government said the strategy would review how English-language teaching is provided and identify ways to make it more accessible, including digital options.
The government is understood to be keen to make the argument for the necessity of learning English from a progressive perspective, rather than the “reductive” message put forward by Reform.
A Labour source said: “The right have 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 accessibility of English-language courses, the source said: “There is actually already a lot of services available and we want to make sure they are being 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, the co-chair of the Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion, said the package was a “worthwhile starting point”, but called for “bolder action” to “respond to the scale of the challenge.”
Prof Ted Cantle, who wrote a landmark report on integration after riots in 2001, welcomed measures targeting universities and charities but said the government must also tackle wider racial segregation, strengthen cohesion efforts beyond the Pride in Place programme, 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 of tackling the illusion of a unique identity which is currently fostered by extremist and populist politicians,” he said.
He also warned the government must separate extremism and cohesion. “They are related but different. This has caused distrust in the past,” he said.
Sunder Katwala, the director of the British Futures thinktank, described the action plan as an important step towards putting strong foundations in place. “The pattern under successive governments, from the 2001 riots to 2024 riots, has been that you get these flurries of action when there’s a major flashpoint, and then 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”.
