Definitive confirmation is being sought that the Government’s new anti-extremism measures will cover dissident republicans in Northern Ireland.
David McNarry revealed that he had written to both the Prime Minister and Home Secretary in May, asking them to include such groups within a list of organisations to be targeted.
He has since received a reply saying “all forms of extremism” will be covered by the Government’s new strategy.
However, Mr McNarry still aims to obtain a concrete assurance that dissident groups will be mentioned explicitly.
The Strangford MLA, who is Ukip’s leader in Northern Ireland, said: “I asked the Prime Minister and Home Secretary to include Irish republican organisations, particularly republican dissident organisations, in the list of extreme roups to be targeted.
“I explained that the dissident threat was a major problem in this part of the UK and is already a major pressure on police resources here.
“I reminded them that it was equally a problem on the mainland.”
He then received a response from Lord Ahmad, the minister in charge of tackling extremism.
Lord Ahmad’s letter, dated June 8, said new legislation will be drawn up to help the Government ban extremist groups and close venues connected to extremist activity.
Lord Ahmad wrote: “In her speech on March 23, the Home Secretary has set out a range of measures to tackle extremism and stand up for British values.
“These will form part of a new comprehensive strategy to defeat all forms of extremism: violent and non-violent, neo-Nazi and Islamist.”
The last paragraph is essentially a word-for-word echo of a line from the Home Secretary’s March 23 speech itself.
In this speech, she had mentioned Islam or Muslims more than 20 times.
However, there had been no mention of republicans, loyalists, the IRA, UVF, INLA or UDA – or anything connected with Northern Ireland.
Lord Ahmad said before the new counter-extremism strategy is published, the Government will “engage widely across the country”.
Mr McNarry said: “It must be the case that in the course of ‘engaging widely across the country’ includes Northern Ireland and the issues I have raised.”
He reiterated his call that “‘all forms of extremism’ must not exclude Irish republican dissidents”.
The Home Office said that its counter-extremism strategy will be published “in due course”.
