Government row over ban on extremist speakers on university campuses

A coalition row about limiting free speech on university campuses to ban hate preachers has broken out with the Tories saying their default position is now that any extremist speaker should be banned, given the potential damage they can do.

The Liberal Democrat position, meanwhile, is that the debate should go ahead as long as it is well chaired. Conservative chairman, Grant Shapps, accused the Lib Dem business secretary, Vince Cable, of trying to weaken the planned guidance to universities.

The row came as the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, separately accused the government of tying the hands of the security services over the past five years by removing the relocation powers that used to be within control orders.

The political point scoring has left the issue of the security services and routes to radicalisation in Muslim communities at the heart of the pre-election political debate.

The row about free speech at universities has erupted in the wake of the evidence that Mohammed Emwazi – the Islamic State extremist known as Jihadi John – may have been radicalised at Westminster University in London.

Discussing the state of the free speech debate inside the coalition , Shapps told Sky News: “Yes there is a difference. The Conservatives think there needs to be proper, decent, tough rules that don’t ban free speech, but do ban preaching death.”

In the Sunday Times, the home secretary, Theresa May warned: “If colleges and universities did not realise before what we are up against they should now. We are not talking about regulating legitimate debate – we’re saying we need to do more to stop radicalisation on campus.”

The dispute centres on the content of an advisory note to be sent as part of a new statutory requirement on universities to draw up strategies to combat radicalisation on campus. The broad issue has been a running sore for years, with some accusing vice chancellors of being too liberal.

Lib Dem sources insisted it should be open to universities to ban specific speakers if they felt this was justifiable, but they should also be open to use their judgment when a speaker should be allowed so long as his argument is going to be challenged in debate.

One source said: “There is a power in rational, thoughtful debate changing impressionable minds. Sometimes it is better to defeat these ideas in argument rather than simply banning someone. That can simply drive the debate underground or off campus to somewhere else. If anyone is inciting violence that is already unlawful, and if a university believes someone should be banned they should be open to do that.”

The Lib Dem source pointed out that some student organisations were trying to ban Ukip or the BNP on the grounds that their views were extremist.

The source said the demand for much tougher rules was coming from the Home Office and Downing Street, and claimed the universities minister, Greg Clark, a Conservative, supports a balanced approach advocated by Cable.

The debate over the radicalisation and the powers of the security services will continue right up to the election with the intelligence and security committee (ISC) due to publish its report into privacy and the implications of the revelations by Edward Snowden on 12 March.

The report, finalised last week, will broadly endorse calls for an updated legislation to give security services greater powers including the so-called snoopers charter. The issue of the accountability of the ISC is less likely to be addressed since the committee is the chief parliamentary oversight of the intelligence agencies and is hardly likely to criticise its own performance.

Cooper praised the excellent work of the security services but said their hands had been tied by the government, arguing that control orders giving the security services powers to relocate radicals should have been in place across this parliament.

She said on BBC1’s Andrew Marr programme: “We need to bring back relocation powers. That is what allows the agencies and the police to say to the home secretary that someone needs to be moved away from their networks, away from the radicalised extremists networks they have been working with in order to disrupt any plots that are being planned and prevent any further radicalisation. My worry is that when you look at at all these cases there have been so many been returned to London.”

She said the existing terrorism prevention and investigation measures (Tpims) – that replaced control orders – were too weak. “We are being told there is a considerable risk because of all the people going to Syria yet only one person is on a Tpim – that shows very clearly those powers are not strong enough.”

A form of relocation powers is already being reintroduced but Cooper said the power had been missing for five years. She said the agencies already had sweeping listening powers but said it was right for their powers to be updated to keep up with changing technology.

Cooper is likely to argue that the key report on those future powers, and strengthened accountability, will come not from the ISC, but from David Anderson, who is reviewing the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

Cooper later added “The government should ask the ISC to review whether the weakening of counter-terror powers and the removal of relocation led to terror networks being re-established.

“We need to know whether David Cameron’s decision to ignore all our warnings and weaken counter-terror powers has made it easier for extremists to organise and recruit and tied the hands of our security agencies. We need to know whether any of those extremists have since been associating with other terror suspects involved in plots in the UK or involved in further extremist activity.

“The government have belatedly attempted to reintroduce relocation as a tool for the security agencies but after four years without those powers, why has it taken them so long to act?”