244. However, proscription is not without its problems. Professor Matthew Feldman has argued that proscription has the effect of making Far-Right groups assume martyr-like status online, thereby enhancing their status.[1] There is also concern that it simply drives these movements underground. In 2019, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) assessed that, with regards to ***, "while proscription provides increased opportunities for law enforcement, much activity is driven underground and can become more difficult to detect and disrupt".[2]
245. After National Action was proscribed in 2016, ***.[3] Members have planned violent acts against MPs and the group has sought to recruit ***. *** while proscription has proved highly successful in deterring recruitment of new members and mitigating the threat presented by National Action as a cohesive entity, it continues to pose a risk:
***, National Action has an enduring influence in the Right-Wing Extremist community with many groups and individuals continuing to adopt their ethos and branding. A number of National Action members are scheduled for release in the coming months and years. ***.[4]
246. Homeland Security Group has also conceded that the efficacy of proscription when it comes to ERWT does have limitations:
It is possible that the nature of ERWT online could make the application of this tool harder with few formal ERWT organisations and structures. Indeed, it is more difficult to keep up with UK constantly changing online groups and also to prove membership (if an individual is in a chatroom associated with a group of concern, does that mean that person is 'a member'?). Membership of online groups is also spread throughout the UK and beyond.[5]
They told the Committee that they keep the issue of proscription under review, acknowledging that it might not always be the most effective lever in the case of ERWT:
Proscription is a tool geared towards groups and towards the terrorist threshold, so whether there are other tools that [are needed in] addition to [the] really powerful [tool] of . . . proscription in [the] future, we need to keep looking at that.[6]
247. There is also a problem in that a number of groups will not meet the terrorist threshold, but nonetheless are able to create and circulate extremely harmful material, as highlighted by the Commission for Countering Extremism: "Under current proscription offences National Action is proscribed, but other neo-Nazi groups who promote the same extremist ideology such as Combat 18, Order of Nine Angles and British National Socialist Movement are not."[7]
248. In evidence in January 2020, the Committee was told that: "CTP is currently working with the Home Office to consider whether a review of the appropriateness and effectiveness
- ↑ Evidence given to the Home Affairs Select Committee - January 2017.
- ↑ JTAC paper, 1 July 2019.
- ↑ ***
- ↑ Written evidence - MI5, 13 December 2019.
- ↑ Written evidence - Homeland Security Group, 31 January 2020.
- ↑ Oral evidence - Home Office, 29 April 2021.
- ↑ Written evidence - Commission for Countering Extremism, 17 December 2020.
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