Philip Johnston:

Is it better to take a hard line or be tolerant towards extremists? France takes the opposite view to us

Many years have passed since I read The Secret Agent; so watching the BBC’s adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel these past few Sunday evenings was something of a shock. Written in 1907, its relevance to today was startling, not so much the idea of blowing up innocent people on buses or in parks but the agonising over how to respond to terrorism.

Essentially, Britain is seen as a soft touch for extremists. Mr Vladimir, the diplomat at an unnamed foreign embassy (assumed in the TV version to be Tsarist Russia) is withering in his contempt: “This country is absurd with its sentimental regard for individual liberty,” he says. “The imbecile bourgeoisie make themselves the accomplices of the very people whose aim is to drive them out of their houses to starve in ditches. And they have the political power still, if they only had the sense to use it for their preservation.”

Mr Vladimir wants his agent provocateur, Adolph Verloc, to detonate a bomb in order to convince the British authorities of the need for tougher laws cracking down on the extremists in their midst. “There is a proverb in this country which says prevention is better than cure,” he says. “The evil is already here. We don’t want prevention – we want cure.”

This tension between containment and extirpation has existed in this country for centuries and it took an Anglicised Polish writer to point out how indulgent English tolerance can appear to outsiders.

In the 19th century a motley group of émigré anarchists, revolutionary Marxists (including Marx himself) and liberal nationalists washed up in London to plot against the countries they had fled. In the 1980s and 1990s Islamist exiles, often academics or dissidents escaping autocratic Muslim regimes, came here to stoke opposition from afar. These fanatics were tolerated here because they were not perceived to pose a direct threat. Many were from North Africa and their main bone of contention seemed to be with the French, who disparagingly referred to the capital as Londonistan.

But their activities were condoned because they were not breaking the law. Yes, they were extremists; but if they did not stray into violence then who were we to punish them for holding views simply because we disapproved of them? In any case, our hands were tied. Human rights considerations mean we cannot send a refugee back to a country where he would be harmed; and our own laws do not permit criminalising someone because of what they think as opposed to what they do. That is why Mr Vladimir was so exasperated with English liberal sensibilities.

This conundrum has not been settled. Following the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in May 2013, David Cameron established a task force to see if more could be done to confront extremist ideas and counter their impact on the radicalisation of impressionable young men. A new Bill was proposed containing powers to issue extremism disruption orders against suspect people or bodies.

But so far, despite several false starts, nothing has happened. A report just a few days ago from a parliamentary committee of MPs and peers concluded that the Government had so far failed to demonstrate why the new law was needed and could not define what was meant by extremism. They also balked at the very notion that civil orders prohibiting the dissemination of certain ideas could be handed out (by the police, presumably) and, if breached, could result in a criminal conviction. This is so far removed from the free speech traditions of this country as to be justified only by a national emergency.

Does the unease inherent in the report mean we are a pushover and deserve everything that is coming our way as a result; or are we right to stick to our liberal principles because to do otherwise is to dismantle the very freedoms the extremists despise and wish to destroy?

It is worth noting that the one country that has adopted the counterextremism model that the Government is contemplating is France. Ever since the attacks on the Metro in the mid1990s, the authorities have been much more direct in seeking to disrupt the activities of Islamist groups, raiding bookshops, seizing computers, closing down networks and the like.

In view of the succession of appalling attacks in France recently, it has not done them much good. Here, the debate reached for reptilian similes – some, like Theresa May, wanted to focus on the immediate terror threat by “beating back the crocodiles who come close to the boat”; others (Michael Gove, in particular) argued that the only way to get rid of the crocodiles was to “drain the swamp” and deal with the extremist ideology itself.

But a moment’s thought shows how difficult this is in a liberal democracy. Ministers want to end the promotion of ideology which leads to harmful activity. So, should hard-line conservative values espoused by some Muslims – anti-gay, anti-democratic, gender segregationist – be considered extremist? If so, what about a Christian who expresses opposition to gay marriage? Are we really going to make it a potential crime to dislike something that was illegal just a generation ago? The spectrum of acceptable opinion shifts. It is hardly surprising that opposition to the extremism strategy encompasses Muslims, Christians and secular defenders of free speech.

Mr Cameron once said that for too long “we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone”. But isn’t that what differentiates us from tyranny and theocracy? Obedience to the law without interference by the state is the basis of British liberty. And if the Government cannot frame a law – or even explain what it is intended to achieve – how can it possibly proceed with legislation?

Mr Vladimir and his modern equivalents would doubtless consider such sentiment absurd: he would cheerfully have locked up anyone considered a threat to the state in a Siberian prison camp. But if Conrad did have Tsarist Russia in mind when he wrote his novel in 1907, remember what happened there 10 years later.