Even if we could reach a more widely shared understanding of the sources of violent jihadism it is not clear that there would then be agreement about the policies needed to deal with it. David Cameron wants people not only to have greater loyalty to liberal values but also to say so in public. But even if you could agree on a definition of British values, you can’t use legislation to make people believe in them. In fact, attempting to use the law to oppose extremist thought is not only illiberal in itself but risks deepening the divisions that need to be bridged.
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