In times of increasing polarization and inequality the search for common bonds to build that sense of solidarity and communion can be fleeting and sometimes completely abandoned. The fragmentation of society into atomised groups facilitates an environment of distrust, suspicion and resentment.

The academic Matthew Goodwin intelligently articulated this in his book National Populism: The revolt against liberal democracy where he lays out how some can find it hard to conceptualise any possibility of coming together again. We only have to look at Brexit and the divide between chiefly blue-collar communities and the more liberal professional class.

At the heart of this divide is the sense of social, cultural and economic anxiety and insecurity gripping different groups regarding globalisation and terrorism. It has generated a culture of mistrust with both the elitist institutions for opening British borders to immigrants and unaccountable market forces, and with groups coming from Muslim-majority countries, regarding them as unable to integrate or fundamentally incompatible with British values.

Bridging this gap that now exists between different groups is not easy and it remains to be seen whether there is enough political will to foster both cultural cohesion and a mutual yearning for it between different groups. But the role of faith communities in filling this space will be important. When we talk about the politics of community and belonging, we often ignore the sense of attachment people have to a place which they share with others, and the sense of obligation, duty, reciprocity and care for it that it brings with them. People are connected to their communities but in ones made up of different identities, need something which can create that sense of cultural solidarity and common bond. Attachment to our local communities go beyond class, race, gender and other identities. It is a basic human impulse, to be somewhere and belong somewhere as part of something bigger than ourselves.

Take the story of a local EDL group that once planned a protest few years ago only to be completely disarmed by the local mosque residents offering tea and biscuits when they arrived. It diffused the tension, completely stunned the EDL protesters and resulted in amicable discussions and some of the EDL emerging with better views. In times of growing religious tensions, stories of mosques and synagogues working together to combat racist or provide for food banks illustrates both the value of community in religion but also value of religion in our communities. A most heart-warming news was after Press TV pressured a mosque in Golders Green to stop an exhibition on Muslims who saved Jews during the Holocaust, it was picked up by another mosque. Stories of Muslims and Jews standing together is precisely what extremists on all sides fear: the Islamists wish to divide and lure Muslims into feeling besieged, isolated and surrounded whereas the far-right wish to depict Muslims as the threat to western values. Yet when local stories emerge of mosques participating in helping food banks or synagogues and churches collaborating with Muslims, it provides the perfect riposte to those who believe that some form of communal attachment to each other is impossible.

Churches were central to community organising once, and it’s arguable that the decline in churchgoers has contributed to the erosion of a sense of community. Today they stand as critics of inequality, corporate greed and poverty, and remain a quiet staple of community life in many areas, working with other faith groups to try and revitalise that sense of unity. The Blue Labour founder Maurice Glasman often expressed the importance of churches in reviving grassroots communitarian socialist politics and hailed the importance of interfaith collaborations on making people put aside their differences and focus on the common bonds they shared with each other.

This is more important than ever today. We live in times of asphyxiating tribalism in which labels do more to alienate and isolate than bring together. Extremists would like it that way. A polarised society that does not care for each other does not care about what happens to each other either. But the countless stories of interfaith initiatives involved in rebuilding that sense of community life and belonging demonstrate there is another way forward to push back against the populists and extremists. Some political action at the top directly protecting liberal values will always be necessary but at the bottom, on the ground, it is trying to nurture that sense of the communal life which is vital. And mosques, churches, synagogues and others have an important role to play in that.

Today, staff in one of our projects, Tell MAMA, found themselves in Parliament when outside, people were being murdered by what seems to be, a terrorist intent on damaging the peace of our country. Hundreds of people were locked in whilst our security services worked diligently to make everyone feel secure. As the Prime Minister said, “the voices of hate and evil will not tear us apart.”

We are not going to talk about hate crimes and incidents. We will continue to assist victims of hate crimes, but today, the events show us how we need to confront, challenge, disrupt and call out extremism where we see it and where we come across it. We have always said that extremism is one of the root causes that fractures community relations and that every effort must be made to counter those who peddle such narratives, whether far right or driven by Islamic State. Yet, we all know that extremist narratives also come from other sources, those who peddle division, perpetual victim ideology and a ‘them and us’ mentality. It also comes from those who deny the rights of others.

Tomorrow, let us redouble our efforts to focus on standing together as Londoners and in re-invigorating our desire to ensure that we are all safe and secure. Extremism must be targeted with everything our State has as resources.

To his detractors, including the British government, Salman Butt is an extremist whose views on Islam fly in the face of Britain’s values and help foster an atmosphere where young Muslims can be radicalised by militants.

Even though he is not accused of supporting militant groups or violence, the British authorities believe it is only by cracking down on activists like Butt and denying a forum for their ideas to be widely heard that the threat posed by jihadis and groups such as Islamic State can be countered.

But critics, ranging from civil rights groups to leading academics and lawmakers, say what the government is trying to do amounts to a curb on free speech which could drive a wedge between the authorities and Britain’s 2.8 million Muslims

They argue if anything such plans will only make the problem worse and amount to an attack on the fundamental liberties the government wants to protect.

“Over the last few years the circle of who and what is considered extreme has been expanding slowly,” said Butt, 30, who is taking the British government to court over its counter-extremism strategy.

“Before it was just somebody committing crimes or calling for violence and then they expanded more and more to everyday people who happen to maybe criticise certain aspects of the government policy or hold certain conservative Islamic views,” he told Reuters.

The problem facing Britain and other Western governments is the same one with which they have wrestled since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States: how to stop their young citizens being radicalised without been seen to censor critics.

Thousands of Muslims, including more than 800 Britons, have left Europe for Iraq and Syria, many to join Islamic State (IS), while the recent deadly attacks seen in Paris, Brussels and Nice are a graphic illustration of the risk posed by some lured to a violent Islamist cause at home.

The revelation on Tuesday that Anjem Choudary, Britain’s most high-profile Islamist preacher, has been convicted for inviting his followers to support Islamic State has again brought the issue to the fore.

Choudary was convicted last month although this could not be reported until Tuesday to avoid prejudicing the jury in a separate case. It ended a streak of many years during which he served as the leader of banned organisations but dodged prosecution by carefully managing his public remarks.

Critics questioned why it had taken so long to act against someone who had been a leading radical Islamist figure for two decades and whose followers had been involved in militant plots and acts of violence across the world.

“There should be zero tolerance towards any cleric – Muslim or otherwise – who advocates extremist views and rejects British values,” Britain’s top-selling Sun newspaper said. “Britain has been tolerant of men like Choudary for too long.”

WHO IS AN EXTREMIST?

For those such as new British Prime Minister Theresa May, tackling extremism means no longer tolerating those who reject the country’s values: democracy, free speech, equality and the rule of law.

“Where non-violent extremism goes unchallenged, the values that bind our society together fragment,” May, who had been interior minister for six years before taking over the Downing Street reins, said in a speech in February.

“So while by no means all extremism leads to violence, it creates an environment in which those who seek to divide us can flourish.”

May, in her former guise as interior minister, was responsible for drawing up a proposed Counter-Extremism bill with bans for individuals or groups deemed extremist and closures of places where radicals thrive, including mosques.

However, there is still no sign of the legislation, with the Home Office (interior ministry) saying it would come in “due course”. One main obstacle is who decides who or what is extremist.

“Providing a clear definition of extremism is a difficult task and the government has yet to succeed in doing it,” said senior opposition Labour lawmaker Harriet Harman, head of the UK parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights which produced a critical report on the government plans in July.

Even Finance Minister Philip Hammond admitted in May the issue was “a minefield”: “The line between acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour is fine and fraught with dangers,” he said.

“HATE SPEAKER”

Last September, Butt, 30, who runs a discussion website Islam21c, was one of the first to fall foul of the moves to clampdown on non-violent extremists after being identified by a secretive cross-government Extremism Analysis Unit, established to pick out groups or individuals of concern.

The activist, who has a biochemistry doctorate, was named in a Downing Street press release on “hate speakers” as one of six figures who gave talks at university campuses and were “on record as expressing views contrary to British values”.

A later explanation given by the government to parliament said he had appeared to compare homosexuality to paedophilia and had spoken alongside figures from CAGE, a campaign group that gained attention for contacts with Mohammed Emwazi, the now-dead British militant known as “Jihadi John” who appeared in Islamic State videos beheading foreign captives.

Butt said the accusations against him were “complete rubbish”, and is now taking legal action to challenge the government’s way of identifying extremists and its “Prevent” strategy, its much-criticised policy to stop radicalisation.

“What has happened over the last 10 years of counter-terrorism policy is it’s completely going about it in a very destructive way,” he said.

“The government need to do a job to keep people safe but the way it’s being done, especially recently, not only are they looking in the wrong place … but they are completely ignoring the negative effects it’s having on community relations.”

It is not just those like Butt who are targeted that are concerned. In January, Professor Louise Richardson, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, said it was better to let extremists speak on campuses and challenge their views than to simply ban them.

David Anderson, Britain’s terrorism law watchdog, has warned that plans to clamp down on individuals and organisations accused of extremism could backfire by playing into the hands of militant recruiters.

“FREE PASS”

But those who back the government’s intent say allowing extremists free rein in public forums or at universities exposes vulnerable people to their messages. They point out that graduates or students at British universities have been involved in numerous militant plots including Emwazi and Nigerian “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Rupert Sutton, director of Student Rights, an organisation that campaigns against extremism on university campuses, said people with controversial views were often given a platform where their opinions were not questioned.

“They’re too often given a free pass,” he told Reuters. “If you put it as a dichotomy between either freedom of expression or ban them from speaking that is too binary. What we need to think about is how we are going to make it so that when they do come to speak they face challenge rather than being banned.”

He said the focus should be on using existing legislation to tackle people like Choudary, even if he had long proved adept at ensuring he did not break the law.

“When someone is as effective at it as Choudary is, you are going to get people saying: ‘How is he allowed to go around on the street doing this?'” he said.