Far‑right extremism has “spilled over into terrorist attacks” such as the murder of Jo Cox in 2016

The number of suspected far-right extremists enrolled in government anti-radicalisation programmes has overtaken those with Islamist sympathies for the first time.

Official figures published yesterday showed a steady growth in the number of individuals with far-right views referred over the past three years.

Specialists in the government’s Channel programme, a voluntary safeguarding team that supports people vulnerable to radicalisation, worked with 561 people in the year to March who were referred after police assessed that they were at risk.

Of those, 254 were referred because of concerns about right-wing radicalisation compared with 210 referred because of possible Islamist radicalisation, the Home Office said. Other cases adopted by the Channel programme were for individuals with a mixed, unstable or unclear ideology and other radicalisation concerns.

Rakib