David Cameron also announces plans to give lifetime anonymity for victims of forced marriage among measures set out in five-year counter-extremism strategy

Parents worried that their children may be about to travel to Syria or Iraq to join Islamic State (Isis) will be able to apply for their child’s passport to be cancelled, David Cameron has announced in a speech setting out his five-year counter-extremism strategy.

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Cameron said that parents would in effect have the right to cancel the passports of their children under 16 to prevent them from travelling to war zones.

The prime minister stressed the extent to which Islam had come to be used as a cover for violent extremism, as he argued that the state had a right to side with moderate Muslims in what he described as a battle of ideas. He said there was a need for difficult cultural conversations over issues such as “honour”-based violence and female genital mutilation.

In a speech at a school in Birmingham, the prime minister said Britain was a successful, diverse society but had to “confront a tragic truth that there are people born and raised in this country … who don’t really identify with Britain – and feel little or no attachment to other people here.



“Indeed, there is a danger in some of our communities that you can go your whole life and have little to do with other religions and communities.

“So when groups like Isil [Isis] seek to rally our young people to their poisonous cause, it can offer them a sense of belonging that they can lack here at home. Islamic extremism is a radical, exciting even, glamorous ideology that gains traction due to the failures of integration.”

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He said one of his aims in the counter-extremism strategy due to be published in the autumn would be to “put out of action the key extremist influencers who are careful to operate inside the law but who clearly detest British society and seek to groom young people”.

He promised targeted powers to enable the UK to deal with the facilitators and cult leaders to stop them “peddling their hatred”.

The home secretary, Theresa May, said before the speech on Monday that the strategy would include legislation for new powers to take action against individuals or groups who are considered to be espousing extremist views but denied it would constitute an attack on freedom of speech.

“We’re not talking about curbing free speech,” she said. “We recognise that free speech is one of our values … but what we are saying is that we have to look at the impact that some people have in terms of the poisonous ideology that they are trying to implant in people’s minds,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Cameron said in the speech that he would also legislate for lifetime anonymity for victims of forced marriage in order to increase reporting of such crimes, and he promised new “measures to guard against the radicalisation of children in so-called supplementary schools or tuition centres” – sites of education not currently inspected by Ofsted.

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He reiterated that new action needed to be taken to give the broadcasting regulator powers to close down access to the UK for foreign TV channels that broadcast “hate preachers” and extremist content with people from other religions and backgrounds.



He urged broadcasters and internet companies to stop giving platforms to people who provided more explosive television and recognise the power that TV and the internet had to shape debate in a positive way.

According to Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, at least 700 Britons have travelled to Syria and more than half have since returned to the UK, where they now pose a significant terrorism threat.

In perhaps his most challenging passage, Cameron said Britain had to stop pretending there was “no link between extremism and Islam because the extremists are self-identifying as Muslims.

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“The fact is that from Woolwich to Tunisia, from Ottawa to Bali, these murderers all spout the same twisted narrative, one that claims to be based on a particular faith. It is an exercise in futility to deny that and, more than that, can be dangerous.”

He continued: “To deny it has anything to do with Islam means you disempower the critical reforming voices – the voices that are challenging the fusing of religion and politics, that want to challenge the scriptural basis which extremists claim to be acting on.”

He also appealed to young Muslims, saying he knew “they were grappling with issues of identity, neither feeling part of the British mainstream nor part of a culture from your parents’ background”.

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The prime minister also used his speech to announce that Louise Casey, head of the government’s Troubled Families Unit, will chair a review of ways to boost opportunity and integration in the most isolated and deprived communities. Casey will look at issues such as how to ensure people learn English, how to boost women’s employment, and how state agencies can work with communities to promote integration and opportunity.