The Government has abandoned creating laws to tackle extremism because it is “too difficult” as their last attempt would have even criminalised Jeremy Clarkson, the former reviewer of terrorism laws has said.

Lord Anderson QC said previous attempts to tackle dangerous ideology before it develops into terrorist acts have been too broad and would have made legitimate political and religious activity illegal.

The definition of extremism adopted by the Government, he argues, is “broad and ill-defined” and inventing laws against it is “what they do in Russia and it is no model to follow”.

Despite rising fears about extremism in Britain, particularly from the far right, proposed new laws have been abandoned.

However, recognising that “Something Needed to be Done but that it was too difficult to work out exactly what” ministers passed the job to the Counter-Extremism Commission, Lord Anderson said.

Attempts to crack down on extremist ideology hit the headlines in 2015 in the wake of the murder of Private Lee Rigby and the Government announced counter-extremism bills in both the 2015 and 2016 Queen’s Speech.