Children in British primary schools are showing increasing signs of “spouting far-right” views, in a warning fired by the head of the Government’s counter-extremism commission on Friday.
Sara Khan said young students were copying hateful views from their parents in extremist households.
Ms Khan said in an interview with the London Evening Standard newspaper that the UK was entering “an era of extremism” that is posing a threat to democratic values.
She warned that far-Right, Islamist, anti-Semitic and hard-left radicalisers were all growing in British schools and a “whole-society push back” was needed.
“I’ve come across teachers and youth workers telling me how young primary age children are spouting far-Right, racist, xenophobic points of view, coming from their parents,” she said. “I hear it from the other side, from people providing support to head teachers dealing with parents with Islamist extreme views. I don’t think people fully appreciate the scale of that.”
She added: “Early intervention is so critical when it comes to preventing extremism. I’ve seen first-hand that if you deal with people showing the early signs, it is much easier than when they become hardened.
“I wonder if there’s enough being looked into with far-Right extremism and whether we are recognising the fact that there will be some children in our country who are without a doubt being radicalised by their parents and whether the family courts are taking the same level of interest in recognising that.”
Her comments come on the back of rising Islamophobia across the world this week. Five UK mosques attacked by a sledgehammer and the New Zealand terror attacks that killed worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch.
Islamophobic abuse was also directed at the Finsbury Park imam Mohammed Mahmoud, known for his quick response on the back of a terror attack targeting the British Muslim community in north London in 2017, as he returned home from an inclusion event on Monday.