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| UK terror funding report withheld for 'national security reasons' | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The government has decided to not publish a much-delayed report into the foreign funding and support of jihadist groups for national security reasons, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, has announced. | |
| Rudd released some basic details of the report, commissioned by David Cameron, in a parliamentary written answer, including that some extreme Islamist groups receive hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in funding, mainly from UK-based individual donors. | |
| However, Rudd said the full document would now not be released. “Having taken advice, I have decided against publishing the classified report produced during the review in full,” she said. | |
| “This is because of the volume of personal information it contains and for national security reasons. We will be inviting privy counsellors from the opposition parties to the Home Office to have access to the classified report on privy council terms.” | |
| The main findings include that the most common source of support for extremist organisations in the UK is from small, anonymous public donations, mainly from UK-based individuals, the summary said. | |
| It said overseas backing helped some individuals study at institutions “that teach deeply conservative forms of Islam and provide highly socially conservative literature and preachers to the UK’s Islamic institutions”. It added: “Some of these individuals have since become of extremist concern.” | |
| Rudd’s summary did not name any countries of origin for such funding. Much of the speculation about the report being delayed had focused on the potential political sensitivities if it found Saudi Arabia, a UK ally, had been funding such activities. | |
| The summary released by Rudd, which runs to just over 400 words, does not mention Saudi Arabia or any other individual country. | |
| Rudd said in her statement that the final report “gives us the best picture we have ever had of how extremists operating in the UK sustain their activities”. | |
| The summary found that while small individual donations were the most common funding source, in some cases extremist organisations received hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. | |
| The statement added: “This is the main source of their income. Those giving may not know or support the organisations’ full agenda.” | |
| The summary said some extremist Islamist organisations “portray themselves as charities to increase their credibility and to take advantage of Islam’s emphasis on charity”, and are vague about both their activities and their charitable status. | |
| It said better regulation could be effective in improving transparency over this. | |
| The statement added: “For a small number of organisations with which there are extremism concerns, overseas funding is a significant source of income. However, for the vast majority of extremist groups in the UK, overseas funding is not a significant source.” | |
| The inquiry was begun as part of a deal with the Liberal Democrats during the coalition government, in exchange for the party supporting the extension of British airstrikes against Islamic State into Syria in December 2015. | |
| Tom Brake, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, has written to the prime minister asking her to confirm that the investigation will not be shelved. | |
| The Observer reported in January last year that the Home Office’s extremism analysis unit had been directed by Downing Street to investigate overseas funding of extremist groups in the UK, with findings to be shown to Theresa May, who was then home secretary, and Cameron. | |
| But in May the Home Office said the report had not yet been completed, calling the contents “very sensitive”. | |
| Caroline Lucas, the Green co-leader, who has campaigned for the report to be published, said the refusal to do so and the “utterly vague statement” in its place was unacceptable. | |
| She said: “The statement gives absolutely no clue as to which countries foreign funding for extremism originates from – leaving the government open to further allegations of refusing to expose the role of Saudi Arabian money in terrorism in the UK. | |
| “The government accept that foreign funding is a significant source of income for some extremist groups here in Britain – but they won’t say in public where that money is coming from. | |
| “It’s not good enough to simply let privy counsellors see this report – because such a rule excludes party leaders like myself who are trying to hold this government to account on this issue and shine a spotlight on the deep complicity between Whitehall and Riyadh.” | |
| The summary said that tackling the problem of extremist funding would need a range of measures, notably connected to domestic sources of support. | |
| In response, Rudd’s statement said the government would seek to raise awareness “to encourage people to understand the full aims of the organisations that they give to”, and alert the financial services industry about extremism concerns. | |
| It said: “These organisations have an interest in ensuring they are not inadvertently supporting extremist individuals or organisations.” | |
| Also, the statement said, the Charity Commission would introduce a requirement on charities to declare overseas funding sources. | |
| The government would also be “directly raising issues of concern, supported by evidence, with specific countries as part of our wider international engagement on countering extremism and violent extremism,” it added. |