Deputy PM blocks ban on extremists at universities

Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has blocked tough new laws intended to stop extremist speakers brainwashing university students for terrorism, raising fears that Britain will be left more vulnerable to attack, write Tim Ross and Robert Mendick for The Telegraph.

The deputy prime minister personally vetoed the plan during private talks with Prime Minister David Cameron, after one of the worst cabinet rows in the Coalition’s five-year rule. Clegg said he could not support moves to require university bosses to vet visiting speakers and prevent impressionable students from falling under the spell of extremists – because Liberal Democrats feared the move would erode “free speech”.

Draft legal guidelines detailing how the ban would work, which were published by the Home Office in December, have now been scrapped. Senior government sources warned that students would remain at risk of radicalisation by preachers visiting campus Islamic societies.
Full report on The Telegraph site