Waltham Forest Council have announced it is introducing pilot a scheme in schools in which students will be taught how to ‘spot’ extremists and report them to the appropriate authorities.

Local Lib Dem Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr John Macklin said:

“I’m deeply disappointed that Labour have not consulted fellow Councillors about this pilot before blindly following Gordon Brown’s policies.

“I am also extremely uncomfortable with the notion of Labour implementing Orwellian policies in our schools potentially setting pupil against pupil.” 

Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Walthamstow, Farid Ahmed said:

“Once again it seems that the Government is obsessed with setting up wacky and expensive schemes rather then deal with the issues at hand.

“It is vital that extremism is dealt with at the grass roots, though it is no surprise that the Government has cherry picked Walthamstow – an area with a very multicultural community – to launch this scheme.

“The sole purpose of this scheme seems to marginalise whole communities and is evidence once again of Labour’s failure to come up with realistic plans.

“In comparison, we will pump £2.5bn into schools so that students are equipped to join an increasingly tough jobs market.”