The UK is finally acting on the need to tackle wider extremist threats. This is welcome

The late UK prime minister Winston Churchill had a reputation for operating with resolve and maintaining a clinical focus against the one big threat when it came to defending the country. So it was fitting that a parliamentary caucus was launched in the Churchill Room of the House of Commons last week to highlight the dangers of the unaddressed extremism threat the country is currently facing.

The UK has been found wanting by its own representatives in how it goes about tackling not only security threats but also the social impact of extremism.

Labour MP Damien Egan, the chairman of the new group, says that voters he talks to are worried about their neighbourhoods and families becoming more vulnerable to extreme ideas and social tensions. Indeed, More in Common's polling this year found that 70 per cent of the public were worried about the state of UK democracy and 80 per cent feared “people resorting to violence instead of coming together to solve issues peacefully”.

“It’s more in the last few years that people have started to raise worries about it,” Mr Egan told me. Yet governments of both Labour and Conservative stripes have done little to address the issue. The ideologies that are growing in strength range from right wing and left wing as well as Islamist extremism. Into the mix is the volume of online radicalisation and the rising polarisation of western politics.

Yet the government has sat still. It has prioritised, instead, a now-stalled plan to promote a definition of Islamophobia that would underpin all government responses to the issue. But by choosing a wording that has been backed by bodies close to the Muslim Brotherhood movement, the initiative has provoked division. Those worried say a far clearer path lies in a wording that tackles the very real growth of anti-Muslim hatred. For now, the issue is stuck in these disputes.

People hold placards at London Bridge to mark one year since the London Bridge terror attack that killed eight people and injured dozens more. EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA The Bishop of Southwark, Christopher Chessun, meets members of the public during a commemoration service. AFP/Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS British Transport Police officer Wayne Marques, who was seriously injured fighting off the attackers, stands next to a corbel of his face which will be placed on the north quire aisle of Southwark Cathedral. AFP/POOL/Dominic Lipinski A member of the public reacts after the commemoration service. EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA Britain's prime minister Theresa May walks to London Bridge to lay flowers at the scene of the attack. EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA Mayor of London Sadiq Khan addresses the commemoration service at Southwark Cathedral. Britain held a national minute of silence after the ceremony. AFP/POOL/Dominic Lipinski Members of the public lay flowers on London Bridge. EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA Members of all faiths attended the ceremony. AFP/Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS Police officers attend commemorations of the first anniversary of the attack on London Bridge.