Milo Comerford, ISD Senior Director of Policy and Research, was an expert witness to the UK Home Affairs Committee enquiry on new forms of extremism in late October.

Milo answered questions from Members of Parliament (MPs) around ISD’s research on the evolving threat from nihilistic violent online communities alongside the heads of Tech Against Terrorism and the Centre for Countering Digital Hate. He also discussed the role of Generative AI and algorithms in youth radicalisation, and presented ISD’s practical policy frameworks for prevention, intervention and regulation of the evolving extremism landscape.

His testimony builds on ISD’s recent policy paper on mitigating extremism-related threats, the latest in our programme of high-level UK policy engagement on counter-extremism strategies.

Besides our analysis of the evolving threat, the committee were particularly engaged around ISD’s proposals for a Public Health model for violence prevention. This included considering how Strong Cities can play a role in building out well-evaluated programming at a local level. Members also asked about how to sensitively address the growing cohort of neurodivergent individuals present in youth radicalisation, and potential interventions to address the mainstreaming of extremism, misogyny and conspiracy theories in online communities.

ISD will follow up with several pieces of additional evidence for the committee, and will continue to advise on its final findings and recommendations.

The full testimony is available on our YouTube.