A "conveyor belt" directly links conservative religious belief to extremism in the government's eyes, according to a former minister.
Liam Byrne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury under Gordon Brown, warned thousands of ISIS fighters would return to Europe and use Donald Trump's rhetoric to incite new recruits. He said a new strategy was needed to combat radicalisation and avoid allowing jihadists to capitalise on Muslims' resentment in the UK.
His new book Black Flag Down: Counter-extremism, Defeating ISIS and Winning the Battle of Ideas calls for a rejection of the idea that there is a simple connection between faith and extremism, according to the Guardian.
He said the idea had led officials to define "extremism" so broad even the Archbishop of Canterbury fell foul of it.
"I'm now convinced we need a new model of radicalisation that reflects the fact that it is grievance, not God, that inspires many to turn to violence," he wrote in the Guardian.
He argued anger and feeling isolated caused extremism, not religion.
"Lots of us get angry. But we tend to arrive at some great moral junction. One path leads to peaceful campaign for change. The other path leads to violence. ISIS targets the violent people. That is why as many as two-thirds of its recruits in some countries have a criminal past," he wrote.
"The goal of good policy must be to manoeuvre those who thirst for justice down the path to peaceful change and away from violence."
He cited MI5 research in 2008 that found there was "no single pathway to extremism" and the actual process of radicalisation was described by experts as "snakes and ladders", with the "ladders" taking young people closer to violence while the "snakes" being other life experiences taking them away from violence.
He accused the government of leaving a "vacuum" at the heart of the government's counter extremism policy that abandoned Muslims.
"In the vacuum, while Islamophobia spirals, British Muslims despair," he wrote.
"Many British Muslims feel surrounded by 'supremacists'. National supremacists who declare you can't be British and Muslim. And religious supremacists who say you can't be Muslim and British. One lot deny Muslims their country. The other crowd deny Muslims their faith."
