Why did the British government label Charlie Kirk supporters ‘extremists?’

One year ago, Charlie Kirk was shot dead; the British government immediately got to work. Following Kirk’s murder, the Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU), a UK government counter-extremism and anti-terrorism unit, began monitoring thousands of social media channels, gauging the reaction of what they describe as “Extreme Right-Wing” (ERW) activists. Published here for the first time, a memo written by RICU reveals that officials assessed that “Extreme Right-Wing” activists, including Tommy Robinson, would use Kirk’s assassination to “push pro-free speech narratives.” Counter-extremism agents assessed that right-wing extremists would use Kirk’s death to “encourage more radical action” and “abandon political...