Repeated and urgent counsel that far-right extremists were exploiting gaps in the law to foment violence on social media had been ignored while top-rank politicians over a number of administrations sought to gain advantage by waging culture wars, Khan said, in a damning intervention.

“The writing was clearly on the wall for some time,” Khan told the Guardian. “All my reports have shown, in a nutshell that, firstly, these extremist and cohesion threats are worsening; secondly, that our country is woefully unprepared. We’ve got a gap in our legislation which is allowing these extremists to operate with impunity.