I am an extremist. I object to the killing of Israeli children and to the killing of Palestinian children. That, it seems, is enough to make me an “extremist” in the eyes of Rishi Sunak’s government.

Communities Secretary Michael Gove is planning to change the definition of “extremism”. So far, he has not published a list of groups that he wishes to define as “extremist”. Commentators have suggested that the new definition is likely to cover people campaigning against the Israeli attacks on Gaza, as well as several groups concerned with tackling climate change.

Meanwhile, the UK government continues to sell weapons to the aggressors of Saudi Arabia and Israel, to maintain enough nuclear warheads to wipe out much of the world, to further reduce the right to strike and the right to peaceful protest, and to preside over a massively underfunded NHS and declining welfare state as more and more people in the UK are pushed into poverty and ill health.

None of these policies, however, are to be labelled “extremist”.

The biggest problem with Gove’s plan is that it is absurd to have a simple definition of the word “extremist” at all. It is surely obvious that different beliefs are extreme in different situations. Therefore, what consitutes extremism depends on the context.

150 years ago, you would have been an extremist if you called for women to be given the vote. Now you would be considered an extremist if you said that women should not have the vote. Even 30 years ago, you would have been an extremist if you said that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry with legal recoginition. This “extremist” position is now law in the UK, and many other countries.

Surely we should be debating not whether a particular idea is extreme or extremist, but whether it is right.

As Martin Luther King wrote in 1963:

“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”

The UK government’s current definition of extremism includes opposition to democracy and “British values” – as if everyone in Britain has the same values. This allows ministers to formally place the views of certain of their opponents beyond the limits of acceptable beliefs. It is similar to the way McCarthyites labelled left-wing views as “unamerican”.

Now Michael Gove and his colleagues plan to go even further. According to today’s Observer:

“Organisations and individuals that breach a new official definition of extremism will be excluded from meetings or any engagement with ministers, senior civil servants, government advisory boards and funding. Councils will be expected to follow the government’s lead, cutting any financial ties or support to individuals or groups that have been categorised as extremist.”

This policy represents a massive assault on free expression and freedom of association. Ministers would be able, almost on a whim, to ban groups that they oppose from any engagement with official bodies. This is the sort of policy we might expect from Putin’s Russia. And it follows the introduction in recent years of the biggest restrictions on the right to peaceful protest in the UK since the Second World War.

The proposed criteria for labelling a group as “extremist” are so vague that a government could potentially place almost any organisation or individual who they did not like on the list. The Observer reports that a group could be defined as “extremist” if their behaviour includes attempts to “overturn, exploit or undermine the UK’s system of liberal democracy to confer advantages or disadvantages on specific groups”.

This is laughable. The Conservative Party has been conferrring advantages on a specific group – the very wealthy – for centuries. But people like me who want more democracy – such as by abolishing the monarchy – can be said to be opposed to the “UK’s system of liberal democracy” and thus regarded as “extremists”.

Of course some of the beliefs labelled “extremist” are views I deplore: such as racism, fascism, fundamentalism and other far-right ideologies. But we should tackle these because they are wrong, harmful and evil, regardless of whether the government regards them as extremist.

Someone who defends ISIS (for example) would rightly be denounced by the vast majority of people. However, ministers would label them as “extremists” even while those same ministers support the equally vile, immoral and murderous regime of Saudi Arabia. Indeed, British ministers are authorising the sale of arms to the Saudi regime, which are used in attacks on civilians in Yemen.

Similarly, supporting the muder of civilians by Hamas is “extremist”, whereas supporting the equally vile murder of civilians by the Israeli “Defence” Force is effectively UK government policy.

So by official definitions, it is not support for violence that makes you an “extremist”, but only support for violence carried out people who UK ministers oppose – rather than the many tryants and aggressors who they support.

Let’s not argue about who should be defined as an “extremist” – the state should not be maintaining a list. Let’s not deny we are extremists – I’m happy to be an extremist for peace, active nonviolence, human dignity and real democracy.

The Levellers, Chartists, Suffragettes and early Gay Pride marchers were regarded as extremist. Many of their views are now accepted by large majorities of people. Let’s be inspired by them to resist this latest attack on our rights and freedoms.