Fahy said government, academics and civil society needed to decide where the line fell between free speech and extremism. Otherwise, he warned, it would be decided by the security establishment, so-called “securocrats”, including the security services, government and senior police chiefs like Fahy. Speaking to the Guardian, Fahy said: “If these issues [defining extremism] are left to securocrats then there is a danger of a drift to a police state”. He added: “I am a securocrat, it’s people like me, in the security services, people with a narrow responsibility for counter-terrorism. It is better for that to be defined by wider society and not securocrats.”