UK ministers and officials to be banned from contact with groups labelled extremist

Michael Gove is expected to say that officials should have regard to whether a group maintains ‘public confidence in government’ before working with it. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Ministers and civil servants will be banned from talking to or funding organisations that undermine “the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy”, under a new definition of extremism criticised by the government’s terror watchdog and Muslim community groups.

Michael Gove, the communities secretary, will tell MPs on Thursday that officials should consider whether a group maintains “public confidence in government” before working with it.