In his speech Today in Washington DC, Interior Secretary Suella Braverman repeated what David Cameron declared at a 2011 security conference in Munich: that multiculturalism has failed. Despite howls of indignation from his opponents, this is a perfectly reasonable position, especially after last year’s large-scale public disorder in Leicester, mainly among young Hindus and Muslims.
A number of post-industrial towns in the north of England continue to have problems with ethnic and religious segregation, from Blackburn in Lancashire to Dewsbury in Yorkshire. And more recently, race-based tribalism reared its ugly head in the southeast London borough of Peckham. Following a physical altercation between a business owner of Asian heritage and a black woman accused of theft, racist messages such as “go to hell Patel” were left in the establishment.
The gravest danger to Britain’s multi-ethnic democracy is not racism among white Britons: it is the importation of tribal ideologies that fuel tensions among its minorities. Whether American inspired racial identity politics, subcontinental-style communalism or sectarianism of the Arab world, community cohesion in relatively diverse parts of the country is under pressure. The situation is aggravated by the fundamental lack of political, social and law enforcement leadership on this front.
Of course, this brings us to the most important question: what have the Conservatives been doing during their thirteen years in government? They have failed to cultivate a healthy and inclusive civic nationalism rooted in Britain’s enormous heritage. There is no significant national integration strategy, nor are local authorities and other public bodies (such as schools and NHS trusts) under any official legal requirement to publish their own strategies to facilitate the social, economic and cultural integration of diverse communities. . The neighborhood policing model – especially in more diverse and disadvantaged areas – has been practically destroyed. To make matters worse, the latest annual net migration figures skyrocketed to an unprecedented 606,000.
Talk is cheap. Ultimately, governments are judged by their results. When it comes to the failures of multiculturalism, Suella Braverman is right, but what will her party do about it?
In his speech Today in Washington DC, Interior Secretary Suella Braverman repeated what David Cameron declared at a 2011 security conference in Munich: that multiculturalism has failed. Despite howls of indignation from his opponents, this is a perfectly reasonable position, especially after last year’s large-scale public disorder in Leicester, mainly among young Hindus and Muslims.
A number of post-industrial towns in the north of England continue to have problems with ethnic and religious segregation, from Blackburn in Lancashire to Dewsbury in Yorkshire. And more recently, race-based tribalism reared its ugly head in the southeast London borough of Peckham. Following a physical altercation between a business owner of Asian heritage and a black woman accused of theft, racist messages such as “go to hell Patel” were left in the establishment.
The gravest danger to Britain’s multi-ethnic democracy is not racism among white Britons: it is the importation of tribal ideologies that fuel tensions among its minorities. Whether American inspired racial identity politics, subcontinental-style communalism or sectarianism of the Arab world, community cohesion in relatively diverse parts of the country is under pressure. The situation is aggravated by the fundamental lack of political, social and law enforcement leadership on this front.
Of course, this brings us to the most important question: what have the Conservatives been doing during their thirteen years in government? They have failed to cultivate a healthy and inclusive civic nationalism rooted in Britain’s enormous heritage. There is no significant national integration strategy, nor are local authorities and other public bodies (such as schools and NHS trusts) under any official legal requirement to publish their own strategies to facilitate the social, economic and cultural integration of diverse communities. . The neighborhood policing model – especially in more diverse and disadvantaged areas – has been practically destroyed. To make matters worse, the latest annual net migration figures skyrocketed to an unprecedented 606,000.
Talk is cheap. Ultimately, governments are judged by their results. When it comes to the failures of multiculturalism, Suella Braverman is right, but what will her party do about it?