Tony Blair: migrants should be forced to integrate more to combat far right

2019/04/22 Leave a comment

While counter intuitive to place the blame of far-right bigotry on the communities being targeted by such bigotry, and Blair, like many Europeans (and some Canadians) never understood or communicated that multiculturalism is about civic integration and participation, some of the specific recommendations have merit (i.e., more effective civics education, tougher enforcement against hate speech, increased funding for language training).

And of course, beyond obeying the laws, defining the specific “norms” and values remains challenging:

Migrant communities must be compelled to do more to integrate to help combat the rise of “far-right bigotry”, Tony Blair has warned.

The former prime minister said that successive governments had “failed to find the right balance between diversity and integration”, while the concept of multiculturalism has been misused as a way to justify a “refusal to integrate”.

Blair makes the pointed intervention in a report by his Institute for Global Change, which backs forcing schools to have an intake that reflects local diversity, creating a compulsory citizenship programme for teenagers and toughening enforcement against the perpetrators of hate speech.

It also calls for compulsory citizenship education, a ban on segregated shift patterns and the creation of a new cabinet post created to oversee integration.

“Over a significant period of time, including when we were last in government, politics has failed to find the right balance between diversity and integration,” Blair writes in a foreword to the report. “On the one hand, failures around integration have led to attacks on diversity and are partly responsible for a reaction against migration. On the other hand, the word multiculturalism has been misinterpreted as meaning a justified refusal to integrate, when it should never have meant that.

“Particularly now, when there is increasing evidence of far-right bigotry on the rise, it is important to establish the correct social contract around the rights and duties of citizens, including those who migrate to our country.”

The report backs a new form of “digital identity verification” – a return to Blair’s support for ID cards that caused huge divisions when the idea was pushed by his government and later abandoned. It also backs the idea of increased funding for language tuition and handing asylum seekers earlier access to work.

It comes following an increase in religious or racially motivated hate crimes. According to Home Office data, such crimes increased from 37,417 in 2013-14 to 79,587 in 2017-18. MPs such as Labour’s Naz Shah have linked the increase with support for extreme far-right groups.

However, in remarks likely to attract criticism from migrant rights groups, Blair warns that enforcing greater integration by new arrivals is a crucial part of solving the issue.

Blair writes: “In this report, we make it clear that there is a duty to integrate, to accept the rules, laws and norms of our society that all British people hold in common and share, while at the same time preserving the right to practise diversity, which is fully consistent with such a duty.

“Without the right to, for example, practise one’s faith, diversity would have no content; but without the duty to integrate, ‘culture’ or ‘faith’ can be used as a way of upsetting that basic social contract that binds us together.

“Government cannot and should not be neutral on this question. It has to be a passionate advocate and, where necessary, an enforcer of the duty to integrate while protecting the proper space for diversity. Integration is not a choice; it is a necessity.”

In government, Blair pushed the idea that all communities had a “duty to integrate” into British society, adding that no one could override the values of democracy, tolerance and respect for the law.

“Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain,” he said in 2006. “Conform to it; or don’t come here.”

Source: Tony Blair: migrants should be forced to integrate more to combat far right

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David Cameron’s ‘Christian country’ remarks fuel mini media frenzy

2014/04/26 Leave a comment

David Cameron’s faith and politics statements and the predictable controversy. Had he talked about Christianity’s influence on Britain’s development and values, and linked to the openness to other faiths, likely would have been a non-issue.

Of more interest is the much higher percentage of British who state they have no religion (51 %), likely one of the higher percentages in the world (Canada is about 24 %):

In last year’s British Society Attitudes Survey, 51 per cent of those polled described themselves as having no religion. And the number of those who say they are members of the Church of England continues to fall year by year.

British Attitudes Towards Religion:

No religion: 48 per cent

Church of England: 20 per cent

Other Christian: 17 per cent

Source: British Social Attitudes Survey, 2012

Campbell refers to Cameron as a “bog standard middle England churchgoer.” During his reign as Tony Blair’s chief spin-doctor, Campbell managed to curb any talk of religion with an imperious command delivered from the plinth, telling reporters: “We don’t do God.”

Cameron’s critics accuse him of deciding to “do God” now in a bid to prevent an exodus of more traditional members from his governing Conservative Party to the UK Independence Party or UKIP, running on a staunchly anti-European, anti-immigrant platform.

Also amusing to see former PM Blair’s spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, comment on Cameron without disclosing just how much he suppressed any evidence or news about Blair’s deep religious faith (Blair only “came out,” so to speak, when he left office)

David Cameron’s ‘Christian country’ remarks fuel mini media frenzy – World – CBC News.

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West and Russia must unite to tackle radical Islam, says Tony Blair

2014/04/25 Leave a comment

While it is hard to disagree with Blair’s premise that fundamentalism poses serious risks to security, stability, human rights and prosperity, it is harder to think of ways to engage and influence to reduce the risk in an effective manner. As we have learned from Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt and Syria, there are limits, some self-imposed, some reflecting the complexity of the societies concerned, to what Western countries can do. There is something paternalistic in Blair’s attitude, in some cases we have to let societies work things out themselves and have more policy modesty, while of course addressing our security issues and providing some capacity building where appropriate:

”Consider this absurdity: that we spend billions of dollars on security arrangements and on defence to protect ourselves against the consequences of an ideology that is being advocated in the formal and informal school systems and in civic institutions of the very countries with whom we have intimate security and defence relationships.

”Some of those countries of course wish to escape from the grip of this ideology.

”But often it is hard for them to do so within their own political constraints. They need to have this issue out in the open where it then becomes harder for the promotion of this ideology to happen underneath the radar.

”In other words they need us to make this a core part of the international dialogue in order to force the necessary change within their own societies.

”This struggle between what we may call the open-minded and the closed-minded is at the heart of whether the 21st century turns in the direction of peaceful coexistence or conflict between people of different cultures.”

West and Russia must unite to tackle radical Islam, says Tony Blair – Telegraph.

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