Cameron Speech

Comment
No one will be left behind in a Tory Britain
By vigorously promoting equal opportunity and fairness, we will make this a better country for all
David Cameron
The Observer, Sunday 28 January, 2007
The subject of community cohesion, for understandable reasons, has become prominent in our national conversation over the past few years. But it is a challenge we have faced before: the question of how we live together is as old as humanity itself. Throughout history, there have been periods when Britain has not been entirely comfortable with itself or individual communities within it.
Who would now question the contribution made by Jewish people to British society - or even talk about there being a conflict between being British and Jewish? And yet, only 50 years ago, this was exactly the debate going on in both the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. More recently, Britain’s Irish community was questioning and being questioned about its loyalty to Britain.
Each time, over time, we have kept our country together by having faith in our institutions and our way of doing things: freedom under the rule of law, a common culture defined by pluralism and tolerance and a distinctively British approach (calm, thoughtful, reasonable) to potentially incendiary issues. The challenge today may have its own specific characteristics, but our approach should be the same. In that context, I am concerned by the direction that the debate on cohesion has taken recently. I believe it is time for a more British approach.
First, we must not fall for the illusion that the problems of community cohesion can be solved simply through top-down, quick-fix state action. State action is certainly necessary today, but it is not sufficient. Second, it must be the right kind of action, expressed in a calm, thoughtful and reasonable way.
The doctrine of multiculturalism has undermined our nation’s sense of cohesion because it emphasises what divides us rather than what brings us together. It has been manipulated to entrench the right to difference (a divisive concept) at the expense of the right to equal treatment despite difference (a unifying concept). But in seeking to atone for those mistakes, we should not lurch, with the zeal of the convert, into a simplistic promotion of ‘Britishness’ that is neither in keeping with our traditions, nor likely to bring our communities closer together.
Yes, we need to ensure that every one of our citizens can speak to each other in our national language. Yes, we need to ensure that our children are taught British history properly. And I do think it is important to create more opportunities for celebrating our sense of nationhood. Unlike Labour, we will set out a clear and consistent path to ensure these things actually happen, starting with our policy review which will make specific recommendations this week.
But I think we need to go much deeper than this if we are to address the substantial alienation and division that exist in our country today. It’s no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn’t understand what is being said. We can’t bully people into feeling British - we have to inspire them.
A number of the interventions we have seen from ministers recently have spectacularly failed to do that. Instructing Muslim parents to spy on their children. Offending our war heroes with the proposal of a new ‘Veteran’s Day’ when we already have Remembrance Sunday. Suggesting that we put flags on the lawn. These and similar clunking attempts to address the complexities of community cohesion show a serious misunderstanding of the scale of the challenge, and the shape of the solution. Above all, we have seen a dangerous muddling of concerns: community cohesion, the threat of terrorism and the integration of British Muslims.
Promoting community cohesion should indeed be part of our response to terrorism. But cohesion is not just about terrorism and it is certainly not just about Muslims. Similarly, promoting integration will help protect our security. But too mechanistic a connection between these objectives will make it harder to achieve both, by giving the impression that the state considers all Muslims to be a security risk.
This week’s report from our policy review, the product of months of dialogue with Britain’s diverse communities, will seek to disentangle these threads and point a clear and responsible way forward. There will be no shying away from the tough issues: the influence of those who twist faith into ideology; the cultural attitudes that exclude women from mainstream society; the impact of foreign policy on domestic affairs; and, vitally, the divisive effects of the catastrophic failure of state education in many parts of urban Britain.
I want the Conservative party to stand for a broad and generous vision of British identity. In a speech in Birmingham tomorrow, I will argue that questions of social cohesion are also questions of social justice and social inclusion. Cohesion is as much about rich and poor, included and left behind as it is about English and Scot or Muslim and Christian. Inspiring as well as demanding loyalty from every citizen will require a new crusade for fairness. A society that consistently denies some of its people the chance to escape poverty, to get on in life, to fulfil their dreams and to feel that their contribution is part of a national effort: such a society will struggle to inspire loyalty, however many citizenship classes it provides.
Fairness will be our most powerful weapon against fragmentation. In America, new immigrants feel part of something from the moment they arrive because they feel they have the opportunity to succeed. It is that belief in equal opportunity that we need in Britain today and it is why the denial of quality education to so many is such a vital part of the cohesion argument.
There is no easy short cut. Having tried to impose democracy in Iraq at the point of a gun, we must surely realise that we will never impose cohesion at home with the ping of a press release. There are serious divisions in our country today. Many thousands - maybe millions - feel shut out, under attack. Turning the situation around will require patience. We must be calm, thoughtful and reasonable: that is the British way.
Building cohesion is a social responsibility. Government must enforce the rules of the road - speaking English, teaching history, upholding and celebrating the symbols of nationhood - and we will be absolutely clear about what needs to be done. If the government brings forward these measures, they will have our full support.
But this is about much more than government and politics. We must each do all we can to make this a fairer and more just society - helping others, creating opportunity and ensuring that no one is excluded from it.

The article was accompanied by a leader comment and a news report:
Inclusive Cameron sets a welcome benchmark
Leader
The Observer, Sunday 28 January, 2007
Any community subjected to the sort of public scrutiny that has been brought to bear on British Muslims in recent years would feel defensive. Their customs and beliefs are analysed, their habits are judged against ill-defined notions of ‘Britishness’.
Often, devout Muslims are compared not with other conservative groups - ultra-orthodox Jews or evangelical Christians, for example - but to the liberal values of the Enlightenment, which had anti-clericalism as one of its central pillars. Not surprisingly, they are found wanting, as if it is not enough for Muslims to obey the law, but that they should also study Voltaire.
The reason Muslim illiberalism is scrutinised more than that of other faiths is that terrorist acts have recently been committed in Britain in the name of Islam. That is why a cultural and historical debate about what it means to be British, once the province of academics, has become a favourite theme for politicians.
Writing in today’s Observer, David Cameron enters that fray. This week, he announces the results of his party’s policy review on social cohesion. Measured against the many forays into the subject from the right, Mr Cameron’s tone is not hysterical. Compared with the government’s approach, it is not activist in its view of the state’s role in promoting integration. Mr Cameron recognises that the exclusion of many Muslims, and, indeed, non-Muslims from mainstream society is a problem, but one that is best seen as a subset of wider issues of poverty and lack of social mobility. For that reason, there is not much sense ordering the excluded to ‘integrate’. We should, rather, have confidence that social cohesion will flow naturally from fair access to good education and more equitable distribution of prosperity.
This is hardly revolutionary thinking. But it does mark a welcome alternative to the view that young Muslims should be urgently inculcated with ‘Britishness’ in the interests of national security. It is also a departure from the Tory habit of waving the flag and waiting impatiently for immigrants to rally to it. But Conservative members have already shown a reactionary queasiness about their leader’s new direction on other issues. It would be shame if they cannot embrace a tolerant message on social cohesion. It is the right one.
Cameron blast at crude bullying on ‘British values’
Muslims must end curbs on women’s study - Tory leader
Gaby Hinsliff and Jamie Doward
The Observer, Sunday 28 January, 2007
David Cameron today dramatically shifts the terms of the debate over Britishness by demanding a new language of cohesiveness on the controversial issues of faith, race and nationhood.
In a ground-breaking article in today’s Observer, the Tory leader lambasts the government for its aggressive approach, arguing: ‘It’s no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn’t understand what is being said. We can’t bully people into feeling British - we have to inspire them.
The call for a ‘calm, thoughtful, reasonable’ approach to defining Britishness rather than hectoring ethnic minorities comes ahead of a speech today in which Cameron will nonetheless warn that such a stance must not mean tolerating injustices, such as Muslim women being prevented from studying or working outside the home.
In today’s article Cameron attacks ‘clunking’ government ideas to shore up national identity, such as urging Britons to fly the flag at home, and the ‘dangerous muddling’ of community cohesion with the threat from terrorism. New ways should be found to celebrate ‘our sense of nationhood’ instead, he adds, although it is not clear what these might be.
‘A number of the interventions we have seen from ministers recently have spectacularly failed to do that. Instructing Muslim parents to spy on their children. Offending our war heroes with the proposal of a new “Veterans’ Day” when we already have Remembrance Sunday. Suggesting that we put flags on the lawn.’
And while promoting cohesion could be part of responding to the war on terror, it was ‘not just about terrorism and certainly not just about Muslims’, he added.
His argument will be underlined by a report this week from the party’s policy commission on national security calling for new thinking on community cohesion. It will highlight the removal of teenage Asian girls from school and question whether some Muslim parents are supporting their daughters’ desire for education, as well as calling for forced marriage to be made a criminal offence. In his speech in Birmingham, Cameron will argue that the oppression of women in some communities is a cultural rather than religious phenomenon. Tories must ‘be bold, and not hide behind the screen of cultural sensitivity, to say publicly that no woman should be denied rights which both their religion and their country, Britain, support’.
Sayeeda Warsi, Tory vice-chairman and adviser to Cameron, said she was struck by the way some female Muslims were held back while she was out canvassing at the last election. ‘The number of women I came across who said they wanted to go to university but their parents didn’t want them to, who wanted to get a job but were not allowed, who were not allowed to vote freely because the men in their family got postal votes... I came away feeling that here was an enormous resource wasted,’ she said. ‘This way of life is not because of the faith, it is cultural interpretations of it. David feels we can’t be culturally sensitive to issues which are fundamentally wrong.’
Cameron’s decoupling of cohesion from national security issues was welcomed by the Muslim Council of Great Britain. However, the Commission for Human Rights and Equality said it would reserve judgment for the full report.

Muslim extremists are mirror image of BNP, says Cameron
Hélène Mulholland
The Guardian, Monday 29 January, 2007
David Cameron today compared British Muslim extremists to the British National party, claiming that they were the “mirror image” of the racist organisation.
In a keynote speech on community cohesion, the Tory leader said that extremism was one of five “Berlin walls of division” blocking community cohesion.
Mr Cameron demanded an end to the oppression of women inside the Muslim community who are denied the opportunity to go out to work or attend university.
And he warned that difficult issues must not be avoided by hiding behind a “screen of cultural sensitivity”.
Raising educational standards, controlling immigration and tackling poverty all had important roles to play in bringing down the barriers, he said at the event in Lozells, Birmingham.
Mr Cameron's strong attack on the failure to improve community cohesion comes as a survey published by the Policy Exchange reveals growing militancy among young Muslims who feel they have less in common with non-Muslims than their parents' generation.
While the majority of Muslims feel they have as much, if not more, in common with non-Muslims in Britain than with Muslims abroad, the figure dropped from 71% of over-55s to 62% among 16-24-year-olds, the survey found.
The percentage of people who said they would prefer to send their children to Islamic state schools increased from 19% for over-55s to 37% of 16-24-year-olds.
The number who said they would prefer to live under Sharia law than British law increased from 17% of over-55s to 37% of 16-24-year-olds.
Mr Cameron insisted that the question of community cohesion was not “all about terrorism or all about Muslims”. But he went on to attack fundamentalist Muslims who sought to rupture efforts at cohesion.
“Whether it's the BNP, or those who want to separate British Muslims from the mainstream, their aim is to act within the law to subvert its ends, changing the law as and when they can to achieve their ends,” Mr Cameron said.
“We must mobilise the instruments of public policy to draw people away from supporting such ideologies.
“The BNP pretend to be respectable. But their creed is pure hate... and those who seek a Sharia state, or special treatment and a separate law for British Muslims are, in many ways, the mirror image of the BNP.
“They also want to divide people into 'us' and 'them.' And they too seek out grievances to exploit. “
Mr Cameron also insisted it was important to be bold as he highlighted the plight of many Muslim women denied access to education, work and political engagement.
“I'm told time and time again by women that the denial of these opportunities is not because of their Islamic faith but because of current cultural interpretations in Britain.
“We must therefore be bold, and not hide behind the screen of cultural sensitivity... to say publicly that no woman should be denied rights which both their religion and their country, Britain, support.”
The government's failure to control immigration was another key source of tension, he added.
The Tory leader also attacked educational apartheid created by the existence of “good and bad schools” that denied some a decent education and made them prey to extremists who offered “easy explanations and point the finger of blame at other people ... instead of becoming productive citizens who can make a constructive contribution to the community and the country”.
“Some make it despite the obstacles - but too many don't. Those who get left behind are prime targets for extremists who offer easy explanations and point the finger of blame at other people.”Mr Cameron also took the opportunity to criticise a recent government decision to pull free language classes for migrant workers as running contrary to government pledges to help integration. “Quite how that helps bring the country together I don't know,” he said.