.... But here’s what I didn’t really expect to find. As a nation, we are becoming ever more diverse, increasingly integrated, and more at ease with that difference too. Yet some communities are becoming more segregated at the same time. In some council wards, as many as 85% of the population come from a single minority background, and most of these high minority concentrations are deprived Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage communities.
But there’s more to it than that. I have also seen and heard that this sense of retreat and retrenchment can sometimes go hand in hand with deeply regressive religious and cultural practices, especially when it comes to women. These practices are preventing women from playing a full part in society, contrary to our common British values, institutions and indeed, in some cases, our laws.
.... A failure to talk about this only leaves the ground open for the far right on one side and Islamist extremists on the other. These groups are ideologically opposed to each other, but actually share the same goal: to show that Islam and modern Britain are somehow incompatible. They are, of course, wrong.
We have always been at our strongest when most united. We are better for being open and inclusive. Every person, in every community, in every part of Britain, should feel a part of our country and have every opportunity to succeed in it. There can be no exceptions to that by gender, colour or creed. Those are our rights. Those are our values. That is our history. It must be our future too. [Louise Casey, 91 comments]
[TOP RATED COMMENT 491 votes] The Guardian's been ducking them for years.
This all rings so hollow from this rag. You are unable to offer solutions because you're part of the problem.
[2ND 448] Many have been raising these issues for years, only to be censored here and you accuse others of ducking the issue.
[3RD 406] "Often, the victims are foreign-born brides brought to Britain via arranged marriages. They have poor English, little education, low confidence, and are reliant on their husbands for their income and immigration status."
OK lets stop this then. Problem solved.
[4TH 353] What a wishy washy article. Only just come to your attention has it?
Perhaps you should have visited somewhere like Oldham 25 years ago and had a wander round.
What is your solution?
I think decades of the liberal elite suppressing the debate has allowed the problem to grow to such an extent that the wonderful English cultural tolerance you are dewy eyed about is going to be going in only one direction.
[5TH 337] Well blow me down. Look, the emperor has no clothes. Decades of utopian fantasies of the 'liberal left' and the 'liberal right' have led to dystopian ghettoes in the cities of Britain where medieval cultural practices have flourished.
But hey, don't listen to the facts. Put your fingers in your ears and shout 'racist'.
It is the crass and almost immeasurable idiocy of these regressives that has led directly to Brexit and Trump and the growth of UKIP. You have driven millions of decent people into the arms of the right by your adamant refusal to listen to their legitimate concerns on culture, history and identity.
Time to wake up and realise that, much as you hate to admit it, not all cultures are equal.
[6TH 315] The true measure of integration is mixed families, anything else is just surface. The problem that the advocates of a multicultural society have failed to face for years is integration is not being blocked by white people. Identity politics struggles with the concept that prejudices occur in every community.
As you say the attitude seems to be if homophobia and abuse of women occurs in other communities, we turn a blind eye. A policy which is extremely disturbing and says a lot about identity politics.
Even if we accept this form of reverse racism, that liberal western values are only for white people. A racist policy of turning a blind eye won't work. How many times have the British press self censorred, because of fear of the consequences of reporting certain stories? Not one paper would publish the Danish cartoons or the charlie hebdo cover? Think that happens if the cartoons were mocking the pope?
We already have Sharia courts for civil proceedings. As the Muslim community grows, how many other changes will we accept?
No doubt you will call me racist for saying that, but in a democracy numbers matter. With the Muslim community off limits as far as conventional politics and debate goes. We can't change hearts and minds. Even if I believed that the liberal left had the stomach to try.
That is why I am pressimestic about the future. We have created ghettos with our misguided multicultural policies and no-one has a solution other than screaming racist to shut people up.
[7TH 291] It's quite simple. No more multiculturalism. No more "communities". Fit in or don't come here in the first place. [Guardian Cif] Read more
