Westminster’s multiculturalism debate FRANCIS DAVIS
Behind Cameron’s words
When the Prime Minister spoke critically of multiculturalism, warning of the dangers of segregated communities, it was the culmination of a debate within Government as well as a rejection of the values behind recent government policy
argument that “multiculturalism”, by separ - ating communities from each other, had been a key driver of “Islamic extremism”. Last week, Professor Conor Gearty wondered in these pages if “something else was going on?”. He was right.
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According to senior government insiders, the speech represented the culmination of a fierce internal debate within the Conservative- Liberal Democrat coalition. It also sent signals to ministers and will set the tone for a raft of policy decisions that will now proceed at pace. And the Prime Minister’s comments also
threw up profound questions as to how the Churches will proceed in an environment where the Catholic bishops, especially follow- ing the papal visit to Britain last September, have committed to a “deeper inter-religious dialogue”. Contrary to frequent comments from clerics that religion has been driven from the state and the public square in recent years, since 9/11 British government departments have had access to significant resources to engage with the Muslim community. During the tenure of Ruth Kelly as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (2006-07), a “Prevent” pro- gramme took shape whose stated aim was to counter “violent extremism”. The formula used under this programme for calculating the allocation of resources against potential violent risk was Muslim headcount. Funds were made available to local and police author- ities for them to identify Muslim communities “at risk of radicalisation” and work to address what was viewed as a seemingly inherent ten- dency within Islam. By the time Kelly’s successor at the
Department for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears, resigned in 2009, this local funding was complemented by the creation of a central “theology” department in Whitehall whose brief was to “contextualise” and “modernise” British Islam. Additionally, there were investments to create Sufi and other Muslim representative bodies amenable to government policy. A “faiths unit” at the Charity Commission – with Mgr Andrew Summersgill, the then general secretary of the Catholic Bishops’
6 | THE TABLET | 19 February 2011
ost media coverage of David Cameron’s recent speech at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy focused on his
Conference of England and Wales on its advi- sory board – was also set up with a specific brief to improve the governance of mosques, register them as charities and so bring them within the realm of government scrutiny. Blears went so far as to derecognise for government purposes the largest Muslim umbrella group, the Muslim Council of Great Britain.
Despite attempts by Blears’ successor, John Denham, to moderate its tone and direction, the Prevent programme was rolled out
The Prime Minister’s Munich speech
presents a clear break with recent policy across Whitehall
through schools and even came to be the source of funding for Foreign Office consular support for Muslims going on pilgrimage to Mecca. Indeed, in one government depart- ment, a request to human resources from Muslim staff to have additional water supplies for their prayer room was greeted by a response from the “preventing violent extrem- ism” division because this was a “Muslim issue”.
Canon Guy Wilkinson, until recently the Archbishop of Canterbury’s adviser on inter-
faith issues, describes Cameron’s words on multiculturalism as “balanced”. He observes that “only recently Baroness Warsi made an important speech in Leicester which noted the flip side of what the Prime Minister is saying … namely that hostility has risen in some quarters to many Muslims … [These two speeches] taken together tell us that resist- ing extremism goes hand in hand with opposing those that would demonise British Muslims”. Yet sources closer to Downing Street confirmed to me that the PM’s inter- vention was directly intended to counter such a perception. Indeed, the coalition Government has devel- oped marked divisions in its approach to community relations and Cameron’s speech reveals the outcome. In Opposition, the Conservatives had promised to abolish the Prevent programme and use the funds saved to establish a National Citizen Service scheme, which would bring young people together. Upon arriving in office, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles had described Prevent as a “disaster”, while Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the first Muslim mother to sit in Cabinet, stated in her recent speech at Leicester University that “Islamophobia had passed the dinner table test”. Meanwhile, before Christmas and pushing
directly against the wishes of the Home Secretary, Theresa May, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg – whose Liberal Democrat Party is liked by many Muslims because of its opposition to the Iraq war – had insisted that a Liberal Democrat minister should speak at the huge Muslim Global Peace and Unity Congress in London. The stage was set for a row, not least as Security Minister Baroness Neville-Jones, a long-time critic of Muslim networks since her support for Serbian groups during the Yugoslavian Civil War, had now intervened, calling for an increasingly hawkish strategy from the Government. “There is no doubt,” says former Conservative Shadow Minister Paul Goodman, “that the Prime Minister’s speech is an emphatic victory for the Neville-Jones tendency and a clear message to departments of state to get on board. Policy will now be highly focused on prisons, schools, university campuses, specialising directly in combating Islamic groups who are extreme.” For the Churches, this poses questions much
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