Standing Up for Multiculturalism

Last week a number of Lithuanian men died after an accident on an industrial estate in Lincolnshire. The men died while trying to brew 'super-strength' vodka, which they intended to supply to shops serving the Eastern European community. The alcohol is illegal in the United Kingdom.

This incident is a stark example of the problems surrounding integration that have become common with certain immigrant groups. Naturally, when you move to a foreign country, you tend to group yourself around other people who speak your language, share your culture, and experience the same difficulties in seeking to live abroad. The issue with this is that it, in the short term at least, prevents you from fully embracing new values, culture, and language.

It is in this context that tabloid headlines and populist politicians have called for an end to 'multiculturalism'. By promoting difference, it is argued, you create division. Division leads to conflict and hostility, which, at its most extreme, results in terrorism and violence. David Cameron articulated this argument in a speech in Munich earlier in the year where he declared that multiculturalism had failed.

A cursory glance of right-wing tabloids reveals a wider anti-immigrant fixation. The Daily Express routinely refers to 'waves' of immigrants and highlights crimes committed by foreign nationals. If you were to purchase the Express or the Daily Mail, it is almost certain that you would discover multiple reports on the evils of immigration in the first 10 pages.

This critique of immigration is not confined to the right, however. Very recently, Lord Glasman, the man behind the 'Blue Labour' movement and a key advisor to Ed Miliband, argued that there should be an immediate freeze on all non-EU immigration and that the UK should renegotiate the rules on free movement of labour with our EU partners. Glasman's whole strategy is based on tapping into working class disenchantment with low wages and fierce competition from foreign workers. This disenchantment has manifested itself in strong support for the BNP in working class areas.

So there appears to be a degree of consensus that immigration creates problems for society. The main political parties are now attempting to out flank each other in terms of being tough on further immigration. After Labour enacted a restrictive points regime which cut immigrant numbers significantly, the coalition government decided that this was not enough and put in place a firm quota on the numbers of people who can come and live in the UK. As a result, we now face absurd situations where the world's most talented scientists are unable to gain entry to the country as the quota has already been filled.

At this point it is probably worth reminding ourselves why so many people wish to come to the UK. After all, it's wet (I'm writing this listening to rain pounding my window in mid-July), cold, grey, expensive, with terrible food and many national flaws.

The reason these poor deluded people wish to abandon their home countries, pack up their lives and move to Britain is because of the promise it offers. The UK is seen as a beacon of tolerance, fairness, order and tradition, opportunity, and stability. There are plenty of nations that lack these attributes. If a person from one of those nations wishes to make their home here, is that such an ignoble ambition? Should the thought of that repulse us? Or should we take it as a source of national pride and seek to encourage, rather than discourage and stigmatise, this person?

And should we expect them to start living like 'British' people from the moment the plane hits the tarmac? Are we to require all newcomers to start binge drinking, complaining, cooking rubbish food, and instigating football riots from day one? Or is it more reasonable to allow them to live their own lives within our laws and regulations?

I'm not advocating total, uncontrolled immigration. What I am arguing for is a change in the way we look at individual immigrants, be they asylum seekers or economic migrants. Instead of rejecting new arrivals as sponging, insular, parasites, how about we view them as human beings trying to do what they can? If this means persisting with multiculturalism then so be it. In the long term, this will do far more for reducing division and hostility than the current consensus apparent on all ends of the political spectrum.