...Secretary Blunkett announced the government was considering an oath of allegiance for immigrants and that English language tests would be introduced. (3) We were told that practices such as forced marriage and genital mutilation had been allowed to continue because of an over-emphasis on `cultural difference' and `moral relativism'. (4) Blunkett wanted new framework of core values, which would set limits to the laissez-faire pluralism of the past. The Mail and the Telegraph had, it seemed, found their great white knight to slay the demon political correctness.

Of course, each of Blunkett's proposals, when taken individually and out of its political context, was eminently reasonable. Of course, cultural difference cannot be used to legitimise oppression of women. Of course, knowledge of the English language is a factor in social inclusion. And, yes, migrant communities cannot live in the same way that they did decades ago, in the countries of their origin. But in the context of responding to riots which had sprung from the police's failure to protect Asian communities from racist violence, Blunkett's comments seemed to be a case of `blame the victim', rather than an attempt to deal with the real issues. And how could a lack of ability in the English language be a factor in causing the riots when the participants were born and bred here? Blunkett argued that, if their first-generation mothers could not speak English, this might, in some way, have contributed to deprivation in the second generation. But it was a highly tenuous link. Wasn't Blunkett just appeasing racism? Worse, he was attempting to use immigration policy as a way of disciplining black communities, thereby explicitly reconnecting the issues of race and immigration--something that no leading Labour politician had done for at least thirty years.

But the Cantle report and Blunkett's provocative comments were more than just regression. They also signalled that, from the state's point of view, the `multiculturalist settlement', which has dominated race relations thinking in Britain for two...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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