Let’s face it: the latest poll results on young people’s attitudes are a wake-up call we can’t afford to ignore. Almost half of young Brits think their country is racist. Seriously? This is what happens when we let divisive narratives run wild without setting the record straight.
I spent years challenging these misconceptions, even launching a commission on ethnic disparities. I had to fight to show the evidence that the real left-behind group was disadvantaged white working-class boys, evidence dismissed by everyone from the Church of England to the BBC.
I got labelled a “Culture Warrior” for my trouble. One Labour MP said I was “the black face of white supremacy”.
Now we have a Labour government reportedly discussing reparations for Britain’s racism and historical guilt. Far too many people have run scared of wading into this space for fear of the sort of abuse I got.
The result is the field is dominated by loony-left voices some of which are now in the government and a vacuum filled with the nihilistic rage of those who think no one is listening, but someone is listening. I am.
The Conservative Party is now under new leadership — my leadership. I’ve never been scared to tell the hard truths. Without them we solve nothing. One of those hard truths is that we need to start integrating across the board and creating a sense of belonging for everyone.
People think integration is something you do to foreigners, it is far more than that. We didn’t have to think about it before. Society naturally did the job not just of integrating newcomers who arrived at a more manageable pace and rate and often from countries with not dissimilar cultures, but also the work of integrating young people.
So what’s to be done? Certainly not more of the same. From citizenship tests to money funnelled to community leaders and charities, it has not worked. You cannot test for citizenship in an exam room. Citizenship is more than knowing the history of a country.
It is about actively wanting the success of your country and caring about it and the people in it more than those thousands of miles away.
People think integration is something you do to foreigners, it is far more than that. We didn’t have to think about it before. Society naturally did the job not just of integrating newcomers who arrived at a more manageable pace and rate and often from countries with not dissimilar cultures, but also the work of integrating young people.
So what’s to be done? Certainly not more of the same. From citizenship tests to money funnelled to community leaders and charities, it has not worked. You cannot test for citizenship in an exam room. Citizenship is more than knowing the history of a country.
It is about actively wanting the success of your country and caring about it and the people in it more than those thousands of miles away.
