NEW arrivals to the UK should take an integration course, similar to that used in Germany, says the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights’ Commission.
Lady Falkner told the Sunday Telegraph that we’ve missed a trick in the last 20 years.
She adds that politicians have shown a worrying degree of complacency, while 745,000 migrants (Migration Watch UK) came to the UK in 2022 alone.
“We have to recognise that large numbers of first-generation migrants haven’t had the background of growing up in a rights-respecting country,” she went on to say, with some children living “segregated, parallel lives from school upwards.”
Her points were echoed almost 20 years ago by Sir Trevor Phillips, then head of the Commission for Racial Equality, who warned that complacency about multiculturalism in the UK could see us “sleepwalk to segregation.”
Now, his warning about a “nation within a nation” is beginning to look alarmingly prescient.
Robin Simcox, Home Office independent adviser on extremism, warned last week that weekly pro-Palestine protests are turning London into a “no-go zone for Jews,” while Lady Falkner’s letter to the Met, warning that protesters’ rights are “not absolute” and must be balanced against the rights of others, has effectively been ignored.
We are justifiably proud of our reputation as a tolerant and welcoming nation, but for the country to remain united, migrants must live within the same laws we do.
However, that’s not the only issue.
The level of migration, both legal and illegal, is simply unsustainable.
It is perhaps inevitable that the numerous pressures that this imposes on a country risks testing its cohesion to the limit.
And if those who come here don’t or won’t integrate, it’s inevitable that our tolerance will be stretched, too.
Above all, we must be free to speak freely on this topic, which can so easily be weaponised.