Since setting up my website in 2020, I have made a conscious effort to avoid any discussion of racial or cultural diversity. This is not because I am a denier of racism (I’m not – I’m a ‘70s teenager, remember!), but because I prefer to focus on issues that are of concern to all of us regardless of ethnic or cultural background. But it’s 2023 and the world is a less static place than it was. Consequently, there comes a point at which any commentator on economic and social issues of the moment can no longer ignore human diversity, however tempting it may be to do so. So for November 2023’s blog I’m going to tackle it in an attempt to please everyone…and probably end up pleasing no-one.
In my book LONDON; THE NATION’S CAPITAL[1], I express agreement with John Cleese’s previously-expressed view that London is no longer an English city.[2] If truth be known, it could now fairly be described as an anywhere city. But having visited every continent prior to COVID, I now feel that most major world cities are heading the same way, and have been for several decades. Sydney was no more an Australian city when I visited it in 2013 than London is an English city now. Toronto was hardly a Canadian city when visited it in 2005. Auckland wasn’t a Kiwi city in 2017 despite New Zealand’s fiercely localist immigration policies.[3] New York was definitely not an American city as long ago as 2001. In fact, one of its most diverse neighbourhoods, Jackson Heights, has a street known as Diversity Plaza.[4] The photos in this blog illustrate this. So I now conclude that unless we’re all prepared to live in remote villages with little public transport, non-existent street lighting and 20mph speed limits on empty Class A roads if in Wales (thanks but no thanks!), the challenges that diversity brings are a bullet that at some stage we will have to bite.
It would be unforgivably naïve of me to pretend that adaptation to a diverse society isn’t challenging. Many prominent commentators, an increasing number of them of non-white-British ethnic heritage, point to very real problems like linguistic segregation, honour killings, the rise of homophobia and genital mutilation as consequences of the promotion of difference in the name of “inclusion” and the grossly misguided vilification of integration into British culture as “racist.” One of the most measured and sensible social commentators on this issue is royal historian Rafe Heydel-Mankoo. Of Sikh heritage, Heydel-Mankoo recently gave a speech outlining some solutions to the problems caused by the failed mass immigration and multiculturalism policies of the Blair government. He rather glosses over the fact that unlike Denmark, whose policies he champions, the UK once had a world-wide empire, on which the sun was always destined to set, and the demographic of any country which has had an empire in the past inevitably ends up reflecting that empire to a greater or lesser extent. However, in other respects he is spot on.[5]
“An advocacy of “biting the diversity bullet” is not an endorsement of the failed multiculturalist strategies of the past.”
Am I suggesting that we should just accept the undoubted downsides of Blair-era multiculturalism as “part and parcel” of 21st century British life? Emphatically not! An advocacy of “biting the diversity bullet” is not an endorsement of the failed multiculturalist strategies of the past. My regular followers will know that I have an ongoing campaign against genital mutilation in all its forms. Perpetrators of these vile acts, which carry lifelong consequences for the victims, are generally not British nationals. Abhorrent practices like Female Genital Mutilation and breast ironing[6] have no place in a western society and must never be encouraged in the name of “cultural inclusion.”
Is the diverse new normal really all that bad out on the UK’s streets? Well I can’t pass judgement on places like Bradford, Burnley and Blackburn which are singled out by Heydel-Mankoo as having severe problems with integration, because I’ve never visited them. But I can speak for London’s and the UK’s second most diverse borough, Brent, as I have lived there for 34 years and as 100% white Anglo-Saxon British, become less representative of the borough’s demographic in that time. Is life on the streets of Brent so painful for one so unrepresentative? Yes and No. I’ve always liked to strike up conversations with strangers in public places like the tubes and the buses, which I use daily. That has become more difficult over the years as more incomers have been encouraged not to learn English. No-one can help how he/she looks, but he/she can, and should be expected, to learn the national language of the UK. How an expectation of incomers to the UK to learn English ever became a ”racist” notion is beyond rational comprehension.
But despite appearances, London isn’t all linguistically segregated. I regularly ride buses on the Edgware Road corridor which marks the boundary between three boroughs (Brent, Barnet and Harrow) none of which have white British majority populations now, and were heading in that direction 30 years ago. Last year, I made a short 3-mile ride on the 32 bus from Edgware to Colindale, on a day on which there were delay-inducing roadworks along the entire route. No fewer than five passengers, each of a visibly different ethnic background, thanked the bus driver, in English, when they got off. Isn’t this the very kind of integration that’s wanted? Many would have you believe that such good manners are today found only in rural, and overwhelmingly white British, communities, if at all. Not so, although I’ll admit such courtesy is less regularly encountered on other outer London bus corridors and in central London, where likewise I use buses regularly. I always thank the bus driver when I get off, regardless of where that is. Basic manners cannot be taken for granted anywhere in the world.
London is perhaps not the best example to take because its status as the UK’s national capital inevitably makes it different from other cities. But because it is now so diverse, it needs to promote a common over-arching culture, more so than any other UK city. Given that it’s the national capital of a now independent sovereign nation, that culture must necessarily be the prevailing pre-existing British culture. This is very much the central thread of my book LONDON; THE NATION’S CAPITAL. It is not a popular view with the Left-leaning London elite, but my experience of living half my life in one of London’s most diverse corners suggests that it is not as unrealistic an expectation as the elite like to maintain. The way in which the late Queen’s platinum jubilee was celebrated in Southall, London’s original Little India, illustrates just how much patriotism exists in places in which it might least be expected.
From time to time, it is suggested that London should become a city-state, so demographically unrepresentative it has allegedly become of the UK as a whole. This is not greatest good for greatest number. City-state status would undoubtedly lead to policy capture by extremist groups, whose pernicious influence I covered in an earlier blog,[7] and to fragmentation, with outer London boroughs looking to secede from London and go back into the counties of which they were originally part. Bexley would look to rejoin Kent, Sutton would wish to rejoin Surrey. City-state status for London would undoubtedly result in similar demands from other UK cities which are now catching up London in the diversity stakes. Even smaller cities like Reading, where I spent most of my childhood, are now a demographic replica of the UK’s big conurbations.
In order to assist the process of integration, sometimes it’s necessary for the pre-existing population, however unrepresentative it may appear to be in its own neighbourhood in 2023, to make the first move. Last year I sent a Christmas card to my neighbours in the flat opposite, not knowing their names and having spoken to them only a few times, enough to know that they spoke with an accent that marked them as Eastern European. The next day, I found a Christmas hamper outside my door ; it was from them! My relationship with my opposite neighbours has gone from strength to strength since then; they once carried my shopping home for me when they met me on the tube one day. During the conversation which ensued it emerged that they are Romanian. I took the same approach with my upstairs neighbours, who are Polish, and got an Easter card and egg at Easter. Both speak perfectly understandable English. Isn’t this integration in action? But if I hadn’t made the first move, that desirable process wouldn’t have happened.
Even June Sarpong, the BBC’s director of diversity, and Trevor Phillips, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, both of whom identify as black, now believe that Blair-era multiculturalist policies were poorly thought out and pursued with excessive zeal.[8] But however much we may love the ethnically homogenous Britain of the past,[9] we will do ourselves no favours if we delude ourselves into thinking that it can somehow be recreated in the future. The same is true of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA; for them, as for the UK, the future is a diverse one. Running and hiding will no longer be an option, if ever it was. It took me many years of travelling to all five continents to recognise this, but it was a valuable education that helps me with my day-to-day life in one of the most diverse corners of my country.
[1] Available to download at Amazon on : LONDON : THE NATION’S CAPITAL: A BLUEPRINT FOR A POST-BREXIT AND POST-COVID-19 LONDON eBook : LAWES, DAVID: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
[2] Predictably, he got a lot of criticism from Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, over this. See : John Cleese criticised for saying London is ‘no longer an English city’ – BBC News
[3] New Zealand to reset immigration policy, cut low-skilled workers | Reuters
[4] Here’s a link to the Google Streetview image of this location : Diversity Plaza – Google Maps
[5] See his talk here ; (51) Britain’s Segregation, Multiculturalism, & Mass Immigration Crisis Threatens Us All. What Solutions? – YouTube
[6] This is the compression of a girl’s breasts at puberty to prevent unwanted male attention. It occurs mainly in sub-Saharan African communities and, like all forms of genital mutilation, is seriously under-reported, for fear of “offending cultural sensibilities.” A guide to the practice an its horrendous effects on its victims is to be found at : Breast Ironing (flattening) – Harrow Safeguarding Children Board (harrowscb.co.uk)
[7] THE CORROSIVE EFFECT OF POLICY CAPTURE – DAVID LAWES (wordpress.com)
[8] In her book DIVERSIFY, Sarpong talks about Blair-era mass immigration being poorly managed and having an adverse effect on white working-class communities of the type in which she grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. See Diversify: An award-winning guide to why inclusion is better for everyone eBook : Sarpong, June: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store. Phillips was suspended from the Labour party on account of alleged “Islamophobia” after he voiced concerns about the willingness of certain Muslim groups to integrate into mainstream British culture. See : The-Trial-the-strange-case-of-Trevor-Phillips.pdf (policyexchange.org.uk)
[9] Many of “a certain age” certainly do, see this video : (51) The end of England; where did my country go? – YouTube. It does not make them racist in any way. There is a world of difference between racism and nostalgia. The picture portrayed by Simon Webb, owner of the HISTORY DEBUNKED channel, is increasingly replicated in cities in other nations. Webb sensibly acknowledges that a return to the past is not possible. This is increasingly true of nations far beyond the UKs shores. The website of Arthur Philip High School in Parramatta, a very diverse Sydney suburb, in which I have stayed twice, exhibits the same phenomenon as Webb observes in an East London school; see Gallery – Arthur Phillip High School (nsw.gov.au).
DAVID LAWES 