BRITAIN: The Labour government has launched its promised Commission on Integration and Cohesion with a call for a "new and honest debate" about the effects of "diversity" in Britain's "multicultural" society.
Confirming the move away from what she called an era of "uniform consensus" about the virtues of multiculturalism, communities secretary Ruth Kelly said the renewed debate would question whether it was instead "encouraging separateness". She echoed the assertion of home secretary John Reid that it was "not racist" to debate immigration and asylum, while reflecting growing Labour alarm about the risk of white Britons becoming alienated by the pace of social change.
The decision to appoint the commission to examine how communities in England tackle tensions and extremism was taken in the immediate aftermath of last year's July 7th suicide bomb attacks on London's transport network.
Due to start work next month and report in June next year, the project has been given added urgency by the anxieties about underlying community tensions reawakened with the revelations about and charges preferred in respect of the alleged plot to bomb transatlantic airlines.
At yesterday's launch, Ms Kelly promised that the new body would not be "a talking shop" in considering the danger of communities becoming isolated from each other.
Nor, she said, would the commission be "censored by political correctness" or "tiptoe around the issues". Ms Kelly acknowledged that diversity had been "a huge asset" to Britain while warning that, as new waves of immigrants came in to the country, international events increasingly impacted on community relations.
"We have moved from a period of uniform consensus on the value of multiculturalism to one where we can encourage that debate by questioning whether it is encouraging separateness," the minister said.
"They are difficult questions and it is important that we do not shy away from them. In our attempt to avoid imposing a single British identity and culture, have we ended up with some communities living in isolation from each other with no common bonds between them?"
However, Ms Kelly said the commission would not address the question of faith schools, which the government continues to encourage despite widespread concern that they increase segregation between people of different beliefs.
Muslim parents, she said, should not be denied the same opportunities available to Christians and Jews in sending their children to faith schools, while suggesting such schools could be encouraged to twin themselves or engage in sporting and other activities together.
Ms Kelly told the BBC that northern English towns like Oldham had made significant progress in bringing people together after the riots there in 2001 prompted expert warnings that some communities in Britain were living "parallel" lives.
"Multiculturalism, different communities in Britain, the fact that Britain is open to people of all faiths and none, has been a huge strength of this country," she said, "but what we have got to do is recognise that while there have been huge benefits, there are also tensions created."
The commission's task would be to examine how those tensions arose and what communities could do to tackle them.
Ms Kelly accepted that "elements" in Britain's Muslim communities profoundly disagreed with the Blair government's foreign policy. However, she insisted foreign policy was not "a root cause" of extremism and that it could not be tailored to suit any one section of the community.
Likewise, she said, Britain clearly needed "a controlled, well-managed system of immigration" with clear rules and the necessary integrity "to counter exploitation from the far right".
She also said society should have "the confidence to say 'no' to certain suggestions from particular ethnic groups", while ensuring everyone could be treated equally.
Conservative spokesman Damian Green said there was a huge challenge to be met in helping Britain's Muslim communities to integrate fully with the rest of society.
However, he struck a cautionary note, adding: "We hope this government initiative has more substance than previous initiatives which have tended to grab a headline but then achieve little in the long-term."