Is Kirklees SEGREGATION ISSUES HIGHLIGHTED IN GOVERNMENT’S CASEY REVIEW divided down social and racial lines?

KIRKLEES has been named as one of the most divided areas of Britain.

The Government’s so-called Casey Review has advised that urgent attempts are made to bind communities together which have been torn apart by high levels of immigration.

Dame Louise Casey was brought in by former Prime Minister David Cameron to report on social integration amid concerns that hundreds of radicalised young Britons were joining Islamic State.

And her report highlights Kirklees as one of the worst regions for integration and community cohesion.

It is listed as the area with the sixth highest levels of segregation in its schools – a ranking based on the number of schools with high ethnic concentration compared to the overall levels with the borough.

Kirklees is also named in the top 20 areas for the number of women who can’t speak English well, or at all – an estimated 6,792.

Baroness Warsi of Dewsbury, a former Tory Cabinet member, has criticised the report.

In a long series of tweets, she said there was “some good bits, a few bad bits and a lot of confused bits”.

She said: “If you are poor, live in a deprived neighbourhood, don’t have a good education, hold a low paid job, then integration is a low priority.

“The report confuses race, ethnicity, origin and faith and uses them interchangeably.”

The high profile Tory said she agreed with recommendations to extend English language training, tighten marriage visa rules and increase the funding for public services in areas that had experienced high levels of migration.

Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman also said Kirklees had been unfairly singled out.

Pointing out that there were Muslim women councillors and that the last leader, Clr Mehboob Khan, and present deputy leader, Clr Shabir Pandor, were also Muslim, he tweeted: “Repetition of false allegation on Kirklees.”

But he said Casey was right about the “fundamental nature of lack of equality for women in many parts of the Muslim community”.

In her report, Dame Casey said governments had failed for more than a decade to ensure that social integration in the UK has kept up with the “unprecedented pace and scale of immigration”.

She said this had allowed some local communities to become increasingly divided, branding ministerial attempts to boost integration of ethnic minorities as amounting to little more than “saris, samosas and steel drums for the already well-intentioned”.

She acknowledged that elements would be “hard to read”, particularly for Muslim communities which already felt under pressure, but she said the country had to face up to “uncomfortable” problems.

Her report recommends a major new strategy to help bridge divides in UK towns and villages, with an “integration oath” to encourage immigrants to embrace British values.