Multiculturalism is dead. It took a fool like Lee Anderson to prove it
Metropolitan elites are wedded to a dogma that is harming those it is purported to defend
When it comes to the Lee Anderson fiasco, two observations stand out. The first is that Lee Anderson is a blockhead. The second is that the entire mainstream political class is terrified to confront the catastrophic failure of liberal multiculturalism and the consequent proliferation of Islamic fundamentalist enclaves that threaten Britain. The uneasy consequence is that Anderson is fast becoming an unlikely national hero. The truth is that many exasperated conservatives have welcomed his willingness to broach the “Islamism elephant in the room”.
Anderson’s claim on GB News that Islamists have “got control” of Sadiq Khan is presumably either born out of ignorance or downright anti-muslim prejudice. While Khan may be a shoddy mayor, to suggest that he is under the thumb of Islamists is ludicrous.
As far as Muslim fundamentalists are concerned, Khan is the consummate infidel figure. He was shortlisted as “Islamophobe of the year” by the Islamic Human Rights Commission for his efforts to proscribe the political wing of Hezbollah. He has received death threats and was branded an apostate for voting for gay marriage. He ignored Hamas sympathisers to light up City Hall with the colours of the Israeli flag after the Oct 7 massacre.
Anderson’s suggestion that Islamists control London misses the mark too. The problem is not that a powerful cabal of Islamists is running City Hall; it is that Islamic fundamentalists opposed to British values have become experts in gaming a broken system.
They have exploited the flawed liberal multiculturalist social model to create ghettos where sex-segregated restaurants, and madrassas that teach their students that dancing is inspired by the devil, are the daily reality. They have exploited the liberal policy of “community outreach” via a select number of unelected elders to amass control of local “ethnic” voting blocs and silence rival moderates.
They have become masters at invoking liberal values like tolerance, liberty and human rights in order to destroy them. This can be seen when it comes to the strategy of branding all criticism of Islamism as Islamophobic.
The term is routinely used by hardline Islamists to silence not just blowhards like Anderson but moderate Muslim voices too. Liberals lobbying to institutionalise the term have proved quite the useful idiots to extremists.
Despite the charges of Islamophobia that now threaten to engulf the Tories, it is not surprising that many MPS are terrified of a Red Wall backlash over Anderson’s ejection. As unsavoury as his comments were, they tap into a raw and rising sentiment that the political class still refuses to grapple with mass immigration, integration and Islamic fundamentalism.
As the West becomes sucked into a fresh Middle Eastern imbroglio, it is becoming clear that a crucial window to dismantle the fundamentalist networks in “peacetime” has been squandered. The Tories have failed to introduce legislation to block the foreign funding of mosques, for example. They have presided over a lethally defeatist Prevent antiterrorism strategy which, in its distinction between “vulnerable” and “dangerous”, effectively accepts that cancerous pockets of extremism are simply part of the corpus of the nation state, and the best we can hope for is to prevent benign threats from metastasising into malignant ones.
Such Tory impotence boils down to an unwillingness to abandon the failed multicultural model.
Alt-liberals may mock this mixedrace journalist for daring to make such a statement, just as multiculturalism’s advocates routinely decry Suella Braverman for having the brass to criticise the ideology despite her Mauritian and Kenyan heritage.
But in doing so, they betray a fascinating ignorance of their own liberal creed. Multiculturalism does not simply advocate a mixed society.
Rather it advocates the acceptance of culturally distinct micro-societies within the nation state, claiming not only that these enclaves can exist without disturbance to the general health of the nation, but that, through a vague process of “cultural enrichment”, it actively benefits the wider whole.
Too few liberals are willing to engage with the reality that this jaw-droppingly naive model goes a long way in explaining the incubation of extremism in certain communities and rising inter-community tensions. An oblivious and carnivalesque cult of multiculturalism – one that makes weekend pilgrimages to the hipster theme park of Brick Lane, while pretending ghettos of Lancashire and grooming neighbourhoods of Rochdale don’t exist – remains the civic religion of the London elite.
The truth is that many exasperated conservatives have welcomed Anderson’s willingness to broach the ‘Islamism elephant in the room’
Unless they fancy being usurped by the far-right, it is time conservatives moved decisively away from multiculturalism to what could yet prove an equally vibrant “melting pot” vision. It was famously articulated by Theodore Roosevelt – a president who conceived of the nation not as a fragmented kaleidoscope of microcultures but as a crucible in which citizens of diverse backgrounds are fused into a unified type.
The challenge for Britain embracing such a concept is that it would demand some serious soul searching on what it actually means to be British. And on this point we seem deeply lost. I am holding focus groups on Britishness as part of research for a book and have been struck by how ordinary people define Britishness (that is beyond quips about “British justice” rewarding criminals). The British “island” deposition, both expansively outward-looking and autonomous, is ill-understood and openly reviled by a metropolitan interior.
We lack confidence in our steadfast if nuanced values, our blend of idealism and conservative pragmatism which stands out in European history. Or our tendency to politeness balanced with an uncompromising celebration of freedom of speech. If we had a stronger sense of who we are, perhaps our politicians wouldn’t be so afraid to assert what our values are and demand that every citizen should respect them.
Instead of a serious national discussion of multiculturalism, Islamism and British identity, the British people have been treated to a tedious Westminster psychodrama that compels them to choose a side between an ignoramus like Lee Anderson, and the cowardly political mainstream. They deserve better.