Braverman: multicultural push is recipe for disaster
Immigrants must ‘embrace and respect’ British values just like my parents did, says Home Secretary
AN UNCHECKED drive towards multiculturalism without successful integration is a recipe for disaster, the Home Secretary warned yesterday.
Suella Braverman insisted that immigrants must “embrace and respect” British values and actively play a part in their new communities.
At the first National Conservatism Conference in London, Ms Braverman told the story of her parents’ arrivals from Kenya and Mauritius.
“Integration was part of the quid pro quo,” she said. “That didn’t mean eradicating their own heritage, but it did mean adopting British identity.
“My parents came here through legal and controlled migration. They spoke the language. They threw themselves into the community. They embraced British values.
“As Douglas Murray, another of your distinguished guests, has eloquently said, the British identity isn’t simply interchangeable with liberal values.
“Britishness is so much more than that, some of it unquantifiable, but all of it is to be celebrated and cherished. An unexamined drive towards multiculturalism as an end in itself, combined with identity politics, is a recipe for communal disaster.”
She emphasised the importance of all immigrants learning to speak English, as well as adapting to wider “norms and mores” in society. “Above all, they cannot simply turn up and say: ‘I live here now, you have to look after me’.”
Brexit
Ms Braverman said she and her fellow Tories were sceptical towards experts and “self-appointed gurus”, arguing their assessment of what was best for the country is often at odds with public opinion.
“Those prognosticators of doom who said that Brexit would be an economic catastrophe for the UK – not only were they wrong, they demonstrated a profound ignorance of the British people when they attributed their legitimate desire to regain national sovereignty as some mix of stupidity and xenophobia.”
Describing herself as a proud “Spartan” – one of the Tory MPS who voted against Theresa May’s Brexit deal on three occasions – she said she backed Leave “to control migration”. Ms Braverman called for Britain to train enough of its own manual labourers, including HGV drivers and fruit pickers, to reduce net migration.
She said: “Brexit enables us to build a high-skilled, high wage economy that is less dependent on low-skilled foreign labour. That was our 2019 manifesto pledge and what we must deliver.”
In a challenge to Rishi Sunak to deliver on this promise, she said: “We need to get overall immigration numbers down. And we mustn’t forget how to do things for ourselves.”
Party unity
While the conference and a separate event organised by supporters of Boris Johnson last weekend have been interpreted as a blow to Mr Sunak’s authority as Tory leader, Ms Braverman stressed the need for unity in her party.
“One way that we Conservatives must distinguish ourselves from the Left is by not devouring ourselves through fratricide,” she told delegates. “Free market Conservatism is not the enemy of national Conservatism.”
Ms Braverman argued her party must not forget the importance of capitalism, nor “abandon” individuals and communities to market forces. “It is on Conservatives to find a prudent balance, not pick a side and start shooting,” she said.
Policing
Ms Braverman defended the policing of the Coronation, during which 64 arrests were made, including six anti-monarchy protesters from the Republic group.
She said: “The nation and millions of people around the world valued and respected what it saw in Westminster Abbey. And I was determined that they should be able to do so. The people’s right to freely enjoy that day trumped any claim of reckless, selfish people that they should be free to disrupt whatever they want, without consequence.”
Political correctness
In a rebuke to political correctness, Ms Braverman doubled down on her use of language after saying grooming gang members are “almost all British-pakistani”. “The ethnicity of grooming gangs, and the perpetrators of those gangs, is the sort of fact that has become unfashionable in some quarters, much like the fact that 100 per cent of women do not have a penis,” she said.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said last month “99.9 per cent of women” did not have a penis. Ms Braverman went on to joke: “We can’t rule him out from running to be Labour’s first female prime minister.”