MIGRATION, IDENTITY AND CITIZENSHIP

APPROACHES FOR ADDRESSING CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN

21
ST
CENTURY BRITAIN



Dr. Nasar Meer and Prof. Tariq Modood
Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship
University of Bristol, United Kingdom





J uly 2009











EMILIE - A European approach to multicultural citizenship: Legal, political and educational challenges.
EMILIE is a three-year research project funded by the European Commission Research DG, Sixth Framework
Programme (2006-2009).

1
EMILIE
A European Approach to Multicultural Citizenship.
Legal, Political and Educational Challenges

EMILIE examines the migration and integration experiences of nine EU Member States and
attempts to respond to the so-called crisis of multiculturalism currently affecting Europe.
EMILIE studies the challenges posed by migration-related diversity in three important areas:
Education; Discrimination in the workplace; Voting rights and civic participation, in Belgium,
Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Spain and the UK. EMILIE aims to
track the relationship between post-immigration diversity and citizenship, i.e. multicultural
citizenship, across these EU countries, and to identify what kind(s) of, if any, multicultural
citizenship is emerging and whether there is/are distinctive European pattern(s). EMILIE
Project s, Events and Research Briefs are available at http://emilie.eliamep.gr

The Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) is the coordinating
institution of the EMILIE consortium. EMILIE Partners include the University of Bristol, the
University of Aarhus, the University of Liege, the Centre for International Relations (CMR)
in Warsaw, the Latvian Centre for Human Rights, the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in
Barcelona, the European University Viadrina, in Frankfurt a.O., the National Institute of
Demographic Studies (INED) in Paris.

The University of Bristol is a world-class university with centres of excellence in all faculties.
The Faculty of Social Sciences and Law has an excellent, internationally-renowned research
profile with strong links to institutions, organisations, networks and research councils
throughout the world. The Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, founded in 1999,
is one of the leading European research centres in the field of diversity and multiculturalism,
with a special focus on Muslim ethno-religious minorities. In 2009 it completes a 5 year
Leverhulme programme of 1m (jointly with University College London) which comprised of
8 projects on migration, integration and national identity. It is a leading partner in two FP6
projects: EMILIE; and Multicultural democracy and migrants social capital in Europe:
Participation, organisational networks and public policies at the local level
(LOCALMULTIDEM), as well as participating on the Descartes Prize winning European
Survey. It is about to start work on Finding a Place for Islam: Cultural Interactions between
Muslim Immigrants and Receiving Societies in Europe (EURISLAM), a FP7 six countries
project jointly led by Bristol.

Tariq MODOOD is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy and the founding
Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol,
UK. He is also the co-founding editor of the international journal, Ethnicities. He is a regular
contributor to the media and policy debates, was awarded a MBE for services to social
sciences and ethnic relations in 2001 and elected a member of the Academy of Social
Sciences in 2004. He has authored or co-authored sixteen books and over a hundred articles
and chapters. His most recent publications include Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea (Polity,
2007) and Multicultural Politics: Racism, Ethnicity and Muslims in Britain (Minnesota and
Edinburgh University Presses, 2005); his co-edited books include Multiculturalism, Muslims
and Citizenship: A European Approach (Routledge, 2006); Secularism, Religion and
Multicultural Citizenship, Foreword by Charles Taylor (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Nasar MEER (PhD) is a lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the
University of Southampton. He was previously at the University of Bristol and a
visiting fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University. He is the author
of Identity, Citizenship and the Politics of Multiculturalism (Palgrave-Macmillan),
and is co-editor of a Palgrave book series on Citizenship.
2

Contents

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................6
Setting the Scene - Understanding Current Debates..................................6
Figures on immigration..............................................................................................8
Figure 1: Inflow and outflow figures 1966 2002................................................9
Current figures on ethnic and religious British-minorities........................................9
Figure 2: British population by ethnicity...............................................................9

CHAPTER ONE.....10
Past and Present Immigration Policies: J ewish, Commonwealth and EU migrants11
Institutional setting regarding integration.................................................13
Anti-discrimination formulas...................................................................................13
Race-Relations legislation...................................................................................13
Article 14 Treaty of Amsterdam..........................................................................14
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) .............................................15
Human Rights Act 1998.......................................................................................15
Incitement to religious hatred legislation.............................................................15
Minority organisations.............................................................................................16
Muslim council of Britain....................................................................................16
Board of Deputies of British J ews.......................................................................16
Labour Party Black Sections................................................................................17
The NUJ Black Members' Council (BMC)..........................................................17
Anti-racist and multicultural Education...................................................17
Multicultural Education...........................................................................................17
Anti-racist Education...............................................................................................18
Voluntary Aided Status and religious schools..........................................19
Media discourse........................................................................................20

CHAPTER TWO....................................................................................23
Developments in British multicultural citizenship...................................23
British multicultural citizenship...............................................................24
Local Multicultural citizenship................................................................................24
Multicultural crisis and Muslim exceptionality?......................................25
A re-balancing retreat or outright rejection?..........................................28
Multiculture or communitarian multiculturalism?..............................29
The national case: Racial Equality and Incitement to Religious Hatred..31
Problem of Muslim heterogeneity...........................................................................32
Incitement to religious hatred..................................................................................33
Figure 1. Public and media discourse toward legislation....................................35
Race and religion are different phenomena...........................................................35
Race and religion are not always separable.............................................................36
Making concessions after the Iraq war ....................................................................36
Parity with other minority faiths..............................................................................37
The Danish cartoon affair and the decision not to reprint the images......38
3
Responsibility and gratuitous offence...................................................................38
British traditions distinct from Europe....................................................................40
Fear of Muslim response..........................................................................................41
Importation or reference to European discourses....................................................43
British Politicians responses....................................................................................44
Where they were shown...........................................................................................44
Broadcast media.......................................................................................................45
Conclusions...............................................................................................46

CHAPTER THREE................................................................................48
Education and migration related diversity................................................48
Preliminary background............................................................................48
Fg. 1. The ethnic minority composition of Primary and Secondary school pupils..49
Fg. 2. The geographic distribution of Britains ethnic minority pupils...................51
Anti-Racist and multicultural educational practice..................................52
Difference and divergence...................................................................................53
The Swann Commission......................................................................................54
Legacies and Current Practice.............................................................................57
Issue 1: Awareness and practice of anti-racist and multicultural education............57
Issue 2: the positive fact of diversity.....................................................................60
Issue 3: current challenges.......................................................................................61
Citizenship Education in Britain...............................................................64
Key recommendations.........................................................................................64
Faith schools.............................................................................................67
Voluntary Aided Faith Schools.............................................................................68
Current Policy..........................................................................................................69
What are the motivations for Muslim schools?.......................................................71
Holistic Education................................................................................................71
Separation of sexes..............................................................................................73
Specialist Training...............................................................................................74
Ethnocentric curricula..........................................................................................75
Low educational attainment.................................................................................75
Form and structure of schools..................................................................................77
Registration..........................................................................................................77
Conclusions...............................................................................................78

CHAPTER FOUR...................................................................................80
Migration and Discrimination...................................................................80
Current legislation and application...........................................................81
The incorporation of EC Directives.........................................................................83
Harmonising different commissions and legislation................................89
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) .................................................90
Single Equalities Act (SEA) ....................................................................................94
Britain and Europe in the ways forward?.................................................96

CHAPER FIVE.......................................................................................99
Migration and Political Participation........................................................99
4
Political rights...........................................................................................99
Political participation conceived as an exercise of franchise.................101
Ethnic minority voter registration..........................................................................101
Figure 1: Reasons for not voting in the 2001 general election. .........................102
Ethnic minority voting behaviour..........................................................................104
Figure 2: Self-ed levels of turnout in 2005 relative to registration....................105
Figure 3: Voting patterns by ethnic group in the 2005 General Election...106
Text Box 1 - I took the Muslim vote for granted...........................................107
Satisfaction in electoral systems and representation..............................................108
The rise of the Far Right........................................................................................109
Political representation and the role of parties.......................................110
Text Box 2 David Cameron speech to Ethnic Media Conference.....................112
Labour party black sections...................................................................................113
Case study of ethnic minority political participation: ............................115
Figure 5: Ethnic minority MPs elected according to party................................116
Candidature Selection............................................................................................116
Text Box 3 - Rushanara Ali, Labour Party Parliamentary Candidate................117
Text Box 4 Historical ethnic minority figures in Parliament..........................118
The House of Lords...............................................................................................119
Text Box 5: Baroness Lola Youngs Story:.......................................................120
Conclusions.............................................................................................121

CHAPTER SIX.....................................................................................122
Conceiving contemporary British citizenship........................................122
Citizens and non citizens........................................................................123
Liberal and Civic citizenship..................................................................125
Enabling citizenship through anti-discrimination..................................127
Enabling citizenship through recognition...............................................128
Localism..................................................................................................130
Religion, Secularism, Toleration and Equality.......................................131
Post-multicultural Citizenship?..............................................................133
Present political orientations to diversity in Britain...............................135

Bibliography..............................................................................................................138
Appendices I-IV..........................................................................................................148
5
INTRODUCTION
Setting the Scene - Understanding Current Debates
The issue of immigration carries a long and varied history in Britain and is rarely
absent from public and political discourse (Kushner, 2003). Although it fluctuates in
saliency, public polling consistently ranks it (coupled with race-relations) as one of
the three most important issues deemed to be facing the country,
1
whilst the main
opposition party has canvassed on a moderate to strong anti-immigration manifesto
for the last two general elections (Norton, 2006). This saliency has persisted
throughout a process of EU [27] Enlargement
2
that has witnessed the arrival of at least
300,000 people including, amongst others, 129,400 Polish, 44,300 Slovakian and
22,555 Czech migrants since 2004.
3
The number of arrivals are higher than in any
other EU [15] receiving country because the UK (along with Ireland and Sweden) did
not place restrictions on immigration under the terms of EU accession, choosing
instead to require these migrants to register on obtaining work.
The UK ratified the Treaty of Accession in April 2006 with the adoption of the
European Union (Accessions) Act, and as Bulgarian and Romanian accession neared
4

(and with it further eligibility of free entry) the saliency of this issue increased. To be
sure, and amidst increasing public anxieties and predictions of between 60,000 to
140,000 entrants from these two countries, the Government restricted labour market
access (the Act allows it to regulate or restrict the free movement of Bulgarian and
Romanian workers), and introduced a work permits system prioritising key entry for
key skills (Elliott, 2006). Indeed, the day after the EU confirmed the entry of
Bulgaria and Romania, public and media discourse has been rife with speculation
over the potential numbers of migrant entry. Accordingly, the front page of one
national news paper captured and promoted these fears with the picture of a long
queue for entry papers in Bucharest, under the headline: Thousands queue for new
life in Britain. It continued by claiming that a stampede for passports to a new life

1
Since the two issues are intertwined as discussed below. See MORI Political Monitor:
Long Term trends-The Most Important Issues facing Britain Today available at:
http://www.mori.com/polls/trends/issues.shtml
2
EU9: The European Community in 1980 (France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands,
Luxemburg, UK, Denmark and Ireland); EU15: The European Union in 2003 (EU9 plus
Spain, Portugal, Greece, Sweden, Finland and Austria); EU25: The European Union in 2004
(EU15 plus the A10); EU27: The European Union after Bulgarian and Romanian accession;
A10 The ten countries that joined the EU in May 2004 (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia and Slovenia); A8: The eight Central and
Eastern European countries of the A10 (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia); A2: Bulgaria and Romania, who joined in 2007.
www.europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/in dex_en.htm
3
see EU Migration The Guardian, 2 September 2006, pp: 22-23 and Sriskandarajah and
Road (2005) Rising Numbers, Rising Anxieties Institute for Public Policy Research:
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/print.cfm?ID=306
4
Forming part of the Helsinki group of applicants, which also included Latvia, Lithuania,
Slovakia and Malta, there was some ambiguity over whether these two countries sufficiently
met the criteria for membership set out by the European Council in Copenhagen (1993) which
included i) democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for minorities; ii) a
functioning market economy and the capacity to cope with competitive pressures of the
internal European market; iii) the ability to take on the obligations of membership and apply
the EUs rules and policies. See www.europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/in dex_en.htm
6
in Britain began just minutes after our borders were thrown open to Bulgaria and
Romania.
5
Within recent history similar fears and debates have arisen with reference to post-
war Commonwealth immigration from the Caribbean, South Asia and East Africa
and, relatedly, the terms of settlement and ensuing policies and public discourse
surrounding integration, identity and citizenship. One immediate difference between
then and now, however, is that since the 1950s, immigrant has for many people been
synonymous with coloured immigrant, with the effect that issues of immigration,
race and multiculturalism have become entangled. This is not to suggest that new,
ostensibly White, migrants are not subject to processes of racialization, but that in
the past the existence of the British-Empire and knowledge of colonial subjects has
marked the debate on immigration in a way it is less likely to now.
This is because the UK differs from her European counterparts in her status as a
former Empire that afforded onetime colonial subjects an extension of citizenship;
guaranteeing unrestricted entry during an era of post-war reconstruction.
6
This
idiosyncratic colonial hangover has historically informed an interaction between
debates on immigration, race, ethnicity, and citizenship, all of which have
characterised the understanding and practice of what multiculturalism in Britain
denotes and prescribes. For example, although the UK lacks an official Multicultural
Act in the way of Australia or Canada (CMEB, 2000), the idea of integration being
based upon a programme of cultural assimilation was something consciously
rejected over 40 years ago. The then Labour home secretary Roy J enkins' (1966)
classic definition of integration as involving not a flattening process of assimilation
but equal opportunity accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual
tolerance, has given rise to a unique tradition of multicultural drift (CMEB, 2000:
11) where many multicultural policies are pursued by local council and municipal
authorities (discussed in section 5 with reference to debates on education), though
there is also evidence of some national steering and statecraft.
Examples of the latter include legislative instruments such as amendments to the
and The Motor-Cycle Crash Helmets (Religious Exemption) Act (1976), which
modified the Road Traffic Act (1972) by declaring that it shall not apply to followers
of the Sikh religion while he is wearing a Turban (cited in Poulter 1998: 297). This
is complimented by legal precedents establishing the basis to protect the rights of
J ewish and Sikh minorities to wear religious specific attire in educational and
employment settings (cf. Seide v. Gillette Industries Ltd, 1980; Morgan v. CSC &
British Library, 1990; Mandla v. Dowell Lee, 1983; Dhanjal v. British Steel plc,
1994), as well as the promotion of racial and ethnic monitoring in order to evaluate
the extent of minority representation at various levels throughout society (discussed in
Section 4). Other examples of statecraft can be found in the words of the countys
leaders, including the former Foreign Secretarys comment that Britains pluralism is
not a burden we must reluctantly accept. It is an immense asset that contributes to the
cultural and economic vitality of our nation (Cook, 2001). Whilst the present Labour
government declared its commitment to creating a country where every colour is a
good colour and where racial diversity is celebrated (cited in CMEB, 2000: 40).

5
Thousands queue for a new life in Britain Daily Mail, 26 September, 2006 available at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=407167&in_pa
ge_id=1770&ct=5
6
This raises a basic comparative question in this study by asking how the UK differs in this
respect from other former European Empires in their extension of citizenship to former
colonial subjects.
7
Additionally, the Prime Minister declared in March 2000 that [t]his nation has been
formed by a particularly rich complex of experiences How can we separate out the
Celtic, the Roman, the Saxon, the Norman, the Huguenot, the J ewish, the Asian and
the Caribbean and all the other nations that have come and settled here? Why should
we want to? It is precisely this rich mix that has made all of us what we are today
(Blair 2000). In a similar vein, the former Tory leader William Hague stated that
Britain is a nation of immigrants (Daily Telegraph 13 October 2000), whilst
attending the annual, and predominantly West-Indian influenced, Notting Hill
Carnival street festival. The current leader of the Conservative party, David
Cameron, has followed suit in promoting an A-list of future parliamentary
candidates that includes ethnic minorities.
Increasingly, however, the idea of multiculturalism as a public policy goal has
been subject to significant rhetorical criticism that has, since the fall-out from 9/11
and the London Bombings, culminated in a confused retreat (Modood, 2006: 48)
epitomised by the work of prominent centre-Left activists such as David Goodhart
(2004) and his widely disseminated essay (Too Diverse?) critiquing both
immigration and multicultural policies. Other critique has been much more vitriolic
which, whilst not unusual from the centre-Right, after 7/7 was joined from the
pluralistic centre-left, and was articulated by people who previously rejected
polarising models of race and class and were sympathetic to the rainbow, coalitional
politics of identity and the realignment and redefinition of progressive forces that it
implied (Modood, 2005).
7

Sometimes this has been undertaken by proxy through an increased questioning of
Muslim loyalties and objections to Muslim claims-making, often on the grounds that
Muslims are neither willing to integrate in into society nor adopt its operative,
political values. It is equally true that this retreat was already signalled in the
aftermath to riots involving minority communities in the northern towns of Bradford,
Burnley, and Oldham in the summer of 2001 (Hussain and Bagguley, 2005). These
events reinvigorated debates about race, immigration, and national identity, instigated
by concerns that white and minority groups in some places lived parallel lives
(Cantle, 2002), and propelled British-Muslims to the very centre of public discourse.
Concomitantly, the focus of integration policies soon shifted from multiculturalism to
community cohesion, understood as essential in improving contact between different
cultures and promoting a greater sense of citizenship. To this end, the government
strategy Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society (2005) lays out the most
recent thinking on creating equal opportunities for ethnic minorities and fostering
cohesion between different communities.
8

Figures on immigration
Figure 1 summarises the inflow and outflow data for the years 1993-2002 to show
that since the early 1990s there has been a consistent pattern of overall net gains with
rising net losses of British nationals being met with an intake of foreign nationals. It
shows that the foreign national population (FNP) in the UK (all nationals who do not
have British nationality) has almost doubled since 1984 from 1.55 million to around
2.87 million, or 5% of the total population of 59.3 million. The largest FNP group in

7
See Modood (2005) Remaking multiculturalism after 7/7 available at:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-terrorism/multiculturalism_2879.jsp
8
Available at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/improving-opportunity-strat
8
the UK continues to be Irish and, taken together, nationals from other European
countries (not just the EU) make up half of the total FNP (1.2 million), plus
significant numbers coming from India (159,000) and Pakistan (76,000), the United
States (135,000), South Africa (99,000), and Australia (76,000).
Figure 1: Inflow and outflow figures 1966 2002

Source: International Passenger Survey and Office for National Statistics


Since the EU [25] Accession process began in 2004, when the government predicted
between 5000 to 13000 new EU Member State migrants would arrive per year,
between May and December 2004 the UK received 133,000 applications under the
Worker Registration Scheme. Of those applicants, 40% (53,200) were already in the
country before May 2004 (some of whom may have been working illegally). By the
2006 the total figure of foreign-nationals in the UK has risen to include 129,400
Polish, 44,300 Slovakian and 22,555 Czech migrants.
Between 1993 and 2002, citizenship was granted to 736.205 people. Of the
139.350 people granted citizenship in 2003, 32% were from Africa, 24% from the
Indian subcontinent, 14% from European countries outside the EEC area, 8% from the
Americas and 5% from the Middle East (Dudley and Woollacott, 2004).

Current figures on ethnic and religious British-minorities
Reflecting the more than 200 languages spoken (CMEB, 2000: 236), the 2001
Census revealed that the British population is more ethnically diverse than ever
before. Figure 2 sets out the ethnic composition:

Figure 2: British population by ethnicity


Ethnicity

Number

Born
Overseas

% of total
population

% of all ethnic
minorities

Total
Population

58.789.194

4.900.000

100



White

54.153.898

92.4


Irish

691.000 1,0

1.0

9

All ethnic
minorities

4.635.296

7.9



Mixed

677.117

1.15

11.0

All black

1.148.738

1.95


Black Caribbean

565.876

238.000

1.0

13.6

Black African

485.277

322.000

0.9

12.9

Black Other

97.585

0.1

1.5

All Asian

2.331.423

3.97


Indian

1.053.411

570.000

1.7

21.7

Pakistani

747.285

336.000

1.3

16.7

Bangladeshi

283.063

152.000

0.5

6.1

Chinese

247.403

176.000

0.42

4.2

Other Asian

247.664

0.4

4.7

Other Ethnic

230.615

0.39

7.4
Source: Census 2001

Alongside the ethnic breakdown the Census s that there are at least 1.6 million people
in the United Kingdom who currently describe their religious faith as Islam. This
represents 2.9% of the British population, and makes Islam the most populous faith
after Christianity (72%); more numerous than Hinduism (less than 1%, numbering
559, 000), Sikhism (336, 000), J udaism (267, 000) and Buddhism (152, 000). Of the
Muslim constituency, 42.5% are of Pakistani origin, 16.8% of Bangladeshi, 8.5% of
Indian, and most interestingly 7.5% of other white. This is largely taken to mean
people of Turkish; Arabic and North-African ethnic origin who do not define
themselves in racial terms. It will also however include East European Muslims from
Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as white Muslims from across Europe. Black-African
(6.2), Other Asian (5.8) and British (4.1) dominate the remaining categories of ethnic
identification in the census options. Even with this heterogeneity, it is still
understandable if inadequate- that Muslims in Britain are associated first and
foremost with a South Asian background, especially since they make up roughly 68%
of the British Muslim population.
Britains ethnic minority communities are not equally distributed but concentrated
in England (95.5% as 9% of the population). In 2001, 45% of the ethnic minority
population resided in Greater London (19% of all residents) and another 8 % in region
South East of London. 13% live in the West Midlands (conurbation of Birmingham),
8 % in the North West (Liverpool, Lancashire), 7% in Yorkshire and Humberside
(Newcastle) and 6.3% in the East Midlands, mainly Leicester, where they represent a
third of the population. There are 23 constituencies with an ethnic minority population
between 40.5% (Vauxhall) and 66.3% (East Harrow) (ONS, 2003). 85% of all
refugees and asylum seekers reside in London or the South West. Immigrants and
ethnic minorities form distinct, recognisable communities.
10


CHAPTER ONE
Past and Present Immigration Policies: Jewish, Commonwealth and
EU migrants.
The British response to different cycles of immigration is characterised by an
inconsistent series of progressive and regressive measures aimed at restricting,
encouraging and managing newcomers. The most apparent discursive shift in the
legislation concerns its change of focus from economic migrant to asylum seeker.
Key examples and measures include J ewish Migration from Europe between 1870
and 1914. This reached 120,000 so that prior to WWI the J ewish population of
Britain was estimated to number 300,000 (Gartner, 1973: 30; Pollins, 1982: 130). This
included destitute newcomers fleeing both the Pogroms and economic deprivation in
Russia as well as established British J ews who, through organisations such as the
J ewish Board of Guardians (J BG), Board of Deputies of British J ews, and J ewish Free
Schools (J FS), operated as the main provision of welfare to these newcomers.
Concentrated in areas of Leeds and the East End of London, they arrived with little
capital and possessions, and were considered visibly different to their settled British-
J ewish counterparts (Lipman, 1990: 48) who were in some respects politically and
socially established. In response, and contrived amidst a climate of anti-Semitism, the
first UK immigration restrictions introduced in the 1905 Aliens Act denied entry to
undesirable foreigners from outside the British Empire. Amended as the Aliens
Restriction Act (1914) with increased powers to prohibit or deport immigrants on the
grounds of national security, it was further amended after the War through the Aliens
Order (1920) allowing the refusal of entry (or subsequent deportation) of those
considered unable to support themselves. Additionally, and for the first time, it
furnished the Home Secretary with the powers to deport immigrants not considered to
be conducive to the public good.
Some years later the 1948 British Nationality Act granted freedom of movement
to all formerly or presently dependent, and now Commonwealth, territories
(irregardless of whether their passports were issued by independent or colonial states)
by creating the status of Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC).
Until they acquired one or other of the national citizenships in these post-colonial
countries, these formerly British subjects continued to retain their British status.
One outcome was Caribbean Immigration for, as bearers of CUKC, migrants from
the Caribbean were invited and recruited to assist in post-war reconstruction. During
Winston Churchills post-war Caribbean tour, for example, he famously appealed to
J amaicans to Come and help rebuild you Motherland! (quoted in Murphy, 1989:
88), whilst London Transport and the British Hotels and Restaurants Association set
up recruiting offices in Barbados (ibid). Annual arrivals from 1948 to 1952 numbered
under 27,550. For several reasons including the United States Immigration and
Nationality Act (INA) (1952) (also known as the McCarran-Walter Act) curbing
Caribbean emigration to the US; economic and political instability accompanying
immediate decolonization; and the growing threat of immigration legislation in
Britain, a dominant view arose that prospective immigrants had to leave the
Caribbean immediately to beat the ban (Hiro, 1991) - or not at all. By 1960
annual arrivals rose to 49,650 before increasing to 66,300 during the following year.
11
By the time the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act was introduced the number had
decreased to 31,800. Soon after arrivals from the Caribbean numbered only 3,241 in
1963, but peaked at 14,848 in 1965 before falling rapidly to less than 10,000 in the
average year. By 1976 the Caribbean immigrant and post-immigrant population had
reached half a million people.
The aforementioned 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act contravened the
principle of free entry for CUKC persons and introduced work voucher quotas. It
continued to permit free entry only to those CUKC whose passports had been issued
in Britain and not by a dependent or protectorate territory. Set against a background
of electoral and party politics, this legislation was informed by a public hostility that
had in some cases led to white-on-black mob violence (witnessed in the murder of the
Antiguan immigrant Kelso Cochrane and the related anti-immigrant Notting Hill riots
of 1958). This legislation was further amended in 1964 to restrict non-skilled workers
from obtaining work permits (Shukrah, 1998; Hiro, 1991; Steel, 1969).
Other key migratory groups included South Asian and East African Immigrants.
The effect of the 1962 Act on immigration from the Indian sub-continent was similar
to that from the Caribbean. Although migration fromSouth Asia dates back to the
settlement of service men and lascars (seamen recruited by British East India
Company) after WWI & WWII (Ansari, 2004; Visram, 1986), it did not witness mass
migration until ten years after Caribbean immigration when knowledge of impending
restrictions and a silimar effort to beat the ban led to an abrupt rise in the number of
Indian and Pakistani arrivals. Figures dramatically increased from 8400 in 1960 to
48,850 in 1961 with a similar number for the first half of 1962 (Hiro, 1991: 114).
Those unable to migrate applied for work vouchers though an economic downturn
meant that only 22% of those issued were utilized during the first year of the
legislation (ibid.). Primary immigration from the Indian subcontinent soon
outnumbered that from the Caribbean with Indian, Pakistani and later Bangladeshi
immigration continuing well into the 1970s where it stood at about one million.
Concurrently (up until 1981), the displacement of African-Asians from the newly
independent African states, especially Uganda, Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania would
eventually see the migration of 155,000 African-Asians to Britain.
Later, the 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act restricted the unqualified right
of British passport holding former dependents to enter the UK whilst the 1971
Immigration Act implemented a combination of ius soli (citizenship by territory) and
ius sanguine (citizenship by descent) in order to severely curtail primary
Commonwealth immigration by establishing a partiality clause (or the right to
abode) as the legal basis of rightful belonging. Instead of replacing the CUKC with
an exclusive definition of British citizenship, the Act put Commonwealth immigrants
on the same legal footing as other aliens whilst prioritising entry from the old
Commonwealth if people from Australia, Canada and New Zealand could
demonstrate British lineage (and others such as Anglo-Indians).
The 1981 Nationality Act later withdrew a right to settlement to most
Commonwealth citizens. Other follow-ups introduced visa requirements (1986),
regulated asylum applications and appeals (1993) or dealt with illegal employment
(1996), and the Immigration and Asylum Act (1999) established the National Asylum
Support Service (NASS) which offers a cash-only weekly allowance or a support
package that includes accommodation to those applicants deemed legitimate in their
request for political asylum. In the past asylum seekers were largely free to choose
where to live, had access to benefits and were entitled to work, but with rising
numbers of applications restrictions were imposed. This Act also introduced a strategy
12
of dispersal throughout the country, collective accommodation and minimum
provisions. As a consequence, asylum seekers are sometimes isolated from
communities of co-nationals and organisations which tend to be concentrated in
London. The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act (2002) made official the
unofficial use of the safe country lists so that applicants who arrived from any of
these could have their applications certified as unfounded with no in-country right of
appeal. A further 2002 law restricted asylum applicants from working or undertaking
vocational training until they received a positive decision. This means that asylum
seekers who do not apply for NASS support as soon as practicable are left destitute.
The Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004 reinforced the
government's ability to process applications, and to detain and remove asylum seekers
with greater speed.
As a result, the detention of asylum seekers has become more prevalent in the last
few years because of security concerns and the governments desire to check an
applicant's identity and control those who are believed more likely to abscond.
Detention capacity has grown from approximately 250 spaces 10 years ago to over
2,000 spaces presently. As of December 2003, there were 1615 persons recorded as
being in detention solely under Immigration Act powers. Of these 1285 were asylum
seekers, 120 of whom were being detained in prisons. Detention is often a tool used
prior to removal. The number of removals has been increasing in recent years as part
of a Home Office effort to make sure asylum seekers whose applications are rejected
leave the UK. By 2003, the number of removals had doubled to 64,390, 20 % (or
13,000) were asylum applicants whose cases were denied.
Finally, EU and other European Migration has increased dramatically as already
outlined in sections 1 and 2. It is worth noting that the government limited the access
to the social benefits system for all new and existing EU Member State citizens, and
saw labor migration from the new EU Member States as a way of filling existing job
vacancies and to reduce the pool of undocumented workers. The majority of recent
migrants are working in low-paid jobs in sectors such as hospitality and catering,
administration, and construction. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of these
migrants plan to return home, though this is a common theme amongst primary
immigrants and has been characterised in Anwars (1979) work amongst South Asian
immigrants as forming the myth of return.

Institutional setting regarding integration
Anti-discrimination formulas
Race-Relations legislation
There has been legislation in United Kingdom outlawing discrimination on racial
grounds since the mid-sixties. Conceived in response to the sorts of racial conflict
witnessed in the anti-immigrant violence of the late 1950s in Notting Hill, and the fear
of potential future conflict (Shakur, 1998), the Race Relations Act 1965 introduced
relatively moderate legislation outlawing discrimination based upon colour, race,
nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins, but not on grounds of
religion or belief - in access to premises open to the public such as hotels, bars and
restaurants. Three years later, and running parallel to the aforementioned
Commonwealth Immigration Act 1968, an additional Race Relations Act (1968)
extended protection to employment, housing, education and the provision of further
13
goods, facilities and services. The main legislation currently in force is the Race
Relations Act 1976, as amended in 2000, which provides individuals with the right to
bring civil proceedings for discrimination, defines permitted positive action
9
,
established the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), and covers all areas of
employment, education, housing and, more recently, urban planning.
The major innovations include a distinction between direct and indirect
discrimination, access for individuals to courts, and the introduction of remedies such
as financial compensation. In addition, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) -
which has a national as well as regional reach through various Race Equality Councils
is furnished with the power to conduct formal investigations as well as to assist
individual complainants.
This legislation was substantially strengthened by the Race Relations
(Amendment) Act 2000
10
after the inquiry into the London Metropolitan Police
investigation of the murdered Black teenager Stephen Lawrence (MacPherson , 1999),
which extended its scope to cover nearly all functions of public authorities (for the
first time including the police but still excluding the immigration service),
simultaneously widening the remit of the statutory duty of public authorities to
promote race equality.
All public authorities now have a general duty to promote race equality which
requires them to eliminate racial discrimination, promote equality of opportunity, and
to promote good race relations. There are also specific duties such as the
implementation of a written policy on race equality, perhaps as part of an overall
policy; an assessment of the impact of new and current policies on ethnic minority
staff, students and other service users, the monitoring of recruitment and progression
of ethnic minority staff and students, and monitoring grievance, disciplinary,
appraisal, staff development and termination procedures by ethnicity. The Secretary
of State is also empowered to impose specific duties on key listed public authorities.
Broadly, these selected authorities must publish a Race Equalities Scheme and meet
specific employment duties (the scheme is effectively a strategy and action plan).

Article 14 Treaty of Amsterdam
The RRA has now been further amended by the Race Relations (Amendment)
Regulations 2003, which transposed the EC Race Directives that emerged from
Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam. The EC Employment Directive, meanwhile,
established a general framework for equal treatment in employment with respect to
religion or belief (in addition to disability, age or sexual orientation). This begins to
address a legislative disparity in affording Muslims and other religious minorities
protection from direct discrimination in the same way that legal precedent and case
law have achieved for J ewish and Sikh minorities. In the past the ethnic
heterogeneity of Muslims in Britain has been deemed sufficient to disqualify them
from being recognised as an ethnic or racial grouping within the application of Race
Relations legislation and the legal precedents it has established. This is despite the
fact that Sikhs, through conversion, can incorporate different ethnic groupings and
that J ewish minorities in Britain do incorporate Ashkenazi J ews from Poland, Berber

9
The duty given to public authorities, under section 71(1) of the Race Relations Act 1976, to
have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination and to promote equality of
opportunity and good relations between people from different racial groups. See
http://www.cre.gov.uk/duty/grr/glossary.html
10
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000034.htm
14
J ews from Algeria and African J ews from Ethiopia - all of whom may have different
languages, customs and cultures, and yet are rightly protected against racial
discrimination as J ewish minorities. Since the EC Employment Directive does not go
beyond the sphere of employment, however, it fails to offer the same levels of
protections afforded under present Race Relations legislation. Moreover, it is also
weaker because it lacks a statutory positive action duty for public authorities to
ensure equality, and so is therefore weaker than the CRE codes of practice and the
protections afforded under the 2000 RRA amendments discussed above.

Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
In May 2004 the government published a white paper setting out its proposals for
the establishment of a Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR). This
now has overall responsibility in the UK for promoting equality and enforcing anti-
discrimination laws on all of the grounds mentioned in Article 13 of the Treaty
Amsterdam, as well as promoting (but not enforcing) the narrow provisions of the
Human Rights Act and international human rights conventions. The former chair of
the CRE (Trevor Phillips), an outspoken critic of multiculturalism and an advocate of
cohesion style integration, was been appointed to head the new body.

Human Rights Act 1998
The UK lacks the sort of written Constitution common amongst its European
neighbours. The application of the Human Rights Act (giving further effect to the
rights and freedoms guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights
(ECHR)) fulfils a minimal function by laying down the principal of rights for
everyone irregardless of citizenship or any other legal or political status (Stephens,
2000). In practice, therefore, the HRA has mainly impacted upon asylum
applications, and in particular on the way applicants are treated inside the UK under
the NASS provisions. Another area its impact has been felt follows the banning of a
number of immigrant associations after introduction of the Prevention of Terrorism
Act (2000) and the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001) in the wake of
9/11. Using the HRA it has been argued that entire immigrant communities have
been put under surveillance and thereby intimidated, discriminated and limited in their
exercise of basic rights (Henderson, 2003).

Incitement to religious hatred legislation
As part of the post-9/11 reaction the Government introduced the aforementioned
Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, clause 38 of which amended Part 3 of the
Public Order Act 1986 to extend the existing provisions on incitement to racial hatred
to cover incitement to religious hatred as well. They proposed to make it an offence
to use words, behaviour, or display written material that is deemed threatening,
abusive or insulting with the intention or likely effect that hatred will be stirred up
against a group of people targeted because of their religious beliefs or lack of
religious beliefs. Thus it was argued that the incitement to stir up hatred would have
to be aimed at people and not ideologies, and that just as race is not defined in the
remit of race-relations legislations (but rather through precedent and case law) neither
was religion in the incitement legislation.
15
However, through a coalition forged by opposition parties in the House of
Commons and House of Lords, with much public support from campaigners
(including prominent satirists who feared an embargo on people telling religious
jokes), the government was forced to amend the legislation to criminalise only
threatening behaviour and not that deemed abusive and insulting. It also meant that
people can only be prosecuted if they intend to stir up hatred - not if they are merely
reckless. Once again, this offers a lower level of protections to those religious
minorities who are not considered to be racial minorities under the remit of race-
relations legislation.

Minority organisations
There have been, and currently exist, far too many immigrant and ethnic minority
organisations in Britain to be surveyed here in any totality. In the past these have
included first generation and post-colonial organisations such as the West Indian
Standing Conference (WISC), Indian Workers Association (IWA) and Pakistani
Workers Association (PWA), and then later the Campaign Against Racial
Discrimination (CARD) and the Black Peoples Alliance (BPA) amongst others,
whilst other types of minority organisations have sought representation in
mainstream bodies such as a the Labour Party. Thus there is a general divide resting
between group particular minority organisations and mainstream organisations which
encompass minority representation components within them. Currently, the most
salient examples of the former include the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and the
Board of Deputies of British J ews. Of the second kind, the Black Sections of the
Labour Party and autonomous groupings within the Trade Union movement are
illustrative.
Muslim council of Britain
The near universal condemnation of the cacophony of Muslim protests over the
publication of the Salman Rushdie novel The Satanic Verses, and the lack of coherent
British Muslim leadership on the matter, initiated the creation of a Muslim umbrella
body paralleling earlier J ewish organisations. Inaugurated in 1997, the Muslim
Council of Britain (MCB) is made up of over 400 local, regional and national
organisations. Its aims include the promotion of consensus and unity on Muslim
affairs in the UK; giving voice to issues of common concern; addressing
discriminations and disadvantages faced by Muslims in Britain; encouraging a more
enlightened appreciation of Islam and Muslims in the wider society; and working
for the good of society as a whole. With a view to representing British Muslims, it
lobbies government and holds discussions with various public bodies. In many
respects it is modelled on the Board of Deputies of British J ews.

Board of Deputies of British Jews
Founded in 1760 as a joint committee of the Sephardi (Spanish and Portuguese)
and Ashkenazi (Central and Eastern European) J ewish communities in London, the
Board of Deputies of British J ews is now the main representative body of British
J ewry and has become a widely recognised forum for the views of the different
sections of the J ewish community in Britain. The structure is based upon a system of
delegates (or Deputies) elected from the majority of J ewish communal organisations,
including synagogues, social and welfare organisations, local community bodies
16
amongst others. Since it strongly allies itself with Israeli political interests, it is not
uncommon to find the Board of Deputies providing representation on international as
well as domestic issues.

Labour Party Black Sections
Within the national Labour party a caucus of its black members argued that by
organising and mobilising a section inside of it, they could orient the party toward
more substantively addressing their needs. One aim, though not exclusive, was to
increase the chronic under-representation of ethnic minority Parliamentarians. This
constituency (or smaller groups of constituencies) became known as the Labour Party
Black Section (LPBS) and sought constitutional status on a par with already existing
Women and Youth sections within the party (Shukra, 1998). Though now defunct, the
LPBS initially contained all four non-white and ethnic minority Members of
Parliament (a figure which rose to fifteen at the 2005 general election and included
members of the Conservative party) and achieved marked success in increasing the
number of ethnic minority councillors whilst cementing the need for non-white
Parliamentarians in the political system. It has been criticised, however, for seeking a
corporatist style of representation without connecting this to grass-roots support, so
that an emphasis on organisational matters made political debate secondary (Shukra,
1998: 73).
The NUJ Black Members' Council (BMC)
This body is indicative of other ethnic minority caucuses within other national
trades councils and unions. It consists of members elected by an annual conference of
Black Members and by the whole membership of each of the six industrial sectors
(Magazine and Books, Press and Public Relations, National Newspapers,
Broadcasting, Provincial Newspapers, Freelance) and the two regions (Ireland and
Scotland). The representation on bigger, amalgamated industrial councils is
extremely significant because it positions the issue of racial equality (job
discrimination or questions of ethical performance) at the centre of negotiations with
media organisations. The Union also has a seat on its ruling body (the National
Executive Council) for a representative of its Black members.

Anti-racist and multicultural Education
Much of what we know as anti-racist and multicultural education has been enacted
at the Local Education Authority (LEA) level. LEAs are responsible for education
within the jurisdiction of county councils and metropolitan boroughs, which includes
reponsiblity for all state schools with the exception of those that apply and are
afforded voluntary aided status (and can therefore opt out) under the terms of the
1944 Education Act (discussed below). In many multiracial urban areas LEAs have
actively encouraged anti-racist and multicultural initiatives in the face of and at the
cost of some vociferous opposition.
Multicultural Education
One of the earliest was that of Birmingham which in 1975 introduced a new
Agreed Syllabus of Religious Education which required that pupils learn about and
17
learn from the great world faiths present in the city (Hewer, 2001: 517), whilst others
such as that in Bradford promoted innovations such as the provision of halal meat in
schools in 1983. In fact the guidelines issued by Bradford Council in 1982 regarding
the education of pupils from ethnic minority groups were, quite radically, based upon
the following beliefs. One was that all sections of the community in the city had an
equal right to the maintenance of their distinctive identities and loyalties of culture,
language, religion and custom, and that so far as was compatible with individual
needs, the authority's provision of services should respect the strength and variety of
each group's cultural values. The second was that all children in Bradford were
entitled to equality of treatment, equality of opportunity and equality of services and
should be offered a shared educational experience. Both of these positions were set
out in the LEAs policy statement and gave rise to the following statement of the aims:
To seek ways of preparing all children and young people for life in a multi-
cultural society
To counter racism and racist attitudes, and the inequalities and discrimination
which results from them
To build on and develop the strengths of cultural and linguistic diversity
To respond sensitively to the special needs of minority groups.
Whilst the LEA recognized the organizational difficulties of achieving these aims, it
was convinced that by recognising differences the educational needs of ethnic
minority children could be met within a comprehensive education system based upon
a common school curriculum.
11

Anti-racist Education
During the same period the idea of anti-racist education was gaining prominence
through the work of Professor Chris Mullard (1985) amongst others. It was premised
on the argument that because racism was not just a problem minorities had to address,
and that racialist biases existed amongst white students, teachers and institutional
practices which had to be confronted, an anti-racist opposition to the cultural focus of
British multicultural initiatives was crucial. It was not applied in education policy
until the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), with the support of Labour
radicals (including the current Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone), became receptive
to the ideas following the election of Frances Morrell. This was significant because
the ILEA included 17 LEAs, which were complimented a few years later by 60 others
which increased the number of LEAs opting for either anti-racist or multicultural
education to a figure of 77 out of 115 LEAs (Hiro, 1991: 230).
It is important to emphasise that both multicultural education and anti-racist
education are diffuse conceptions of educational reform, and to that extent it is
difficult to present either one as entirely distinct from the other (Tronya, 1987: 311).
Yet it is equally the case that within the context of the elision of cultural and political
identities, multiculturalism and anti-racism became inherently oppositional
educational projects. Thus although multiculturalism had been, somewhat erratically,
introduced into multi-ethnic British schools from the late 1960s, many anti-racist
educators regarded it as an instrument of control and stability rather than one of
change (Mullard, 1985: 50).
Such depictions tended towards oversimplification and caricature, and succeeded
in predicating race-equality in education on an overarching political Blackness. For
example, activist groups such as all London Teachers Against Racism and Fascism

11
City of Bradford Local Administrative Memorandum No 2/82.
18
(ALTARF) which emerged in the late 1970s, and the locally, publicly funded
Constructions of Anti-racist Education programmes that developed in the early 1980s
through the policies of the ILEA, both sought to distance themselves from ethnic or
cultural particularity by embracing the politics of Black solidarity. That is that
throughout the 1980s British anti-racist educators constructed their movement to
promote a radical, oppositional pedagogy premised on a political conflict between
Black and White interests
A number of challenges addressed this oppositional pedagogy, not least the
argument in favour of an anti-racism sensitive to ethnic differences. Amongst others,
Modood (1990: 92) charged anti-racists with exclusively focusing on race from the
point of view of the dominant groups. This failed to recognise, he argued, that people
have a mode of being of their own which defies reduction to racist categorisations.
Another challenge came from the inquiry into the racist murder in 1986 of school boy
Ahmed Ullah, at Burnage High School, Manchester. Indeed the Burnage (Macdonald
et al, 1989), constitutes one of the most important critiques of anti-racism in practice
for it concluded that the schools policy had alienated White working class pupils and
parents. It suggested that the existing policy was naive and ill-advised to construct
white students as racistwhether they are ferreteyed fascists or committed anti-
racists (ibid. 22). Moreover, multicultural inclusion had become legitimised and was
in the ascendancy with the publication of the Swann Committees (1985), Education
for All. There followed a brief period where central government provided
sponsorship of educational initiatives to counter racial prejudice and support the
recognition of ethnic and cultural differences. This lasted until around 1988 when the
government strengthened its centralising role through the introduction of a
compulsory school curriculum as part of the Education Reform Act (1988). This gave
rise to a National Curriculum that accounted for the majority of what would be taught
on any school syllabus in England and Wales, and which emphasised the teaching of
British history and promoted Christianity. Paradoxically, the introduction of this
national curriculum simultaneously strengthened the argument of those in favour of
state funded religious schools, since an adherence to (and subsequent inspection of) a
core syllabus, offset the charge that such schools would offer an irrelevant syllabus.

Voluntary Aided Status and religious schools
This issue surrounding the state sponsorship of religious or faith schools in the
British education system remains a salient one, for it is currently the case that various
Christian denominations administer just over a quarter of all state schools in the UK, a
relationship which testifies to the 19
th
century emergence of education from within the
remit of the Established Church of England. This is because the state did not begin to
oversee education until the 1870 Elementary Education Act and, later, try to reconcile
the dual system (OKeefe, 1986) of parallel, but interacting, state and faith based
schooling with the creation of Voluntary Aided (VA) status in the 1944 Education Act
which. This last Act recognised the historic contribution of faith groups and their
internal differences, with the increasing role of the state in education, by awarding
independent faith schools the option subject to meeting the appropriate standards
and criteria of becoming Voluntary Aided (VA) or Voluntary Controlled (VC).
The former status allows the provision of denominational religious instruction and
acts of worship, as well as the right to appoint teachers on the understanding that the
school accept half the cost of any structural or building improvements. In addition, the
19
majority of school administrators can come from the diocesan board of education or
religious authority. The latter, meanwhile, incurs no financial responsibilities but the
schools have to surrender all denominational worship and the majority of
administrators are provided by the LEA.
The are now over 4,700 state funded Church of England schools, over 2100
Catholic, 33 J ewish, 28 Methodist schools, but only 7 Muslim schools. This
discrepancy is felt to be particularly acute given that, numerically, Muslim children of
school age are disproportionately present in the British education system, making up
nearly six per cent (500, 000) of the school population from under three percent
(1.8m) of the national population (Halstead, 2005: 104, see ONS, 2005). Reflecting
the particularly youthful demographic of British-Muslims, where 33.8 per cent fall
into the 0-15 year age bracket and 18.2 per cent into the 16-24 year category (Scott et
al, 2001), in some LEAs Muslim children comprise a significant presence amongst
school districts and wards.
Campaigns for equality of opportunity in state funded faith schooling are,
therefore, indicative of a modern society which is widely perceived as increasingly
secular but is paradoxically increasingly multi-faith (Skinner, 2002: 172).
Importantly, the relevant clauses of the 1944 Act did not specify which
denominational groups are to be included in the scheme. Less encouragingly, the
position that some groups have found themselves with in relation to this provision is
that new schools are rarely required and built, so that if such schools are to be
admitted to the Voluntary Aided category they will of necessity be already in
existence. In effect, this means that in the future a state funded Muslim school will
already exist either as a local authority public school or as a private establishment.
This has led to a number of campaigns by Muslim organisations to take over schools
with an significant concentration of Muslim pupils already in attendance, the most
recent of which has culminated in a campaign by the Muslim Association of Britain
(MAB) in Scotland to turn a currently Roman Catholic School in Pollockshields
(Glasgow), which has an eighty per cent Muslim pupil intake, into a voluntary aided
Muslim school (for more examples see Hashmi, 2002: 15). Whilst Muslim schools
remain a political issue, it is the true that the pedagogical case for their existence has
been shown through the high examination results and positive inspection feedback of
those that are allocated state funding.

Media discourse
If proactive efforts to encourage minorities to take part in the broadcast media are
an indication of anything, the last few years have witnessed some promising signs.
12

For example, the British Film Institutes (BFI) has completed a three year cultural
diversity strategy called Towards Visibility, whilst the public broadcaster British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) appointed a Diversity Tsar (Mary Fitzpatrick) and
created a Diversity Database to boost its numbers of ethnic minority employees
shortly after its then Director General, Greg Dyke, described the organisation as
hideously white.
13
Other cross-channel initiatives include the Changing Face of

12
For a general summary of media debates on multiculturalism see the commentary by the
media diversity Institute: http://www.media-
diversity.org/articles_publications/Media%20debates%20multi-culturalism.htm
13
See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1104305.stm
20
Television manifesto (2000) which is supported by all the main broadcasters and
includes the following priorities:
Targets for ethnic minority employment
On-line talent diversity database
Modernise cast and portrayal
Share non-commercially sensitive cultural diversity
Allowing the Dept. of Culture, Media and Sport to monitor progress (see
Malik, 2002: 11).
In terms of how it articulates ideas about nation-hood and addresses aspects of
minority identity within the construction of Britains imagined community, the
broadcast media is now relatively progressive. It includes example, ethnic minorities
in key roles such as news presenters and journalists, actors in dramas and other
television presenting. A particularly inclusive discourse surrounds ethnic minority
sports personalities celebrated as champions of multicultural Britain, most recently
witnessed in the success of the England Cricket Team which included Sikh and
Muslim players in their ranks.
14
In the past, other iconic moments have included the
Black athletes draping themselves in the national flag after their victories at the
Olympics (Daley Thompson in 1980 and 1984; Linford Christie in 1992 and Kelly
Holmes in 2004), whilst the successful London 2012 Olympic Bid was premised upon
the Londons ethnic and cultural diversity, with endorsements coming from none-
other than Nelson Mandela.
15

Progressive elements in broadcast media discourse has not always been the norm,
however, with stereotypes of criminality and inferiority permeating much of the
representation of ethnic minorities throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Stuart Halls
(1981) famous essay The Whites of Their Eyes identified what he characterises as a
basic grammar of race operating in British television, one consisting of the slave
figure, native, and entertainer. These sorts of stereotypes have been routinely
opposed by the Campaign Against Racism in the Media (CARM) (1985), who have
had greater impact with respect to the Broadcast media than anywhere else.
In fact it is print journalism that is routinely the repository of the most vitriolic
Othering of Britains ethnic minorities, as well as a key constituent of anti-immigrant
rhetoric (Kushner, 2003). Tabloid press discourse on asylum seekers, for example,
has been described by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) as ill
informed, adverse print-media coverage contributing to heightened local tensions and
resentments of asylum seekers (quoted in Karpf, 2002). Unfortunately, there is little
accountability other than the relatively weak Press Complaints Commission (PCC).
Whilst clause 13 of the PCC Code of Practice does stipulate that the press must avoid
prejudicial or pejorative references to a persons race, colour or religion, this only
relates to named individuals and not groups or minorities such as asylum seekers or
immigrants per se. Part of the solution may come with greater representation of
ethnic and racial minorities amongst the different echelons of the print media in the
same that is being pursued in the broadcast media.

14
In fact for some time the England Cricket captain was a mixed heritage/mixed race player
named Nasser Hussein.
15
"There is no city like London. It is a wonderfully diverse and open city providing a home to
hundreds of different nationalities from all over the world. I can't think of a better place than
London to hold an event that unites the world" quoted at
http://www.britischebotschaft.de/en/news/items/050406.htm.
21
As already indicated at the beginning of this chapter, the current public and media
discourse focusing upon ethnic minorities is clearly marked by the fall-out from the
war on terror and perception of Islamic terrorism. This has become particularly
acute since the London bombings and the realisation that it was four British-Muslims
who carried out the attacks (Meer and Noorani, 2008; Meer and Modood, 2009). The
discourses figuring most prominently include the following intertwined themes:
Islam and violence are synonymous.
Muslims are problematic to integrate.
British extremists are an outcome of a misguided pursuit of multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism departs from the core political values that must underpin
Britishness.
These relate back to the retreat from multiculturalism by liberal champions in the
media and politics discussed at the beginning, to suggest that at a time when Britain is
experiencing its greatest episode of mass migration for fifty years settled British-
Muslims have emerged as key protagonists in the discourse on integration and
citizenship, and are at the very centre of discourse on multiculturalism.



















22
CHAPTER TWO
Developments in British multicultural citizenship
There are four parts to this chapter. Section one sets out the operative types of
multiculturalism in Britain that have emerged from the policy agendas of Racial
Equality at the local and national level. It then considers key issues concerning the
alleged crises of British multiculturalism, specifically Muslim exceptionality and the
manner in which a multicultural retreat in Britain might be characterised as a re-
balancing - through the emergence of competing discourses of civic assimilation
and cohesion and not necessarily as a replacement or strict reversal of
multiculturalism. This is paralleled by an increasingly salient division amongst
advocates of multiculturalism who hold either communitarian or individualistic
multiculture views. It is suggested that each of the above tendencies are evident in
governmental literature, policy and public and media discourse. Several crises of
multiculturalism make these distinctions suitable for empirical inquiry.
The first of these is explored in section two and focuses upon Incitement to
Religious Hatred legislation as an example of a crisis or country specific issue, event
or challenge from 2001 onwards. Initially sought as a secular solution to the demand
to extend existing blasphemy laws [theoretically outlawing a scurrilous vilification
and/or heretical dissent] after the Rushdie Affair, it was proposed as a government
bill after 9/11 and continues to be a very 'live' topic in all areas of public and media
discourse, parliament and the courts, as well as representing a planned policy-based
issue that has involved lobbying, public argument and political engagement. As such
it may reveal something important about the incorporation of Muslims into a rubric of
British-citizenship, specifically with respect to civic and political participation, and on
what terms Muslim difference may or may not be recognised. As later sections
make clear, this case goes to the very heart of how UK thinking on 'difference' has
been understood, namely in terms of Racial Equality, and how this is adapting to
Muslim claims-making when it has in the past provided a starting point for
multiculturalism.
We then consider the impact of the Danish cartoon affair upon the British debate
by examining what values are defended, debated and adopted, alongside the
substantive elements of prevalent discourses. Although this example has its origins
elsewhere, its relevance to the British debate is witnessed in several ways, not least in
the print medias refusal to re-print the images and the various rationales they
provided to support this decision. To this end it can be contrasted with the heavily
policy based issues informing the national case discussed earlier. This section
therefore uses the Danish Cartoon affair to explore an emotive and symbolic example
that might say something about the norms of a democratic culture that recognises and
restrains itself from inflicting some pains over others vis--vis respecting different
sensitivities in a multicultural society.
The concluding section connects the key issues of the earlier sections to identify
the relationship between them and, specifically, ascertains whether there has there
been a retreat from multiculturalism and, if so, how and what has changed, and what
form these changes have taken.


23
British multicultural citizenship
Post-war migrants who arrived as Citizens of the United Kingdom and
Commonwealth (CUKC), and subsequent British born generations, have been
recognised as ethnic and racial minorities requiring state support and differential
treatment to overcome barriers in their exercise of citizenship. This includes how,
under the remit of several Race-Relations Acts (RRAs) the state has sought to
integrate minorities into the labour market and other key arenas of British society
through an approach that promotes equal access as an example of equality of
opportunity (Lester, 1998). Indeed, it is now thirty years since the introduction of a
third Race Relations Act (1976) cemented a state sponsorship of Race Equality by
consolidating earlier, weaker legislative instruments (RRA 1965 & 1968). Alongside
its broad remit spanning public and private institutions; recognition of indirect
discrimination and the imposition of a statutory public duty to promote good race-
relations, it also created the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) to assist
individual complainants and monitor the implementation of the Act.
16

This is an example, according to J oppke (1999: 642), of a citizenship that has
amounted to a precarious balance between citizenship universalism and racial group
particularism [that] stops short of giving special group rights to immigrants.
17
What
it also suggests is that the instutionalisation of a space from which to begin to redress
racially structured barriers to participation represents a defining characteristic in the
British approach to integrating minorities. But does this amount to multiculturalism?
The answer is that it amounts to a British multiculturalism for although the UK lacks
an official Multicultural Act or Charter in the way of Australia or Canada (CMEB,
2000), the idea of integration being based upon a drive for unity through an
uncompromising cultural assimilation was something consciously rejected over 40
years ago, when the then Labour home secretary Roy J enkins' (1966) defined
integration as not a flattening process of assimilation but equal opportunity
accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance.

Local Multicultural citizenship
Alongside this state centred, unmistakeably national (J oppke, 1999: 146) focus,
there is also a tradition of multicultural drift (CMEB, 2000: 11) where multicultural
discourses and policies have been pursued though local councils and municipal
authorities, making up a patchwork of British multicultural public policies in the way
summarised by Singh (2005: 170)

16
For a succinct overview see R. S. Dhami, J . Squires and T. Modood (2006: 19-25)
Developing positive action policies: learning from the experiences of Europe and North
America. Available at:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2005-2006/rrep406.pdf
17
This is a valid assessment despite the very problematic nature of J oppkes conflation of
equality of opportunity as equality of outcome which he characterises as an example of
Affirmative Action (see J oppke, 1999: footnote 26). The Race Relations Act does not allow
positive discrimination or affirmative action. This means that an employer cannot try to
change the balance of the workforce by selecting someone mainly because she or he is from a
particular racial group. This would be discrimination on racial grounds, and therefore
unlawful. See the CRE summary Positive Action in Employment available at:
http://www.cre.gov.uk/legal/rra_positive.html

24

Historically, multiculturalism as a public policy in Britain has been heavily localised, often
made voluntary, and linked essentially to issues of managing diversity in areas of
immigrant settlement. The legislative framework on which this policy is based for
example, the Race Relations Acts (1965 and 1976) recognised this contingency, giving
additional resources to local authorities as well as new powers to better promote racial and
ethnic equality. With these enabling powers, most local authorities with large ethnic
minority populations have transformed themselves from initially being the bastions of
official racism to being promoters of anti-racism and multiculturalism, and with this change
the strength of local ethnic communities and coalitions have been instrumental.

Perhaps the best example of Singhs assessment of local multiculturalism is captured
by the programmes of anti-racist education (Tronya, 1987; Mullard, 1985) and
multicultural education (Swann Committee, 1985) that have historically been enacted
at the Local Education Authority (LEA) level. As the earlier D1 details, LEAs are
responsible for education within the jurisdiction of county councils and metropolitan
boroughs, and this includes reponsiblity for all state schools with the exception of
those that apply and are afforded voluntary aided status (and can therefore opt out)
under the terms of the 1944 Education Act. In many multi-ethnic urban areas, LEAs
have actively encouraged anti-racist and multicultural initiatives in the face of and
at the cost of some vociferous opposition (Hewer, 2001), that has in turn informed
the national picture. Indeed, it was through the debates at the local level that one of
the leading public policy documents on multiculturalism came from an inquiry into
multicultural education. Entitled Education for All, the Swann (1985: 36)
characterised multiculturalism in Britain as enabling

all ethnic groups, both minority and majority, to participate in fully shaping
societywhilst also allowing, and where necessary assisting the ethnic minority
communities in maintaining their distinct ethnic identities within a framework of commonly
accepted values.

Multicultural crisis and Muslim exceptionality?
It is important to understand these past policies and discourses comprising British
multiculturalism because it is currently alleged to be facing a crisis, one that is
purportedly precipitated by the exceptionality of culturally unreasonable or
theologically alien demands put forward by Muslims (Modood: 2006: 34).
Culminating in a confused retreat (ibid. 48), this crisis is epitomised by the work of
prominent centre-Left commentators such as David Goodhart (2004) and his widely
disseminated essay Too Diverse? Invoking a monocultural-nationalism, Goodhart
has openly argued that we feel more comfortable with, and are readier to share with
and sacrifice for, those with whom we have shared histories and similar values. To put
it bluntly - most of us prefer our own kind.
18
Other critique has been much more

18
Reproduced as Discomfort of Strangers in The Guardian available at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1154 693 ,00.html. Another example
includes J ohn Sentamu, the first non-white Archbishop of York, who stated that
multiculturalism has seemed to imply, wrongly for me, let other cultures be allowed to
express themselves but do not let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, its struggles, its
joys, its pains. Quoted in The Times 22/11/2005 available at:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1882591,00.html. Bryan Appleyard of the liberal-
conservative Sunday Times, meanwhile, for example, recently announced that
25
vitriolic which, whilst not unusual from a centre-Right that has historically lamented
and contested governmental or legislative interventions recognising the diversity of
minority populations
19
, is now joined from the pluralistic centre-left and is
articulated by people who previously rejected polarising models of race and class
and were sympathetic to the rainbow, coalitional politics of identity (Modood,
2005a). Indeed, and whilst it is important not to assume a clear causal connection
between rhetoric and anything more substantial, it is arguably the case that
intellectuals and commentators have proven instrumental in presenting a crisis of
multiculturalism as real and impending in ways that appear alarmist (Meer, 2006,
Meer and Noorani, forthcoming). As one newspaper columnist has put it, the old
alliance with the centre-left is fraying to breaking point; old allies in the battles
against racism have jumped sides, and now routinely present arguments more
Islamophobic than the centre-right.
20

It is equally important to note, however, that the specific view that multicultural
inclusion would prove problematic for - and with - Muslims is one that has existed for
sometime. According to Favell (1998: 38), ever since the onset of the Satanic Verses
affair one of the hottest issues thrown up by multiculturalism in Britain has been the
growing significance of political and social issues involving Muslims. Indeed, the
publication of a novel by Salman Rushdie that disparaged both the genesis of Islam
and the biography of the Prophet Mohammed gave rise to a great deal of hurt and
anger expressed by a Muslim community which felt that as citizens they [were no
less] entitled to equality of treatment and respect for their customs and religion
(Anwar, 1992: 9) than either the Christian majority denominations and other religious
minorities.
21
This episode brought to light the lack of cross-cultural understanding
and, specifically, the lack of political space and public sympathy experienced by
certain religious minorities. As Modood argued:

Is not the reaction to The Satanic Verses an indication that the honour of the Prophet or the
imani ghairat [attachment to and love of the faith] is as central to the Muslim psyche as the

Multiculturalism is dead. It had it coming. An ideology that defined a nation as a series of
discrete cultural and political entities that were each free to opt out of any or all common
orthodoxies was never a serious contender in the Miss Best Political System pageant.
Eureka, The Sunday Times, 17 December, 2006. All of these ideas inform the critique from
CRE chair Trevor Phillips as discussed in section 1.6.
19
Particularly the allocation of public provisions for minority cultural practices on the
grounds that these deviate from a core majority national identity to which minorities are
required to assimilate. A good example of this view can be found in The Salisbury Review, a
conservative magazine that was founded in 1982 with the influential conservative philosopher
Roger Scruton as its editor. The incendiary role it the Honneyford Affair provides an
excellent case study of the main political argumentation contained within this position. See
Halstead (1988).
20
Madeleine Bunting, It takes more than tea and biscuits to overcome indifference and fear,
The Guardian, 27, February, 2006.
21
For example, the UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs (UKACIA) tried but failed to
prosecute Salman Rushdie for blasphemy under existing common law offences. The reason
for this failure was that Islam, unlike Christianity, is not recognised within blasphemy
legislation (in 1977 the editor of Gay News was sentenced to six months in prison for
publishing a poem that characterised J esus Christ as homosexual). The question of parity was
then central during the Satanic Verses Affair and emerges in a more secular form with the
examples of anti-discrimination and incitement to hatred legislation that are discussed in
section 2.
26
Holocaust and racial slavery to others? [] Muslims will argue that, historically, vilification
of the Prophet and of their faith is central to how the West has expressed hatred for them and
has led to violence and expulsion on a large scale (2005 [1993]: 121, 122).

In describing a European trend, Parekh (2006) has characterised these sorts of issues
as the Muslim question i.e. the norms and values of a democratic culture that does or
does not recognise some Muslim sensitivities, which has been portrayed elsewhere as
the nut that Europe has to crack (J oppke, 1998: 37).
22
In the UK, an important articulation of the view that Muslims are an exceptional,
problematic minority can be found in the parallel lives (Cantle, 2001) thesis that
followed the inquiry into civil unrest and rioting that had taken place in some
northern towns home to both a small and large number of Muslims. In charging
Muslim communities with self-segregating and adopting isolationist practices under a
pretence of multiculturalism (Hussain and Bagguley, 2005), this pioneered an
approach found in other post-riot s (cf Ritchie, 2001; Clarke, 2001; Ouseley, 2001).
23

This included the Ouseley s (2001) likening of Muslim settlement patterns to those of
colonists
24
and which provided many influential commentators with the license, not
necessarily supported by the specific substance of each , to critique Muslim
distinctiveness in particular and multiculturalism in general.
25
This has given rise to
discourses of community cohesion and a greater emphasis upon the assimilatory
aspects of integration, and which have increasingly competed and sought to
rebalance the recognition of diversity in previous discourse and policy.
The relationship between Muslims and multiculturalism in Britain has, therefore,
become increasingly interdependent, and this is exemplified by the way in which
visible Muslim practices such as veiling
26
have been conflated with or assumed to
run parallel to - alleged Muslim practices such as forced marriages, female gential
mutiliation, a rejection of positive law in favour of sharia law and so on. Since
multiculturalism is alleged to license these practices, opposition to the practice,
therefore, it is argued, necessarily invalidates the policy.
27

22
The similarities with the J ewish question are discussed in Meer and Noorani,
forthcoming.
23
At the same time, and once it was established in the public mind that young Muslim and
communities were the protagonists being discussed, the official documents themselves did not
always explicitly state this and so therefore used more universalistic language.
24
See Martin Wainwright, 12 September, 2001. Some Bradford Muslims act like colonists'
The Guardian. Available at:
http://society.guardian.co.uk/raceequality/story/0,,550557,00.html
25
For example, even a sympathetic commentator such as J ocelyne Cesari (2004: 23-4)
inaccurately concluded that [w]hether in the areas of housing, employment, schooling or
social services, the [Cantle] describes an England segregated according to the twin categories
of race and religion.
26
Including the headscarf or hijab, full face veil or niqab, or full body garments such as the
jilbab.
27
Evidenced not only in the public and media discourse examined later but also by academics
and intellectuals including Christian J oppke. Writing in the British Journal of Sociology he
states: Certain minority practices, on which, so far, no had dared to comment, have now
become subjected to public scrutiny as never before. The notorious example is that of
arranged marriage which, to an alarming degree, seems to be forced marriage. It is a
widespread practice in Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities to import marriage partners
for their sons and daughters back home in part, one must assume, because a British visa
27
To this we could add that not only has Muslim claims-making appeared
unreasonable, but that the acts of terrorism undertaken by protagonists proclaiming a
Muslim agenda has, according to one commentator, led British public opinion to be
agreed on one thing: that British multiculturalism is dead and militant Islam...killed it
off (Singh, 2005: 157).
28
In linking the diversity and the anti-terrorism agendas,
then, British multiculturalism has been implicated as the culprit and fuelled the
securitisation of ethnic relations.
29
For example, whilst it is not quite the case, as one
commentator has suggested, that public policy solutions aimed at managing ethnic
and religious diversity amount to being tough on mosques, tough on the causes of
mosques (Fekete, 2004: 25), it is certainly more common to find statements such as
that made by the Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly that it is a requirement for
Muslim organisations to take a proactive leadership role in tackling extremism and
defending our shared values.
30


A re-balancing retreat or outright rejection?
Having been celebrated as unique in Europe (Statham, 2003: 123) and once
recognised as an approach that has not stood in the way of successful integration
(J oppke, 1999: 644), to what extent is it then true to say that the normative policy
rhetoric from a few years ago, which was in favour of multiculturalism, [has] shifted
to one that advocates a thicker national citizenship, where migrants, and Muslims in
particular, are expected to publicly have prior allegiance to Britain (Koopans et al,
2005: 248)? Assuming for a moment that this is the case, one way this shift might
be characterised is as a move from a perceived neglect to affirmation of British
identity, presented as the meta-community to which all must subscribe. For example,
the government endorsed entitled A J ourney to Citizenship (2005: 15) chaired by
Sir Bernard Crick has stated that

To be British seems to us to mean that we respect the laws, the elected parliamentary and
democratic political structures, traditional values of mutual tolerance, respect for equal
rights and mutual concern; and that we give our allegiance to the state (as commonly
symbolised in the Crown)... To be British is to respect those over-arching specific
institutions, values, beliefs and traditions that bind us all, the different nations and cultures
together in peace and in a legal order. [...] So to be British does not mean assimilation into a
common culture so that original identities are lost.

yields a significant dowry (1994: 251 emphasis added). On what evidence these
assumptions are based remains undisclosed in the rest of the article.
28
That this view may already have been held by some legislators is evidenced when Labour
MP Tony Wright, commenting on Muslim faith schooling, stated that [b]efore September 11
it looked like a bad idea, it now looks like a mad idea. BBC News, 22/11/2001 available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1670704.stm
29
See for example the debates surrounding passenger profiling at British airports and other
transport terminals, along with the recent disclosure that the government will give fifty local
authorities five million pounds to monitor Islamic extremists and "establish systems to share
potential risks or concerns at the local level with councils and staff acting as the eyes and ears
for police in countering threats". Quoted in Oonagh Blackman, 5m for council staff to
watch Muslim rebels, Sunday Mirror, 7 J anuary, 2006.
30
Speech by Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly to Muslim organisations on working together
to tackle extremism. Held at Local Government House, London, on 11 October 2006.
http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1503690
28

Similarly, the aforementioned Cantle (2001: 10) argues for a greater sense of
citizenship informed by common elements of nation-hood [including] the use of
the English language (pg 19). Though, equally, it stresses that we are never going
to turn the clock back to what was perceived to be a dominant or monoculturalist view
of nationality (pg 18), and its lead author has since stated: lets not just throw out
the concept of multiculturalism; lets update it and move it to a more sophisticated
and developed approach (2005: 91). Indeed, Tony Blairs most recent speech on the
topic presents this affirmation in a strong civic sense by arguing that

when it comes to our essential values - belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance,
equal treatment for all, respect for this country and its shared heritage - then that is where
we come together, it is what we hold in common; it is what gives us the right to call
ourselves British. At that point no distinctive culture or religion supercedes our duty to be
part of an integrated United Kingdom.
31

An insight into Blairs thinking can be found in the earlier White Paper Secure
Borders, Safe Haven (2002) which proposed some measures, following the Cantle
recommendations, that were first suggested in the much maligned from the
Commission on Multi-Ethnic Britains (CMEB) (2000)
32
. These include swearing a
US style oath of allegiance at naturalisation ceremonies, an English language
proficiency requirement when seeking citizenship, as well as the Crick s
recommendations for citizenship education in Schools. Meanwhile, the
Governments current strategy for Race Equality and community cohesion, Improving
Opportunity, Strengthening Society (Home Office, 2005: 42) states that:

Fundamentally, national cohesion rests on an inclusive sense of Britishness which couples
the offer of fair, mutual support from security to health to education with the
expectation that people will play their part in society and respect others.

The follow-up: One year on A progress summary (Home Office, 2006), reiterates its
two key aims as: achieving equality between different races; and developing a better
sense of community cohesion by helping people from different backgrounds to have a
stronger sense of togetherness (pg, 1). This includes, for example, raising the
achievement of groups at risk of underperforming i.e. African-Caribbean, Gyspy
Traveller, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Turkish and Somali pupils (pg, 2) and tackling
perceptions of discrimination in the housing sector among ethnic minority and
majority groups and stop exploitation of housing issues by political extremists (pg,
4). All of which is meant to contribute to a cohesive community where:

there is a common vision and a sense of belonging; the diversity of peoples different
backgrounds and circumstances is appreciated and valued; those from different
backgrounds have similar life opportunities; strong and positive relationships are being
developed between people from different backgrounds and circumstances in the workplace,
in schools and within neighbourhoods (pg, 7).

Thus it is still the case, to take an extreme example, that the British Airport Authority
allows its Sikh employees (in all facets of airline duties) to wear the Kirpan (a

31
Tony Blair , 8 December 2006, Our Nation's Future - multiculturalism and integration
available at: http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page10563.asp
32
See McLaughlin and Neal (2004).
29
traditional knife with a three inch blade), despite strong opposition from the British
Pilots Association (Singh, 2005: 165). Given these sorts of accommodations (and
others such as funding minority faith schools outlined in the D1 ) and evidence of an
emphasis upon recognising differences in governmental literature and rhetoric, as well
as the polls conducted shortly after the London Bombings which ed that the majority
of British people think that multiculturalism makes the country a better place
33
, how
can it be said that multiculturalism has been rejected either in policy or practice?

Multiculture or communitarian multiculturalism?
One explanation might be to point to the very different meanings of
multiculturalism. For example, in the above opinion poll it was noted that while 62%
of the same survey sample stated that multiculturalism makes the country a better
place, 58% declared that people who come to Britain should adopt its values and
traditions. Of course this does not necessarily describe a dichotomy, for nuances of
both can easily be true of the same type of multiculturalism. It is worth considering,
however, the extent to which the poll confirms Giddens suspicion that much of the
debate about multiculturalism in this country is misconceived (The Guardian, 14
October, 2006). That is that a key misconception may be found in the confusion of
communitarian and individualistic multiculture views of British multiculturalism.
The difference being that where the former emphasises the ways in which strong
ethnic or cultural identities can lead to a meaningful and self-assured integration, the
latter stresses the possibilities of life-style identities adopted in an atmosphere of
conviviality. In Gilroys (2004: xi) terms this refers to the process of cohabitation
and interaction that have made multiculture an ordinary feature of social life in
Britains urban areas and in postcolonial cities elsewhere. I hope an interest in the
workings of conviviality will take off from the point where multiculturalism broke
down. The alleged breakdown here emerges over the fault-line of essentialism
and reification that is felt, certainly by Gilroy and other cultural studies thinkers, to be
underpinning the conception of multiculturalism presented in the aforementioned
Commission on Multi-Ethnic Britain (2000), and elsewhere by the thinkers such as
Parekh (2000: 6) in the way he sets out below:

[a] multicultural societyis one that includes two or more cultural communities. It might
respond to its cultural diversity in one of two ways It might welcome and cherish itand
respect the cultural demands of its constituent communities; or it might seek to assimilate
these communities into its mainstream culture either wholly or substantially. In the first
case it is multiculturalist and in the second monoculturalist in its orientation and ethos. The
term multicultural refers to the fact of cultural diversity, the term multiculturalism to a
normative response to that fact (emphasis added):

Indeed, in their defence of a wholesale rejection of a normative and state sponsored
multiculturalism, Gilroy and others have defended only the multiculture and not the
communitarian version.
34
These rival conceptions of multiculturalism do in fact

33
See UK majority back multiculturalism BBC 10 August 2005, available
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/4137990.stm accessed 13 November 2006.
34
For example, the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) Trevor Phillips (3
April, 2004) has rejected all multiculturalism in his assertion that [t]he word is not useful, it
means the wrong things. [] Multiculturalism suggests separateness. What we should be
talking about is how we reach an integrated society, one in which people are equal under the
30
return us to an earlier debate examined in Modoods (1998: 378, 379-80) discussion
of anti-essentialism and multiculturalism, in which he noted how

...critics have attacked multiculturalism in very similar terms to how multiculturalism
attacked nationalism or monoculturalism. The positing of minority or immigrant cultures,
which need to be respected, defended, publicly supported and so on, is said to appeal to the
view that cultures are discrete, frozen in time, impervious to external influences,
homogeneous and without dissent British anti-essentialists have proposed the ideas of
hybridity and of new ethnicities as an alternative to essentialist ethnic identities [which] are
not simply given, nor are they static or atemporal, and they change (and should change)
under new circumstances or by sharing space Reconciled to multiplicity an end to itself,
its vision of multiculturalism is confined to personal lifestyles and cosmopolitan
consumerism and does not extend to the state, which it confidently expects to whither away.

These sorts of hybridity and multiplicity are epitomised by Stuart Halls (1988; 1991)
new ethnicities thesis, and refers to a laissez faire, secular multiculturalism that is
less receptive to the recognition of groupings in general, and ethno-religious
community identities in particular (suggesting that it is as much a political objection
to the recognition of religion as it is a theoretical objection). This sort of multiculture
seeks to engage with the cultural complexities of ethnic identities, specifically their
processes of formation and change, which it views as being produced somewhere
between an interaction of the local and the global in which

...the displacement of centred discourses of the West entails putting in question its
universalist character and its transcendental claims to speak for everyone, while being itself
everywhere and nowhere (Hall, 1996 [1988]: 169).

It is arguably the case then that if the latter multiculture view is championed at the
expense of a communitarian accommodation of ethno-religious community identities
in general, the impact on Muslims may be particularly negative when paralleled by a
shift toward nationalist civic-assimilationist rhetoric. This is because it demarcates
the limits of their [Muslims] expectations for the future extension of special rights
and exemptions, as well as perhaps having a demoralising effect because of the
stigmatising and stereotypical way it represents them in the public domain (Statham,
2003: 145). This is examined in the first case study.

law, where there are some common values - democracy rather than violence, the common
currency of the English language, honouring the culture of these islands, like Shakespeare and
Dickens. The journalist and writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (2001: 47) rejects Old i.e.
communitarian multiculturalism when she argues that: [t]he most progressive ideas which
are right and appropriate at one historical moment can, in time, decay or become defensively
self protective. Old multiculturalism may have reached that point... it is disabling Britons of
colour from seeing themselves as key shapers of the emerging citizenship culture. In
response Paul Gilroy (2004: 1) defends the multiculture view by remarking: Of course, the
briefest look around confirms that multicultural society has not actually expired. The noisy
announcement of its demise is itself a political gesture, an act of wishful thinking. It is aimed
at abolishing any ambition toward plurality and at consolidating the growing sense that it is
now illegitimate to believe that multiculture can and should be orchestrated by government in
the public interest. Seddon (personal correspondence) adopts the term in a similar manner
when he argues that: Multiculturalism is not dead. If the theorists actually lived in the
multicultural spaces instead of avoiding them they would realise this. It is the post-industrial,
ghettoized, racially and ethnically exclusive spaces of the white over-spill housing estates or
the inner-city post-migration Black and Asian terraced-housing enclaves that are creating
parallel oppositional communities.
31

The national case: Racial Equality and Incitement to Religious Hatred
Anti-discrimination and equal opportunities legislation has taken a largely
gradualist approach in Britain, and while case law has established precedents in the
application of Race Relations legislation (summarised in the introduction and the D1 )
to prevent discrimination against some religious minorities, namely Sikhs
35
and
J ews
36
, this has not been extended to Muslim minorities because they have not been
recognized - within the application of the legislation as being defined by racial
grounds i.e. race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national
origins
37
. In the past the courts have tried to operationalize an understanding of
ethnic origin that functions as a wider concept than race alone, and with the case of
Mandla v. Dowell Lee (1983) the House of Lords set out several such characteristics.
These include (i) a long shared history the group is conscious of as distinguishing it
from other groups, (ii) a cultural tradition of its own, including family and social
customs and manners, often but not necessarily associated with religious observance,
and iii) either a common geographical origin, or descent from a small number of
common ancestors - which is one of the main criterion for identifying group
membership, including perceived group membership.
38
These criteria emerged from
Lord Frasers ruling in favour of Sikh inclusion and which emphasized the use of
race in some popular sense. At the time this led the Liverpool Law Review (1983:
83) to believe that a major consequence of the judgment is the protection which will
be afforded to other groups. For example, Muslims will be a racial group for the
purposes of the Act. That this has not materialized in the twenty three years since
highlights a number of factors in the conception of Racial Equality vis--vis Muslims.

Problem of Muslim heterogeneity
One issue was illustrated by the case of Nyazi v. Rymans Ltd (1988) where the
ruling excluded Muslims from the protection of the RRA on the grounds that
Muslims include people of many nations and colours, who speak many languages
and whose only common denominator is religion and religious culture
39
. The

35
Cf Panesar v. Nestle Co Ltd, 1980 [IRLR 64]; Mandla v. Dowell Lee (1983) [2AC 548];
Singh v. British Rail Engineering Ltd (1986) [ICR 22]; Dhanjal v. British Steel plc (1994)
[uned].
36
Cf Seide v. Gillette Industries Ltd (1980) [IRLR 427]; Morgan v. CSC & British Library
(1990) [DCLD 6 19177/89].
37
See Racial Group in CRE glossary http://www.cre.gov.uk/duty/grr/glossary.html
38
There were also four other, arguably lesser, criteria in addition to those identified above
including: (iv) a common language, not necessarily peculiar to the group, (v) a common
literature peculiar to the group, (vi) a common religion different from that of neighbouring
groups or from the general community surrounding it, and (vii) being a minority or being an
oppressed or a dominant group within a larger community, for example a conquered people
(say, the inhabitants of England shortly after the Norman conquest) and their conquerors
might both be ethnic groups). See Mandla v. Dowell Lee House of Lords Transcript available
at: http://www.hrcr.org/safrica/equality/Mandla_DowellLee.htm
39
Quoted in Dobe and Chhokar (2000: 382).
32
decisive rationale common to this and further rulings
40
was that Muslim heterogeneity
disqualifies their inclusion as an ethnic or racial grouping. Crucially, the way in
which the definition of racial groups is conceived in this civil anti-discrimination
legislation is also adopted in criminal law through the Public Order Act (POA)
(1986). This introduces the criminal offence of Incitement to Racial Hatred
41
which
outlaws the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with the
intention of stirring up racial hatred. It is compounded by further criminal legislation
which implements the same definition in the prevention of aggravated offences of
harassment, violence and criminal damage guided by racial hatred in the Crime and
Disorder Act (CDA) (1998):

an iniquitous anomaly in the law establishes a hierarchy of protected faith communities.
Mono-ethnic faith communities benefit from protection against discrimination, aggravated
offences of harassment, violence and criminal damage, and against incitement to hatred
[and] the imposition of a positive duty on public authorities to promote equality. Multi-
ethnic faith communities, like Muslims, benefit from neither protection nor equality
provision. (Allen, 2005: 53).
Although this view risks mischaracterising faith communities, since neither Sikh nor
J ewish religious minorities are entirely mono-ethnic
42
, it is the case that binary
distinctions between race and religion particularly flounder when we recognize that
many British Muslims recount heightened discrimination and abuse when they appear
conspicuously Muslim than when they do not.
43
The increase in personal abuse and
everyday racism since 9/11 and the London bombings, in which the perceived
Islamic-ness of the victims is the central reason for abuse
44
, regardless of veracity of
this presumption (resulting in Sikhs and others with an Arab appearance being
attacked for looking like Bin Laden), suggests that racial and religious
discrimination are much more interlinked than the current application of civil and
criminal legislation has allowed.
In the past this has meant that the British National Party (BNP) has been permitted
to campaign against what it described as the Muslim problem. Similarly, when the
London Borough of Merton asked the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to prosecute
those engaged in anti-Muslim incitement, following the distribution of offensive and
threatening material by a BNP member, they were refused on the grounds that
Muslims were not covered by the POA (1986). This is despite the same BNP member
pleading guilty to distributing similar material and inciting racial hatred against

40
Cf CRE v Precision Engineering, 1991 and Malik v Bertram Personnel Group, 1990
[DCLD 7 4343/90].
41
See section 18 of the Public Order Act 1986. Though it is worth noting that it was not
introduced to protect minorities per se. but to maintain public order to the extent that the
offence of incitement to racial hatred should continue to be based on considerations of Public
Order (Review of Public Order Law, Cmnd 9510/1985, para. 65).
42
For example, J ewish minorities in Britain can incorporate Ashkenazi J ews from Poland,
Berber J ews from Algeria and African J ews from Ethiopia - all of whom may have different
languages, customs and cultures. It is also feasible that Sikhs, through conversion, could
incorporate different ethnic groupings.
43
As testimonies to the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia (CBMI) (2004)
bear witness. See also the summary on Islamophobia published by the European Monitoring
Centre on Racism and Xenophobia shortly after 9/11 which indicated a rise in physical and
verbal threats being made, particularly to those visually identifiable Muslims, in particular
women wearing the hijab (Allen and Nielsen, 2002: 16).
44
See the IRR record of Backlash against Muslims since 7 J uly 2005. www.irr.org.co.uk
33
J ewish minorities in the same borough.
45
Indeed, the CRE has recounted how it failed
to persuade the West Yorkshire CPS to prosecute the BNP for distributing a leaflet
headed Islam: Intolerance, Slaughter, Looting, Arson, Molestation of women in an
area with existing community tensions (Qureshi, 2005).

Incitement to religious hatred
In responding to these sorts of issues, and after considerable controversy and
amendment to the original bill, a criminal offence of Incitement to Religious Hatred
has now been introduced via the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, but must meet
a disproportionately high threshold before prosecutions become an option. The final
wording of the offence states that:

[R]eligious hatred means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to
religious belief or lack of religious belief. A person who uses threatening words or
behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, is guilty of an offence if he
intends thereby to stir up religious hatred.
46

The Government first attempted to introduce a stronger offence in Part 5 of the Anti-
terrorism, Crime and Security Bill 2001 but were thwarted by the House of Lords.
Another unsuccessful attempt was made in a 2002 private members Religious
Offences Bill, before the proposal was reintroduced in Section 119 and Schedule
10 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill 2004. On each occasion enough
opposition was encountered in the House of Lords that the offence was ultimately
withdrawn in order to get the rest of the Bill passed within the parliamentary session.
Eventually, the Labour Party included in its 2005 General Election Manifesto the
commitment that it remains our firm and clear intention to give people of all faiths
the same protection against incitement to hatred on the basis of their religion (2005:
111). As such the proposed bill was always going to have more support from loyal
Labour MPs than those who were more critical and dissenting.
Each attempt to create this new offence sought to modify the previously
mentioned Incitement to Racial Hatred found in Part 111 of The Public Order Act
1986. This offence is based upon that previously adopted in Northern Ireland in The
Public Order (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 PART 111 which has outlawed
incitement to Religious Hatred for some years.
In October 2005 the Lords defeated the Government again and modified the Bill
so as to make the proposed offence much weaker by applying only to threatening
words or behaviour not threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour. In
addition, and whilst the original proposals would have applied to a situation where
the defendant did not actually intend to stir up religious hatred, the changes meant
that the offence would only apply if the prosecution could prove premeditation.
When the Bill was re-introduced in its original form in J anuary 2006, it was defeated
by a single vote following a House of Commons debate that was notable in the degree
of misunderstanding it contained, as is exemplified by the comment:

[The] reason why some of us are troubled is that we remember when the clamour first arose
for the protection of Islam as a religion, in the wake of publication of The Satanic Verses

45
Cf R v DPP ex parte London Borough of Merton (CO/1319/1998).
46
Racial and Religious Hatred Act (2006) Chapter 1 Section 29A and 29B available at:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/60001--b.htm#sch1
34
when there were marches, book-burnings and demands for protection. The demand then
was for a blasphemy law for Islam, and the demand now is for a blasphemy law for Islam.
47

These are the words of Labour MP Dianne Abbot, a once staunch ant-racist and long-
time campaigner on Race Equality issues. Her confusion of two rationales (the
protection of a belief system as opposed to protection for its adherents from
incitement to hatred) is crucial in understanding how Muslim difference was
conceived. Indeed, the strong opposition that ensued throughout each incarnation of
the Bill included coalitions of satirists and liberals, conservatives and Christians, most
notably the comedian Rowan Atkinson, Liberal Peer Lord Anthony Lester (an
architect of the RRA), Senior Barrister David Pannick QC, the Conservative Party
front bench and former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey. This unique
convergence did not escape the notice of the liberal activist J oan Smith, who
commented: for once I find myself on the same side as the right-wing columnist
Melanie Phillips and Don Horrocks of the Evangelical Alliance!
48
Amongst the
objections emerged at least three interdependent lines of argumentation; each, in turn,
overlapping with other objections characterized by the topoi discussed in the
following section and set out in figure 1. Four of the six key themes are selected for
reasons of brevity and, whilst not exclusive, there is a disproportionate focus here
upon journalist commentary which is taken to be an important barometer of public
discourse (Meer, 2006: 35-59). This is particularly relevant because this part of the
explores some of the common-sense arguments on Racial Equality and religion vis-
-vis the proposed offence.

Figure 1. Public and media discourse toward legislation

Against


For


2..3 Religion stands outside the
Racial Equality paradigm

2.4. Religion and race are not always
separable

Protection is sought by extremists


Need to take anti-Muslim
discrimination seriously

2.5. Making concessions after the
Iraq war

2.6. Parity with other minority faiths



Race and religion are different phenomena
One of the key objections to the legislation was captured in the actor and
comedian Rowan Atkinsons signature statement: To criticise a person for their race
is manifestly irrational and ridiculous but to criticise their religion, that is a right.
49

This is because [t]here is an obvious difference between the behaviour of racist

47
Hansard 21 J une 2005, column 681
48
J oan Smith, Why Should I Be J ailed For Attacking Religion?, The Independent, 8
December, 2004.
49
Quoted in Actor Opposes New Bill, The Liverpool Daily Post, 7 December, 2004.
35
agitators...and the activities of satirists and writers who may choose to make comedy
or criticism of religious belief, practices or leaders, just as they do with politics.
50
A
less nuanced form of this argument was invoked by the commentator and liberal
activist J oan Smith, columnist in the libertarian Independent national newspaper,
when she argued: Race is a biological fact, and it is wrong to hate people because
they belong to a particular ethnic group; religion is a set of ideas, voluntarily adopted,
which may or may not be offensive to members of other faiths.
51
Indeed, the
uncritical recitation of racial biology and conflation of ethnicity with race, as
constituting members of a family of involuntary identities, was a common tendency
shared by the former conservative MP and political sketch writer Matthew Parris. As
a commentator in the liberal-conservative Times, he argued that ...with race relations,
the intention is to protect individuals, not ideas, from attack. The difficulty here is that
(broadly speaking) race defines a human group, rather than an idea, so racial attacks
are almost by their very nature hateful towards individuals and therefore easily
criminalised. Religion, however, is essentially an idea, not a group.
52
The view that
this legislation fell outside the Racial Equality paradigm was most trenchantly put by
the left-wing social policy commentator Polly Toynbee of the liberal-left Guardian,
who reserved right to affront religious minorities on the basis of their faith:

...it is now illegal to describe an ethnic group as feeble-minded. But under this law
I couldn't call Christian believers similarly intellectually challenged without risk of
prosecution. This crystallises the difference between racial and religious abuse.
Race is something people cannot choose and it defines nothing about them as
people. But beliefs are what people choose to identify with [...] The two cannot be
blurred into one - which is why the word Islamophobia is a nonsense (emphasis
added)
53
.

In common with other issues arising from the recognition of religious minorities (cf
Meer, 2006), there is then a clear convergence between sections of the Left, Centre
and the Right in their objection to this legislation and agreement with the
Conservative shadow home secretarys view that whilst Government rightly sought
to criminalise people who attempted to stir up hatred on the grounds of race, religious
belief is quite different (21 J une 2005, Hansard column 686).

Race and religion are not always separable
Contrary to this position, other parliamentarians, including Labours Chris Bryant,
took the view that this argument operates

on the basis that there is a substantial difference between a faith and a race because one
chooses one's faith but not one's race. I contest the argument that everyone chooses their
faith. [] Many people in this country live in communities where they have little choice

50
Quoted in Blackadder fights law that could catch out comedians, The Sunday Times, 4
December, 2004.
51
J oan Smith, Why Should I Be J ailed For Attacking Religion?, The Independent, 8
December, 2004.
52
Matthew Parris, Mockery, calumny and scorn: these are the weapons to fight zealots, The
Times, 11 December, 2004.
53
Polly Toynbee, My right to offend a fool: Race and religion are different - which is why
Islamophobia is a nonsense and religious hatred must not be outlawed, The Guardian, 10
J une, 2005,
36
about the faith to which they adhere and are always believed by other people, because of
the clothes that they wear, to belong to a particular faith (21 J une, 2005, Hansard: 691).

Recognising the importance of the subjective attribution of perceived group
membership was not confined to Parliamentary discourse, for as Gary Younge of the
Guardian put it we have a choice about which identities to give to the floor, but at
specific moments they may also choose us.
54
This taps into the voluntary/involuntary
distinction that the RRA tries to bridge by providing redress for discrimination based
upon ones perceived as well as real group membership. A point made by
Modood in the Guardian debates on Islam, race and British identity when he stated
that

No one chooses to be born into a Muslim family. Similarly, no one chooses to be born
into a society where to be a Muslim creates suspicion, hostility, or failure to get the job
you applied for. [] The idea that woman, black and gay people do not choose their
identities, unlike Muslims who choose what to believe, and that Muslims therefore need
or deserve less legal protection than those others is at best politically nave.
55

Making concessions after the Iraq war
These arguments ran parallel to those questioning the motives of a Government
[t]errified of losing the Muslim vote as a result of the Iraq war
56
(though it is
important to recognize that this offence was first proposed in the Anti-terrorism,
Crime and Security Bill 2001, before the conflict). Thus Michael Burleigh of the
Daily Telegraph, a right-wing broadsheet, characterised the proposed offence as a
cynical attempt to claw back Muslim support for New Labour that has been
squandered through the war in Iraq. [...] In reality, evidence for Islamophobia - as
distinct from a justified fear of radical Islamist terrorism or a desire to protect our
freedoms, institutions and values from those who hold them in contempt - is anecdotal
and slight.
57
Following Toynbee, then, Burleigh dismissed Islamophobia as a myth
and rationalizes hostility to Muslims on the grounds of self-preservation. He was
supported in this view by Simon Heffer of the Daily Mail who argued that

The result of this politically correct desire to pander to one small section of society will
be that everyone will have their freedoms constrained. Moreover-you can be sure that the
law would not lead to the appearance of Muslim extremists in court for attacking the
majority religion of Christianity. I cannot see why we should make their religion
immune from our intellectual or humorous assault.
58


Heffers friend (we) / enemy (they) distinction operates on the understanding that
Muslims do not form part of the greater British constituency that shares with the
majority religion of Christianity a stake in the national space. These sentiments are

54
Gary Younge, We can choose our identity, but sometimes it also chooses us. The
Guardian, 21 J anuary, 2005.
55
Tariq Modood, How to live with who we are: Equality is not possible today without a
discussion of its merits and limits, The Guardian, 12 J anuary, 2005.
56
Leo McKinstry, Dont Sacrifice Free Speech To Appease The Muslim Fanatics, The
Express, 22 September, 2005.
57
Michael Burleigh, Religious hatred Bill is being used to buy Muslim votes but centuries-
old religious freedom of expression will be torn up. The Daily Telegraph, 9 December, 2004.
58
Simon Heffer, This really is beyond a joke! Daily Mail, 11 December, 2004.
37
also evident in the importation and synthesis of European discourses considered in the
next section.

Parity with other minority faiths
It is worth contrasting this view with that put forward by Iqbal Sacranie, the
Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), an organisation that had
long lobbied to get the offence on the legislature (see footnote: 6). For Sacranie

the aim was to provide a level playing field so that the protections that applied to race
would be extended to religion; for example criminalising reckless, abusive and insulting
behaviour directed at an individual because of their faith. It would have given Muslims the
same protection afforded to Sikhs and J ews in the UK .
59


This conception of parity, as a motivation for the proposed legislation, was shared by
the Times writer Tom Baldwin when he argued that the adoption of the legislation
would mean that the limited but vital protection afforded to Sikhs and J ews - who are
races as well as faiths - will be extended to Muslims, Christians and atheists too.
60

For many, this is a conception routed firmly in a Racial Equality tradition
characterised as giving rise to pragmatic and intervening policies which seek to
remove barriers to participation. As former government minister Frank Dobson put it:

No one can deny that, because of their religion, some people in our country are the victims
of hate crime, and many more live in fear and insecurity. We owe it to them to try to protect
them as we have tried, and partly succeeded, in protecting people against race hatred.
61

Others maintain that it continues to go beyond race into what is considered private
and should, therefore, remain unsupported by liberal citizenship. Moreover this
debate has been overshadowed by current anti-terrorism legislation that criminalises
the glorification of terrorism, and which has been disproportionately used against
some Muslims perpetrating hate speech. Indeed, several Muslims were found guilty
of such offences during a protest against the publication of cartoons depicting the
prophet Muhammad.
62
It is to this issue that we now turn.

The Danish cartoon affair and the decision not to reprint the images

59
Secretary Generals Speech, The Muslim Council of Britain Annual General Meeting,
Sunday 4 J une 2006.
60
Tom Baldwin, This law will protect believers not beliefs: and we can still laugh at vicars,
The Times, 20 J uly, 2005.
61
Frank Dobson, Atheists should welcome a law against religious hatred: To fail to support
this bill is tantamount to tolerating hate crime, The Guardian, 18 J une, 2006. See also
Modood (1998).
62
Indeed one man, Abdul Saleem, was convicted on charges of Incitement of Racial Hatred
(through the use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to stir up
racial hatred) after he was filmed chanting "7/7 on its way" and "Europe you will pay with
your blood" outside the Danish embassy Press Association, Man convicted over cartoon
protest, The Guardian, 1 February, 2007, available at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/story/0,,2003860,00.html See also:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/story/0,,1983936,00.html.
38
In contrast to this heavily policy based national case; the Danish Cartoon affair
allows us to explore the symbolic issues raised in Britain by this European-wide issue.
The specific concern is to identify the norms and values of a democratic culture that
does or does not respect different sensitivities vis--vis multicultural Britain. For
example, since no British national newspaper re-printed the cartoons, operating in
what has been described as the world's most competitive newspaper market
63
, it raises
the basic question as to what arguments newspapers put forward to justify their
decision. Did the restraint indicate a post-Rushdie sensitivity towards a minority
community? Was it due to concerns over threats of violence, either within Britain or
to Britons living, working and fighting abroad? Given that a large percentage of
newspapers are distributed by Muslims, is it due to fear of industrial sabotage? The
following section cannot answer these questions in any finality but it can on the
public and media discourse that has permeated print and electronic newspaper
journalism, including readers letters and blogs, alongside the decision amongst the
broadcast media to show the images very fleetingly, where they were shown at all, in
the context of telling a story.

Responsibility and gratuitous offence.
There were several overlapping rationales not to re-print the cartoons which inter
alia included issues of journalistic responsibility, restraint, choice, toleration and fear
of violence. Thus the editorial of the main liberal-conservative national broadsheet,
The Times, detailed its anguish in deciding not to reprint the images but instead to
make a web-link available, a decision they reached by balancing the issue of choice
against not wanting to cause gratuitous offence:
To duplicate these cartoons...has an element of exhibitionism to it. To present them in front
of the public for debate is not a value-neutral exercise. The offence destined to be caused to
moderate Muslims should not be discounted. [...] The crucial theme here is choice. The
truth is that drawing the line in instances such as these is not a black-and-white question. It
cannot be valid for followers of a religion to state that because they consider images of the
Prophet idolatry, the same applies to anyone else in all circumstances. Then again, linking
the Prophet to suicide bombings supposedly undertaken in his honour was incendiary. The
Times would, for example, have reservations about printing a cartoon of Christ in a Nazi
uniform sketched because sympathisers of Hitler had conducted awful crimes in the name
of Christianity. Muslims thus have a right to protest about the cartoons and, if they want, to
boycott the publications concerned.
64

Britains leading right-wing tabloid newspaper, The Sun, shared much with The Times
but was in fact more robust in its refusal to re-publish on the grounds that the images
were offensive and irrelevant to Britain:
The cartoons are intended to insult Muslims, and The Sun can see no justification for
causing deliberate offence to our much-valued Muslim readers. Second, the row over the
cartoons is largely a manufactured one. They were printed first in a Danish dispute over
free speech. The Sun believes passionately in free speech, but that does not mean we need
to jump on someone else's bandwagon to prove we will not be intimidated.
65


63
Editorial, A more responsible approach to the debate on freedom of speech, The
Independent, 4 February 2006.
64
Editorial, Drawing the line, The Times, 3 February, 2006.
65
Editorial, Out of toon, The Sun, 3 February, 2006.
39
On one level this is unprecedented as The Sun is rarely sympathetic to minority
groups, and is in fact notorious for its offensive sensationalism. The editorial decision
might be explained by the papers proprietors desire for consistency since both, and
many others, are owned By Rupert Murdochs News International organisation. Yet
these sentiments were also evidenced by independent and competing broadsheet and
tabloid publications. For example, the editorial of the libertarian broadsheet
Independent newspaper made its case for not publishing on the grounds of its right to
exercise restraint.
There is, of course, no doubt that newspapers should have the right to print cartoons that
some people find offensive. [...] But there is an important distinction to be made between
having a right and choosing to exercise it. The editor of France Soir had the right to reprint
the offending cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that first caused a stir in the Danish
press. But in doing so he was throwing petrol on the flames of a fire... It is facile, in so
complex a situation, to seek refuge in simple statements about the rights of a free press.
Most difficult decisions are not between right and wrong. They are between competing
rights. There is a right to exercise an uncensored pen. But there is also a right for people to
exist in a secular pluralist society without feeling as alienated, threatened and routinely
derided as many Muslims now do.
66

It was a sentiment shared with the right-wing middle-class tabloid newspaper, The
Daily Mail, when it stressed the exercise of responsibility:

...great freedoms involve great responsibilities. And an obligation of free speech is that you
do not gratuitously insult those with whom you disagree. While the Mail would fight to the
death to defend those papers that printed the offending cartoons, it disagrees with the fact
that they have done so. Rights are one thing. Responsibilities are another. And the
newspapers that so piously proclaimed their right to freedom of speech were being, to put it
mildly, deeply discourteous to the Islamic view. They knew perfectly well that images of
the prophet offend the deepest beliefs of Muslims. Wasn't it incumbent on them to think
long and hard before indulging in what seems a grandstanding attempt to display their brave
liberal credentials?
67

British traditions distinct from Europe
Implicit in the reasons set out in these editorials was the view that papers should
not print things that their readers find unfair and offensive. Indeed, the Society of
Editors hailed its British members' restrained wisdom in not showing the cartoons,
and the National Union of J ournalists (NUJ ) praised the BBC's impartial and
sensible stance in showing them. As Andreas Whittam Smith, the co-founder and
former editor of the Independent, told BBC news: this is an issue not of press
freedom but of taste and responsibility (BBC News, 3 February 2006). In this vein,
his pro-European former newspaper argued that British institutions, for all their
faults, have a greater cultural sensitivity than their continental counterparts. [...] This
is due, in no small part, to our tradition of multiculturalism... on the whole, we are in a
better position than many of our continental neighbours.
68
This is a view shared by
The Suns only Muslim columnist, Anila Baig, when she concluded that [w]e're
much luckier here in Britain that there is tolerance and acceptance of other cultures
but it seems clear that the intention in Denmark was to deliberately provoke

66
Editorial, This is not just a simple issue of freedoms, The Independent, 3 February, 2006.
67
Editorial, Free speech and a collision of cultures, Daily Mail, 3 February, 2006.
68
Editorial, A more responsible approach to the debate on freedom of speech, The
Independent, 4 February, 2006.
40
Muslims.
69
In an extension of this view Simon J enkins of The Times lamented
European Newspapers for what he describes as the perpetuation of falsehoods, and
presented the affair as an example of continental racism:
To imply that some great issue of censorship is raised by the Danish cartoons is nonsense.
They were offensive and inflammatory. The best policy would have been to apologise and
shut up. For Danish journalists to demand "Europe-wide solidarity" in the cause of free
speech and to deride those who are offended as "fundamentalists ... who have a problem
with the entire western world" comes close to racial provocation. We do not go about
punching people in the face to test their commitment to non-violence. To be a European
should not involve initiation by religious insult.
70

This point was also expressed in The Observer editorial (The Guardians Sunday
sister paper) which recounted that one German paper published the cartoons on
grounds of 'Europe-wide solidarity', yet it is hard to see how the Continent benefits
from Europeans insulting each other. German Muslims are Europeans, too.
71
A view
more stridently held by The Guardian columnist J onathan Steele who shared both
arguments put forward earlier by The Sun:
Denmark is still at the prejudiced end, a traditionally mono-ethnic country that has not yet
accepted the new cultures in its midst. Public discourse is stuck where it was in Britain a
generation ago, with angry talk about "guests" who ought to conform to the "host country"
or go home. [...] When the demonstrations started and other papers in Europe printed the
cartoons in "solidarity" with J yllands-Posten, they compounded the initial anti-Muslim error
by trying to stir up a continental clash of civilisations. But why should a progressive paper
in Britain feel "solidarity" with anti-immigrant Danish editors who made a major error of
judgment rather than with British Muslims who universally deplored the cartoons?
72
Ziauddin Sardar, a prominent Muslim writer and broadcaster, echoed many of
J enkins and Steeles points when he distinguished British from European fields of
media discourse on the grounds of self-representation and right to reply:
This is not an issue of freedom of expression, it is very much an issue of power. In Britain,
Muslims are in a good position and are capable of representing themselves, but in Europe
they are marginalised and do not have the means to reply. If you use your freedom of
expression to denigrate and abuse, knowing they have no way of responding, then it is an
act of oppression. It is an act of banality and we are moving towards a "banality of evil".
The demonisation of Muslims is like the demonisation of J ews that led to the Holocaust and
there is a similar swing to the right occurring now in Europe. I have travelled in Holland,
Belgium, France and Germany and have been horrified by the open hatred of Muslims in
those countries. What this kind of exercise does is to confirm people's belief about
Muslims, that they are right to hate them and the next stage, which is one of violence, is
implicit.
73
Almost responding to Sardars complaint, the Independent editorial argued that
Muslim community here feels less excluded than do Muslim communities on the
continent. We should take heart from that. These are violent and disorientating times.
But provided we recognise that British Muslims are friends - rather than our enemies-

69
Anila Baig, Muslims should worry about the real issues..not about a cartoon, 3 February,
2006.
70
Simon J enkins, These cartoons don't defend free speech, they threaten it, The Times, 3
February, 2006.
71
Editorial, We must put a stop to this savage bitterness The Observer, 5 February, 2006.
72
J onathan Steele, Europe's cartoon battle lines are drawn in shades of grey, not black and
white: Lost in the furore over violent protests is any condemnation of the deliberate
provocation by newspaper editors, The Guardian, 11 February, 2006.
73
Quoted in They should have published...they shouldn't...how the world divides on freedom
of expression, The Times, 5 May, 2006.
41
our society will ultimately emerge into brighter days.
74
Indeed, Mark Steel of the
Independent, compared the cartoons with the limits of acceptability applied to past
British satire to argue that the reason we no longer accept golliwogs and black and
white minstrels and the joke of throwing bananas at black footballers is because their
existence affects the status of black people in society. If it's legitimate to portray an
entire race as sub-human idiots, they're more likely to be attacked, abused and made
to feel utterly dreadful.
75
The most widely read national broadsheet newspaper, the
right-wing Daily Telegraph, also chose not to publish the cartoons on the grounds of
responsibility and restraint, but characterised its desire to not cause gratuitous offence
as in keeping with a British tradition of tolerance:

We prefer not to cause gratuitous offence to some of our readers, a policy we also apply, for
example, to pictures of graphic nudity or violence. However, there might be circumstances
in which the dictates of news left us with no choice but to publish - and where the public
interest was overwhelmingly served by such an act, we would. Our restraint is in keeping
with British values of tolerance and respect for the feelings of others. However, we are
equally in no doubt that a small minority of Muslims would be offended by such a
publication to an extent where they would threaten, and perhaps even use, violence. This is
a problem that the whole of the Western world needs to confront frankly, and not sidestep.
76

Fear of Muslim response
For the Daily Telegraph, then, there existed a tension between showing restraint
on the one-hand, and confronting rather than side-stepping the offended parties on
the other. Yet it did not re-print the cartoons and one theme that emerged in readers
letters was that this decision was not, in fact, due to tolerance and restraint, but an
outcome of intimidation and threat of violence. The following letter is characteristic
of this view:
Recent events have made clear that the British people (and, in particular, the British press)
have been successfully intimidated by acts of violence and threats of violence by some
British Muslims. [...] The British press has shown that it is too frightened to publish those
cartoons. It is a most stunning act of calculated omission that they have all found excuses to
seek to distance themselves from what has hitherto been hallowed in this country, namely,
the freedom of speech as reflected in our daily newspapers.
77

Indeed, when the Left-leaning liberal broadsheet, The Guardian, made its decision not
to print the images but instead to provide links to the newspaper sites that had, it
asked its readers to blog comments. Over seven hundred opinions were posted in a
matter of hours, with the clear majority favouring the "publish and be damned"
approach. This was characterised by a negative comparison with other European
newspapers exemplified by the following post: "It is as simple as being a free speech
issue - as previous posters have pointed out, you have not fought shy of offending
many other groupings in the past. Compare yourselves to your newspaper colleagues
in Denmark, France and all over Europe and hang your heads in shame." As editors

74
Editorial, We should recognise our friends, The Independent, 8 February, 2006.
75
Mark Steel, It's no joke if you're on the receiving end, The Independent, 8 February, 2006.
76
Editorial, Why we will defend the right to offend, The Daily Telegraph, 3 February, 2006.
77
Letters to the Editor: The press gives in to a threat of terrorism, The Independent, 4
February, 2006.
42
conceded, however, this was an exercise in finding out what readers thought, not a
democratic process.
78
Thus it also did not carry the images and stated that:

The Guardian believes uncompromisingly in freedom of expression, but not in any duty to
gratuitously offend. It would be senselessly provocative to reproduce a set of images, of no
intrinsic value, which pander to the worst prejudices about Muslims. To directly associate
the founder of one of the world's three great monotheistic religions with terrorist violence -
the unmistakable meaning of the most explicit of these cartoons - is wrong, even if the
intention was satirical rather than blasphemous. [...] The extraordinary unanimity of the
British press in refraining from publishing the drawings - in contrast to the Nordic
countries, Germany, Spain and France - speaks volumes. J ohn Stuart Mill is a better guide
to this issue than Voltaire.
79

Yet the Guardians media editor suspected the truth is that many British journalists
feel uncomfortable with the accommodations we are already making, not because they
think it is the role of a free press to cause gratuitous offence, but because we have
accepted that a large group is to be treated with greater circumspection for fear of
what it will do if we don't [...] Freedom of the press is all very well, but newspapers
are commercial operations.
80
Indeed, writing in the Independent, the former Daily
Telegraph editor dismisses much of the respect rationale as a half-truth:

Let me tell you what in fact each and every one of those editors would actually have been
thinking about before "choosing not to publish". They would, first of all, have had a phone
call from the newspaper's distributors, or their own circulation department, pointing out that
a large number of "our" newsagents up and down the country are run by families originally
from Pakistan and Bangladesh, both Muslim countries. You don't bite the hand that sells
you.
81

In a similar vein, the Sunday Times columnist Andrew Sullivan protested that [t]he
one argument you haven't heard is the one you hear off-camera. Many editors simply
don't want to put their staffs at risk of physical danger. They have "offended"
Muslims in the past and learnt to regret it. [...] In this new war of freedom versus
fundamentalism I always anticipated appeasement. I just didn't expect the press to be
among the first to wave the white flag.
82
This was a view shared by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
who was described by a journalist as disappointed by the British media's acceptance
of the religious case. She does not believe it stems from concern for pious feelings but
rather fear of violent reprisal. 'You're scared,' she says. 'That's a shame.'
83
Indeed,
two days after stating its initial position, The Daily Telegraph group of papers (in the
Sunday Telegraph) returned to the issue of coercion:

What is completely unacceptable is that this debate should be carried out in a climate of
fear. For let us not delude ourselves: it is violence, or the threat of violence, that has driven
the decisions that have been made in the past week. At a time when reasonable dialogue is

78
Emily Bell, Readers echoed an internal debate on the Danish cartoons, The Guardian, 4
February 2006.
79
Editorial, Muslims and cartoons: Insults and injuries, The Guardian, 4 February, 2006.
80
Kim Fletcher, On the press: When freedom gives in to fear. The Guardian, 6 February,
2006.
81
Dominic Lawson, Hysteria, hypocrisy and half-truths, The independent, 7 February, 2006.
82
Andrew Sullivan, Islamo-bullies get a free ride from the West, The Sunday Times, 12
February, 2006.
83
Andew Anthony, The end of freedom?, The Observer, 12 February, 2006.
43
most needed, the supposed custodians of our democracy are allowing a gun to be held to its
head.
84

Importation or reference to European discourses
Alongside the domestic discourses, there emerged others pertaining to European
debates vis--vis the advanced state of negative relations with Muslims on the
Continent. Holland, for example, was often referred to as a case in point, described
by one commentator as the canary in the mine:
Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. [...] Holland - with
its disproportionately high Muslim population -is the canary in the mine. Its once open
society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the
twilight of liberalism not least freedom of expression. All across Europe, debate on Islam
is being stoppedand in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that
would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice.
85
Whilst these characterisations were more prevalent in centre-right publications, the
view that the cartoons formed part of a broader continental problem was not localised
to the centre-right. For example, Bruce Anderson of the Independent argued that the
cartoons simply drew our attention to an existing problem:
The cartoons did not create the tension. They merely highlighted it. They have forced
Europe to face a problem which most political elites would rather ignore, although it will be
one of the major questions of the next few decades: How are we to achieve peaceful
coexistence with Islam?
86
In more combative terms, the context of printing of the cartoons was described by the
Daly Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn in a clash of civilisations rhetoric:
...the publication of a couple of cartoons in Denmark has absolutely nothing to do with
freedom of speech. This is war. [...] In Holland, it was the murder of a Dutch filmmaker
deemed guilty of showing insufficient respect to Islam. In Spain, it was the slaughter of
hundreds of commuters in Madrid. In France, it is the routine desecration of J ewish
graveyards and synagogues.
87
These considerations, it is argued, are more advanced on the continent than they are
in the UK because in Holland and Belgium, liberals have woken up to the fact that
Islam is not their ally. What will it take before their equivalents do the same here?
88

In some agreement, and once again demonstrating the tensions in adopting its
positions not to re-print the images, The Daily Telegraph contrasted British
politicians responses unfavourably with those of their European counterparts:
Mr Straw has been put to shame by the German home minister, Wolfgang Schuble, who
robustly defended the freedom of newspapers to make their own decisions. "Why should
the German government apologise?'' he said. "This is an expression of press freedom.'' In
contrast, the British Government's craven response has sent a terrible signal: those who

84
Editorial, Democracy has a gun held to its head, Sunday Telegraph, 5 February, 2006.
85
Douglas Murray, We should fear Holland's silence, The Sunday Times, 26 February,
2006.
86
Bruce Anderson, Stop cringing and stand up for our own values, The Independent, 6
February, 2006.
87
Richard Littlejohn, This is war. And I hate to say it, but we're losing, The Daily Mail, 7
February, 2006.
88
Peter Hitchens, Can't our police see which side Islam's on?, Mail on Sunday, 12 February,
2006.
44
wish to see free expression curtailed need only light a flame, issue a threat and wave an
angry fist.
89

British Politicians responses
Although the Prime Minister distanced himself from the crisis by stating "this is
entirely a matter for the media organisations to decide what they ought to do within
the law"
90
, Peter Mandelson, the British EU Trade Commissioner, urged newspapers
not to re-print the cartoons whilst J ack Straw, the foreign secretary, argued that press
freedom carried an obligation not "to be gratuitously inflammatory". Straw stated that
while he was committed to press freedom, "the republication of these cartoons has
been insulting, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been
wrong". He then praised the British press for showing "considerable responsibility
and sensitivity".
91
These comments were complimented by those made by the Home
Secretary, Charles Clarke, who said: "we understand the offence caused by the
cartoons... freedom of expression must be exercised with respect for the views of
others, including their religious beliefs.
92
The opposition Conservative party too
defended the right of editors to decide whether to re-print the images or not, though
with a somewhat different emphasis. Dominic Grieve, the shadow attorney general,
said: "From what we know about the cartoons it is understandable that they have
caused offence. However, the decision as to whether to publish or not is one of taste
and decency that should rightly be taken by newspaper editors, broadcasters and their
owners and is not one for government. Whilst it could be argued that these cartoons
were reckless, it is almost certainly the case that they were not intended to stir up
hatred.''
93
Again, the issue of incitement to religious hatred become a keep signpost
and an issue upon which Mohammed Sarwar, Britain's first Muslim MP made a
speech in Parliament stating that "while we recognise and respect freedom of speech
and expression, it does not extend to a right to insult, humiliate and hurt people, which
is what the irresponsible publication of the cartoons of the Prophet, peace be upon
him, has done - causing deep offence to millions of Muslims around the world."
94

Where they were shown
Although it is correct to state that no national newspaper re-printed the images,
there were a number of cases where the images were briefly uploaded onto news
agency websites or published before being removed or recalled. It is instructive to
consider each of these cases as their specific details offer a comment on the climate of
public and media discourse vis--vis recognising Muslim sensibilities as a rationale
for restraint. For example, the centre-right political magazine, the Spectator, briefly
carried the images on its website for a few hours before its acting editor, Stuart Reid,

89
Editorial, Democracy has a gun held to its head, The Sunday Telegraph, 5 February, 2006.
90
Quote in Daniel McGrory and Dan Sabbagh, Cartoon wars and the clash of civilisations,
The Times, 3 February, 2006.
91
Quoted in Ewen MacAskill, Sandra Laville and Luke Harding, Cartoon controversy
spreads throughout Muslim world, The Guardian, 4 February, 2006.
92
Quoted in Andrew Gimson, Clarke shows how to tolerate intolerance Commons Sketch,
The Telegraph, 7 February, 2006.
93
Melissa Kite, Muslim protests are incitement to murder, say Tories, Daily Telegraph, 5
February, 2006.
94
Quoted in The Express, 9 February, 2006.
45
removed them saying they were "unnecessarily provocative".
95
Equally, a libertarian
magazine with a small circulation - The Liberal - posted one of the cartoons on its
website before removing it after just twenty five minutes.
96
In print, however, it was a
Welsh student newspaper entitled Gair Rhydd meaning "free word" that recalled
all copies after it became the first British publication to re-print the cartoons.
97

Consequently the Cardiff University Students' Union moved quickly in stating that it
very much regrets any upset caused or disrespect shown.
98
Elsewhere, Llwyd
Williams, the Archdeacon of Bangor and editor of the official Welsh language church
magazine - Y Llan resigned after his magazine re-printed the cartoons.
99
A church
spokesman is quoted as saying:

...we are concerned about the possibility of causing offence to the Muslim community in
Wales - with whom the Church in Wales has an excellent relationship. The Archbishop has
been in touch with the leaders of the Muslim community in Wales to proffer an apology for
any offence caused.
100


It is of significance then that the only organisation to have shown or re-printed
without retracting the images was not a news agency but the British National Party
(BNP). This organisation claimed to have circulated half a million leaflets featuring
the cartoons to its fourteen local groups across the country (though it is not clear
whether this was undertaken). In a message on the BNP website, its leader, Nick
Griffin, urged members to print off the leaflets and "pin them to church notice boards"
and to "leave them on trains and buses" to protest at the reaction to a decision by
British newspapers not to publish the images out of respect for the Muslim faith.
101

Broadcast media
Elsewhere, the national BBC news bulletins showed a page from the French
newspaper that carried the images of Muhammad. A late evening news discussion
programme on BBC2 - Newsnight - did not show the cartoons but used obscured shots
of the newspapers carrying the images as well as an artist to draw sections of the
cartoons without the depictions of Muhammad. The commercial ITN news agency
went further in showing the image on its 10.30 bulletin. The BBC said that brief
images were being broadcast "responsibly" and "in full context" so as to "give
audiences an understanding of the strong feelings evoked."
102
In his assessment of
this policy, the former Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, openly stated that
there was agreement amongst the major news agencies to the effect that they would
not too greatly focus upon the images:

95
Quoted in Daniel McGrory and Dan Sabbagh, Cartoon wars and the clash of civilisations,
The Times, 3 February, 2006.
96
Roland White, First Kennedy, now those cartoons - here's a Liberal who lives on the edge,
Sunday Times, 12 February, 2006.
97
Simon de Bruxelles, Students' paper in hot water, The Times, 8 February, 2006.
98
Richard Savill, University drops editor over cartoon, The Daily Telegraph, 8 February,
2006.
99
Simon de Bruxelles, Editor of church magazine quits over cartoon, The Times, 22 March
2006.
100
Ibid.
101
Quoted in Karen McVeigh, BNP publishes Danish cartoon, The Times, 23 February,
2006.
102
Gabriel Milland, BBC Sparks Muslim Death Threats, 3 February 2006.
46
What I do know is that senior people in all three television news organisations -
BBC, Sky and ITN - had informal discussions on what to show and what not to
show that resulted in them all following the same policy. By all sticking to that
policy, by all agreeing to show only a quick pan shot of the cartoons, it meant that
none of them were out of step and all were less exposed. In all three newsrooms
there was a great deal of internal debate. Inside ITN there were some who thought
that the decision taken to show the panned shots in only one ITV bulletin was itself
self-censorship.
103

The BBC disclosed that it had received more than 2,400 complaints after showing
fleeting images of the cartoons in news s, with most saying that the images should not
be shown again (1,116 respondents), or that they should never have been shown
(950). Only 20 people got in touch to say they wanted the cartoons shown fully.
104

Conclusions
If there has been a retreat from multiculturalism in Britain, it has neither been a
wholesale nor uncontested retreat. Indeed, the first section of this argued that
although there is currently a discursive re-positioning underway, toward a more
civic conception of British citizenship, this does not indicate and has so far not
resulted in a clear commitment to abandoning the recognition and support of
difference either in governmental literature or policy.
It is instead argued that what we are witnessing is more like a re-balancing that
is not necessarily replacing but significantly competing with multiculturalist discourse
and policy. For example, discourse and policy explicitly stressing integration and
cohesion, and which emerged after the 2001 riots, has increasingly premised
minority inclusion upon a greater degree of qualification than before i.e. citizenship
tests and language proficiency for new migrants, and an unambiguous disavowal of
radicalism or extremism from settled ethnic minorities. This means that the once
prevalent view of British multiculturalism as an incremental movement that could in
time accommodate increasingly levels of diversity - extolled in places such as the
Commission on Multi-Ethnic Britain (2000) is presently much less salient.
As section two makes clear, one of the biggest hurdles currently facing the British
Racial Equality paradigm that has given rise to British multiculturalism, is the
resistance to conceiving Muslim difference as an addition to it. As the same section
also demonstrated, however, this not an uncontested resistance in public and media
discourse, nor in a governmental policy that persisted at some political cost in the
creation of the offence of incitement to religious hatred under to achieve greater
parity. In contrast to this heavily policy based case, section three considered the
reasons that the print and broadcast media put forward for not reprinting the Danish
cartoons in Britain. Rather than import European rationales wholesale, British
editorials made the case for exercising restraint in not causing gratuitous offence out
of respect for Muslims in Britain. The section also showed how these arguments
consciously contrasted British traditions as being distinct from their European
counterparts. In some respects, this distinction proceeded upon the past lessons of

103
Greg Dyke, Why did the media choose not to show the cartoons of Mohamed? The
Independent, February 13, 2006.
104
Andrew Alderson, Nina Goswami, J ames Orr and Chris Hastings, More than 1,000
Muslims protest in London over cartoons satirising Prophet The Sunday Telegraph, 5
February 2006.
47
respecting different sensitivities vis--vis multiculturalism and, in this way; salient
Muslim differences seem to be understood in political as well as religious terms. This
suggests that the discursive character of British multiculturalism is a central and not a
minor feature.
At the same time, however, it remains the case that the self-restraint exercised in
not re-printing the images was not universally viewed positively, as some editorials,
not least in the right-wing press, testify. This tension rested on an assertion of British
traditions of freedom of expression into which offended minorities must be
inculcated. The question currently facing British multiculturalism is, therefore, how
much recognition of diversity needs to be off-set with civic assimilation, and the
issues this question raises will be further pursued in the next chapter.



























48
CHAPTER THREE
Education and migration related diversity
This chapter examines the ways in which migration related diversity in Britain has
given rise to educational challenges; how these have been addressed in the past and
how the responses to present challenges maybe indicative of a broader approach to
minority cultural differences. One way of exploring the impact of migration related
diversity in education is to focus upon examples of difference specific education as
inclusion - not separatism - that have assumed the greatest prominence in each
respective national frame. In particular, these should focus upon those cases or
mobilisations that have been/are concerned with the promotion or recognition of
minority differences with a view to pluralizing or broadening the national culture.
In the UK these have included

i. contestations over the educational priorities and agendas that have
emerged in mainstream mixed schooling, including any institutional
accommodations that have or have not catered for the specificity of ethnic
minority children; and
ii. the mobilisations for religiously or culturally specific schools within the
publicly funded sector.

With this in mind the next section contextualises the current educational challenges of
the schooling of ethnic minority children in the debates between advocates of anti-
racist education and multicultural education, their specific political imperatives and
their policy implications. It notes how this praxis was effected by a centralising
government that introduced a compulsory national school curriculum which
accounted for the majority of what would be taught in schools; embedding the use of
national school league tables as a measure of a schools success and strengthening the
role of parental choice. The following section then considers the recent policy shift
toward Citizenship Education, specifically its provenance, imperatives and to what
extent it is a rejection or incorporation of what has preceded it. After this we move to
the issue of religiously or culturally specific schools within the publicly funded sector.
We particularly focus upon the motivation for these mobilisations; the debates they
have been party to, along with the extent of state accommodation or non-
accommodation of this claims-making. The final section concludes on whether the
earlier findings are supported in the current public policy discourse and praxis
responding to the challenges of migration related diversity in education.

Preliminary background
This chapter contains substantial interview data collected from key stake-holders
(including educators and practitioners, advocates and experts, policy makers and
policy advisers, all listed in appendix I). This data is analysed and intertwined with
the other case study material (see appendix II) that is used throughout each section of
this . Before entering into this, however, it is worth setting out some basic descriptive
statistics that will facilitate later discussion.
49
Current data shows that in England, the percentage of ethnic minority pupils in
state-sector schooling
105
makes up 20.6% of all children aged 4-11yrs (in primary
education), and 16.8% of children aged 11-16yrs (in secondary schools). As figure 1
identifies, at the primary level, the largest ethnic minority group is Pakistani which
accounts for 3.3% of pupils, followed by White Other pupils (2.6%) and Black
African pupils (2.5%). At secondary school level the largest ethnic minority pupils are
Pakistani (2.5%), followed by Indian (2.4%) and White Other (2.3%).

Fg. 1. The ethnic minority composition of Primary and Secondary school pupils
106



With respect to geographical dispersion, the greatest proportion of Britains ethnic
minority pupils are concentrated in England with 4 percent of the school aged
population of the North East and nearly three quarters of the school aged population
of Inner London (of whom 17 percent are Black African; 12 percent Black Caribbean;
11 percent Bangladeshi; 9 percent Any other White background; 8 percent Mixed
Heritage background) defined as ethnic minorities. The variation by Local Education
Authority (LEA) is shown in figure 2, illustrating that the school aged ethnic minority
population ranges from 1.5 percent of East Riding of Yorkshire LEA to 84% of
Hackney LEA in London. Unsurprisingly, London has a very high proportion of
Britains ethnic minority pupils with 44 percent of all ethnic minority ethnic pupils
attending schools in either an Inner or Outer London LEA.
Within this, however, if we examine the religious profiles of these groups we find
that of all groups Muslim children are disproportionately present throughout the
education system. Comprising nearly 5% (588,000) of the school population from the
entire Muslim population of 3% (1.8 million) (Halstead, 2005, p. 104; Office for
National Statistics [ONS], 2005), there is a striking contrast between the number of
Muslim children and the number of J ewish children of school age (50,000)who
represent 0.4% of the school population (combining primary and secondary).

105
According to DfES spokesperson Matthew English (telephoned on 20 September, 2007),
state sector schooling refers to all schools that receive state funding. This includes schools
who receive funding channelled through their Local Education Authority (LEA), as well as
those who opt out and maybe Voluntary Aided (VA) or receive Academy Status, but excludes
wholly private and independent schools.
106
Data from DfES (2006) research paper: Ethnicity and Education: The Evidence on
Minority Ethnic Pupils aged 5-16. London: HMSO.
50
Reflecting the particularly youthful national demographic of British-Muslims, where
33.8% are 015 years old and 18.2% are 1624 years old (Scott, Pearce, & Goldblatt,
2001), in some LEAs this translates into a significant Muslim presence amongst
school districts and wards. This is partially the result of concentrated settlement
patterns by first-generation migrant workers (often intensified by the white flight to
the suburbs, cf. Ratcliffe, 1996) which, in cities such as Bradford, means that roughly
33% of total school population is of predominantly Muslim ethnic minority origin
(OFSTED/Audit Commission, 2002). As a result, a significant number of inner city
schools in Bradford almost exclusively serve the Muslim population (Halstead,
2005: 110) a pattern not uncommon in other cities home to significant post-war
minority ethnic settlement (ONS, 2005, also see the D1 or appendix III for a
breakdown of ethnicity and religion by age and location).

51
Fg. 2. The geographic distribution of Britains ethnic minority pupils

52
During the course of the development of this considerable migration related diversity,
educators, policy-makers and broader communities have sometimes favoured
diverging, indeed competing, strategies, and two of the most prominent approaches
might be cast together as anti-racist and multicultural education.

Anti-Racist and multicultural educational practice
Anti-Racist education is premised upon the idea that education should confront
and challenge prevailing societal attitudes and practices marked by racial dynamics
(Mullard, 1985). This is, it is argued, because racial biases will exist amongst all
students, teachers and institutional practices, so that racism is not just a problem that
ethnic minorities should have to address alone (Tronya, 1987).
Throughout the 1980s this view was buttressed by evidence showing that children
with African-Caribbean backgrounds were failing to achieve basic qualifications that
were necessary for employment, let alone the social mobility aspired by their parents
(Stone, 1981). This was particularly the case with AfricanCaribbean boys who were
increasingly found to be in conflict with teachers, or unemployed, and/or
disproportionately present in the criminal justice system (Coard, 1971). Indeed such
was the concern generated by these patterns of educational failure, and related indices
of social disadvantage and exclusion, that it led some AfricanCaribbean parents and
broader communities in the 1970s to establish supplementary (Saturday) schools for
their children (Modood and May, 2001; Chevannes & Reeves, 1987; Reay & Mirza,
1997).
Anti-racist education sought to redress these tendencies by promoting a positive
image of black people through such means as the teaching of black history,
promotion of black role models, explicit recognition of the continuing existence of
racism in society, and a greater awareness and sensitivity amongst educators of racial
issues. What this ultimately comprised, then, was a political education that
highlighted the processes and effects of racism within society, along with other forms
of discrimination, and its implications for all students (Modood and May, 2001).
It was not applied in education policy, however, until the Inner London Education
Authority (ILEA), with the support of some Left-wing radicals (including the present
Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone), became receptive to its ideas. As Lee J asper,
currently race equality advisor to the London Assembly, confirms: there was a time
when anti-racist policy in schools was very much more developed. When I think of
the time that the ILEA was in existence, it pioneered all sorts of work on progressive
curriculums [sic] to do with anti-sexism and anti-racism (Interview with J asper, 26
J uly 2007). Indeed, and as both the D1 and D2 s stress, much of what we know as
both anti-racist and multicultural education has been enacted at the local education
authority level. This is because LEAs are responsible for education within the
jurisdiction of county councils and metropolitan boroughs, which includes
responsibility for all state schools with the exception of those that apply and are
afforded voluntary aided status (and can therefore opt out) under the terms of the
1944 Education Act (a category of particular relevance to the discussion in section
four). As such, because of these and other powers, not least section 11 of the Local
Government Act (1966) which afforded local authorities additional funds to support
the presence of significant numbers of ethnic minorities requiring language and other
access assistance, in many multi-ethnic urban areas LEAs have been able to
53
encourage anti-racist and multicultural initiatives in the face of and at the cost of
some vociferous opposition.
One of the earliest adoption of multicultural praxis can be found in Birmingham
LEAs introduction in 1975 of a new Agreed Syllabus which required that pupils
learn about and learn from the great world faiths present in the city (Hewer, 2001:
517). Some other LEAs such as Bradford, meanwhile, promoted innovations
including the provision of halal meat in schools in 1983. Indeed, the guidelines
issued by Bradford LEA were, at the time quite radically, based upon the following
two planks:

that all children in Bradford were entitled to equality of treatment, equality of
opportunity and equality of services and should be offered a shared educational
experience;
and that all sections of the community in the city had an equal right to the
maintenance of their distinctive identities and loyalties of culture, language, religion
and custom, and that so far as was compatible with individual needs, the authority's
provision of services should respect the strength and variety of each group's cultural
values.

Both of these positions were set out in their LEA policy statement that aimed to
prepare all children and young people for life in a multicultural society, to counter
racism and racist attitudes, and the inequalities and discrimination which result from
them, to build on and develop the strengths of cultural and linguistic diversity, and to
respond sensitively to the special needs of minority groups (City of Bradford Local
Administrative Memorandum No 2/82). Whilst the Bradford LEA recognized the
organizational difficulties of achieving these aims, it was convinced that the
educational needs of ethnic minority children could be met within a comprehensive
education system based upon a common school curriculum.

Difference and divergence
It is important to emphasise that both anti-racist and multicultural education are
diffuse conceptions of educational reform, and to that extent it is difficult to present
either one as entirely distinct from the other (Tronya, 1987: 311). Yet it is equally the
case that within the context of an elision of political and cultural identities, anti-racist
and multicultural education became inherently oppositional educational projects. So
where multiculturalism was, somewhat erratically, introduced into multi-ethnic
British schools, it was regarded by many anti-racist educators as an instrument of
control and stability rather than one of change (Mullard, 1985: 50). As J asper now
reflects: if anything, anti-racists falsely caricatured multiculturalism as a soft option
because with any generalised concept there are many ways you can implement it, and
yes at its tokenistic level it is meaningless. Where it is imbued with an equality of
opportunity and anti-racism at its core, then its a force for good. (J asper, Interview).
One of the things that anti-racist critics lamented was the supposed lack of politics
in multicultural education, and they favoured the predication of race-equality in
education on an overarching, single, political identity. For example, activist groups
such as all London Teachers Against Racism and Fascism (ALTARF) which emerged
in the late 1970s, and the publicly funded Constructions of Anti-racist Education
programmes that developed in the early 1980s through the policies of the ILEA, both
sought to distance themselves from ethnic or cultural particularity by embracing the
politics of Black solidarity. In this way anti-racist educators viewed their movement
54
as an oppositional pedagogy premised on a political conflict between Black and
White interests.
A number of challenges addressed this oppositional pedagogy. Amongst others,
Modood (1988) charged anti-racists with ignoring a plurality of ethnic differences
and cultural not only colour racism, alongside the ways in which people might
retain a mode of being not necessarily reducible to racist categorisations. Another
challenge arose from the inquiry into the racially motivated murder in 1986 of school
boy Ahmed Ullah, at Burnage High School, Manchester. Though broadly
sympathetic to the tenets of anti-racism, the Burnage (MacDonald, Bhavnani, Khan,
& J ohn, 1989: 402) concluded that the school's particular anti-racist policy had
contributed to the incident because it was doctrinaire and divisive, something the
called moral or symbolic anti-racism, in which white students are all seen as
racist, whether they are ferret-eyed fascists or committed antiracists.
107
The
Burnage was one of several documents that are integral to understanding the British
approach to migration related diversity in education. Another was prompted by the
aforementioned African-Caribbean underachievement (described as a matter of
urgency in a Government Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration)
that led the then Labour government to set up an independent inquiry (Verma, 1989).

The Swann Commission
The Swann Commission emerged from an inquiry established in 1979 which
produced an interim publication, the Rampton (1981), named after its chair, that
drew upon research from six LEAs to highlight the differential performance of West
Indian children in relation to three other categories (Asians, Whites, All Other
Leavers). It was significant for highlighting racism as a factor in the poor
educational performance of AfricanCaribbean students, but its conclusions failed to
account for the impact of social class, or acknowledge sufficiently variations in
educational performance between and within ethnic minority groups. In emphasising
teacher racism, however, it caused considerable controversy and under pressure from
a newly elected Conservative government, its chair resigned, a new chair was
appointed and the Swann Commission, as it became known
108
, had its remit expanded
to:

Review the educational needs and attainments of children from ethnic minority
groups, taking account as necessary, of factors outside the formal education system

107
A different interpretation is offered by J asper who argues that this was evidence not of a
failure of anti-racism but a consequence of a reactionary backlash from the Conservative
government of the advances made under a Labour administration in the topics of race
equality. Now, part of that reactionary backlash wasnt just affecting educational failure, but
the twin failure of policing and criminal justicewhich resulted in a re-prioritisation of the
issues in which anti-racism lost its educational focus (J asper, Interview).
108
As advisor to both the Rampton Committee and also to the new chair, Michael Swann,
Bhikhu Parekh recalls how compared to Rampton he [Michael Swann] had had no dealings
of any kind with the Blacks and Asians. So he was completely new to the field and I think
that thats partly why he was brought in. Also he was also seen as an establishment figure:
provost of Edinburgh University, Chairman of the BBC, a Lord so he was seen as a safe
pair of hands. My own feeling was that Michael grew into the job. He was an immaculate
liberal who wanted to be guided only by the evidence. He had no prejudices one way or the
other. (Interview with Bhikhu Parekh, 15 August, 2007).
55
relevant to school performance, including influences in early childhood and prospects
for school leavers;
To consider the value of arrangements that would monitor and review the education
performance of ethnic minority children, and what these arrangements should be.

In many ways the tension between anti-racist and multicultural education are
encapsulated in the various dynamics that this was subject to. For example, whilst
the committees remit included the educational needs of children from Chinese,
Cypriot, Italian, Ukranian and Vietnamise ethnic origins, the could not escape the
political context in which the commission was conceived. As Bhikhu Parekh, one of
the commissioners, reminds us:

Although the Rampton (and later Swann) Committee was set up to deal with the problems
of all ethnic minority children, it owed its existence to the widespread anxiety over the
gross underachievement of the Afro-Caribbean children about whom indeed it was required
to submit an interim . [...] From the very inception, most of its members and much of the
public opinion took it to be an Afro-Caribbean committee concerned with the problems of
Afro-Caribbean children... This was only true so far as the interim . Once that was
published the committee was required to cast its net wider and examine the problems of
other ethnic minority children (Parekh, 1989: 232).

Its findings were, for a long time, held up as a leading public policy endorsement of
multiculturalism in Britain, for although it was focused upon issues of diversity
related to educational settings, its major contribution was that it saw the issues of
ethnic minority children as closely tied up with the basic character of mainstream
education Verma (1989: 3) and therefore an issue for society as a whole, just as anti-
racists had wanted their conceptions of racism to be viewed.
So how did it characterise a multicultural society? As one that values the
diversity within it, whilst united by the cohesive force of the common aims, attributes
and values which we all share [leading to] diversity within unity (Swann , 1985:
chapter 1 para 6, emphasis added). This balances on the one hand, the maintenance
and the active support of the essential elements of the cultures and lifestyles of all the
ethnic groups within it, and, on the other, the acceptance by all groups of a set of
shared values distinctive of the society as a whole (ibid. para 4). According to
Andrew Copson, education and public affairs spokesperson for the British Humanist
Association (BHA), this is exactly the sort of multiculturalismthat would be a
good thing and a very great benefit for it would

allow us all in a shared society to experience each others culture, to share it. To keep
those elements of it which to ourselves are important in family or in community, where
theres others who we share our views and so on. And to reasonably accommodate any extra
needs or particular specific needs that those cultures raised within the boundaries, within the
framework, of a society where there are human rights for all and an aspiration of equality
(Andrew Copson, Interview, 12 J une 2007).

More specifically, with respect to the Swann , its unifying aspects insisted upon a
framework of commonly held values, practices and procedures (Swann , 1985:
chapter 1 para 4) embodying a common political and legal system, and democratic
commitments such as that of equality of opportunity.
109
Simultaneously, it stated that
minorities should be free

109
Which it characterised as: Equal treatment and protection by the law for members of all
groups, together with equality of access to education and employment, equal freedom and
56

..within the democratic framework to maintain those elements which they themselves
consider to be the most essential to their sense of ethnic identity-whether these take the
form of adherence to a particular religious faith or the maintenance of their own language
for use within the home and ethnic community-without fear of prejudice or persecution by
other groups (ibid. original emphasis).

And yet the way in which this translates into educational imperative in terms, for
example, of moral development and issues of autonomy, gives rise to tension within
the . This is evident in the innovation that it is entirely wrong...to impose a
predetermined and rigid cultural identity on any youngster, thus restricting his or her
freedom to decide as far as possible for themselves their own future way of life
(chapter 6, para. 2.5). Hence, argues the , it is:

..the function of the home and of the religious community to nurture and instruct the child
in a particular faith (or not), and the function of the school to assist pupils to understand
the nature of religion and to know something of the diversity and belief systems, their
significance for individuals and how these bear on the community (chapter 8, para. 2.11)

This, then, was a limited multiculturalism since, as section four stresses, it explicitly
precluded state support of linguistic pluralism (in terms of mother tongue teaching)
or the expansion of religious schools, seeking instead to make each matters of private
concern. Nevertheless, the Swann did present more sophisticated and differentiated
research findings that avoided a mono-causal fallacy [and] looked at the interplay of
a plurality of factors (Parekh, Interview). Thus while continuing to recognize the
impact of both individual racism and a more pervasive climate of racism, the Swann
also shifted its emphasis away from overt antiracist strategies toward a form of
inclusive multiculturalism, as signalled by its formal title, Education for All. It is
somewhat surprising, then, that Sir Bernard Crick, Chair of the Dept of Education and
Skills sponsored Commission on Citizenship Education (discussed in section three
below) finds it puzzling that

people think it [multiculturalism] is a Government policy. [] I dont think anybody
advocated multicultural education, I think education was going on in multicultural schools.
There were some well meaning idiots who boasted the success of multicultural education but
they werent bringing different things together, they were in schools because of the catchment
area; different groups were there multicultural education became about the strategies that
were needed to teach children with different cultural and sometimes different moral outlooks.
Thats a perfectly reasonable way to use the term multicultural but that got seized on by the
press and not always denied by the practitioners practitioners must have liked the press
saying that you are responsible for these things in these schools. But Holland Park was
Holland Park because it was uniquely on the borders of very rich and very poor ethnically
mixed areas. They coincided (Interview with Sir Bernard Crick, 27 J une 2007).

This then returns us to some of the discussions contained within other s that
problematised different conceptions of multiculturalism, distinguishing between
multiculturalism as governmental policy and multiculturalism as lived reality. In any
case, we can contrast Cricks analysis with that of Terry Sanderson, President of the
National Secular Society (NSS), who is convinced that successive governments have
imposed this multicultural idea of everybody having their own community and then
mixing together from them. It didnt work and they actually became separated with

opportunity to participate fully in social and political life..., equal freedom of cultural
expression and equal freedom of conscience for all (ibid).
57
quite strict dividing lines and weve still got that now. (Interview, 8 J une, 2007). Of
the two positions, Sandersons is the least empirically unsustainable, however,
because until relatively recently successive national level governments had taken little
interest in imposing centralised policies that would either endorse or reject anti-racist
or multicultural education. This arguably remained the case until a Conservative
administration made radical changes to the autonomy of state schools, previously
under the discretionary control of LEAs, with the introduction of the Education
Reform Act (ERA) (1988). This Act required every school to adhere to a curriculum
that was centrally defined and compulsorily prescribed, and enforced the mandatory
testing of pupils at ages 7, 11, 14 and 16 years (with the concomitant publication of
school league tables as a measure of school performance and success).
A broadly supportive and informative advocacy for its introduction in spelt out
by Copson of the BHA when he argues that though there may have been very good
practice in some parts of the country, practice that was better even than the national
curriculum that was introduced there were other places where the national
curriculum involved a great levelling up and thats only to the good (Copson,
Interview). On the other hand, the ERA specifically curtailed the powers of the
influential Labour-controlled Inner London LEA which, as figure 2 highlights, is
home to a very large proportion of the UKs ethnic minority school population.
According to J asper, the imposition of the national curriculum ripped out and
reduced that flexibility for teachers to pursue areas in lessons that were considered to
be anti-racist and I think that the Thatcher government made it absolutely clear that
this should not be a topic to enjoy any degree of priority within the school
environment (J asper, Interview). Parekh, meanwhile, displays sympathies for both
interpretations when states:

I think the National curriculum made gestures towards multicultural education but I dont
think it fully took on board the basic principle of multiculturalism. [] It was mainly an
additive approach, add a little bit here add a little bit there. Swanns basic argument was that
you need to look at the structural principle. Are you conveying an overall message? []
Some local authorities were more keen on Swann than others, and what the national
curriculum did was less well than what some authorities could have done but better than what
others were doing so on average I think that the national curriculum was a good idea
(Interview, Parekh).

Legacies and Current Practice
Issue 1: Awareness and practice of anti-racist and multicultural education

With respect to Copson and J aspers diverging positions, Dan Lyndon, co-ordinator of
the Black History for Schools network, member of Black and Asian School-Teachers
Association (BASA), and also current head of history at Compton High School in
Fulham, London, provides an instructive testimony in the his account of past and
present experiences with anti-racist and multicultural education. Three things in
particular stand out. The first is his confirmation of the inconsistent adoption of the
types of programs discussed above, and the second is a general awareness of the
political nature and implications of these programs:

I started with my teacher training in 199293. I think at that time I certainly didnt get any
diversity training or any anti-racism training at all. I dont remember it being even
mentioned. I dont think it was mentioned. That was a strong indicator that at that time it
58
didnt seem to be a particularly strong issue. I think if youd have gone back maybe 6 or 7
years before that, or the early 80s, late 70s I would think that was the peak... not least in the
Inner London Education Authority, so that was abolished by Thatcher in I think, in 1984,
around the time of the GLC [Greater London Council] was abolished. That meant that anti-
racism teaching was. Well, you know, the Tories werent that keen on it (Interview with
Lyndon, 13 J une, 2007).
A third point of interest is a conflation of anti-racist and multicultural education
which re-affirms the sense in which both are diffuse conceptions of educational
reform i.e. introducing positive images of, for example Black scientists, whilst
also looking at different cultures from around the globe:
I think in the last 3 or 4 years, in particular, Ive noticed theres a much bigger resurgence. I
know for example that in Geography here they teach a very kind of mixed geographical
experience. I dont know that much but I know, for example, when they do Black History
month, that Geography also do stuff about Africa and the Art department are pretty good at
looking at different cultures coming into Art. Science are very good at that, theyve got a
Black woman who runs the Science department. Shes very positive about giving scientific
role models and all of those kind of things. Also English read Caribbean literature, some
African literature so I think we do engage with it (Lydon, Interview).

In spite of the conflation, the issue of relevance is the championing of a positive
affirmation in curricular content to match or at least reflect the difference amongst
schooling populations. This is a strategy supported by Copson who stresses the
dependent social contingencies that need to be taken into account when trying to
achieve a balanced educational environment:

.youve got to be aware that the school is not an island, an incubator apart from the rest of
society, and that there are going to be events in society, issues in society, matters of public
debate, that for reasons of their own cultural identification or background or personal views,
opinions or feelings, individual children within your classroom, within your school are going
to be troubled by or identify with the victims or identify with the oppressors or whatever.
Those issues are going to be brought into the classroom by children and thats going to have
some effect on their educational development. I think the way that schools should
compensate for that is they should make room for it in the classroom (Interview, Copson).

If we compare this, for example, with the view of a current legislator, we find that in
contrast to Lyndon and Copsons accounts, the current Government Schools
Commissioner, former head teacher Sir Bruce Liddington, is not keen to champion
past anti-racist and multicultural practice as a present solution to the challenges of
migration related diversity in education.

[T]he whole multicultural strand of curriculum development that was common in the system
in the mid 80s funded by Section 11 moneytended to have a mixed impact from my
experience. [] What I felt was thatwhere they set about ensuring that youngsters who
didnt have English as a first language, or indeed, didnt have English at all, learned how to
speak English quickly in order that they could be successfully assimilated into the mainstream
curriculum, I felt they had a very good effect. Where they sought to introduce slide shows,
multicultural days, celebration of the difference between children which, from my experience,
the vast majority of the children who were from different ethnic backgrounds in the school
that I was Head of, didnt want to have that difference pointed out. They wanted to be the
same. I didnt welcome that at all. Gradually, though, that sort of thing dried up and in fact
Section 11 funding was abolished probably ten years ago now and the funding to deal with the
different challenges that minority ethnic children throw up in schools is part of the
mainstream funding, and in my opinion, thats correct (Interview with Sir Bruce Liddington
15 J une, 2007).

59

hilst this confirms some of the findings of governmental rhetoric set out in section
gnise is that they are not isolated from the

ony Breslin, director of the Citizenship Foundation which promotes citizenship
One of the issues we can have is that sometimes race equality, diversity and inter-faith


Text Box 1. A teachers account Dan Lyndon, Compton School, London.

For me, [teaching British] history is very much about Black or Asian-British history. I really think
that thats the area we should be focussing on and I want to get away from this notion that Britain
became multicultural from 1948 onwards and from the 60s onwards. I deliberately focus on
going back to Tudor times so when I teach my Year 8s about Elizabeth the firstI teach about the
proclamation against the Blacks, trying to expel them from the country. So thats completely
integrated into the scheme of work which I would teach about the Tudors. So right from 12 years
old theyre aware that weve had Africans living in this country as a community and so on. We
then, we follow that through, whenever we do any kind of major topic from that point onwards we
try and bring in the diverse element to it. If we look at the Chartists we look at William Cuffey who
was one of the black Chartists who was one of the leading Chartists in London. I look at him as a
case study of how the Chartists were dealt with. If we look at the First World War, then we look at
Walter Tull who was the first black officer in the British Army, broke the colour bar in 1916 and he
was also the second professional black footballer in the country. Hes a real boys own hero. That
was probably some of the best work Ive done this year, is the Walter Tull stuff because its such an
engaging story, its almost kind of ethereal the fact that hes black although thats obviously
important in terms of the pioneering aspects but they absolutely loved it because they talk about
him playing for Tottenham and then Northampton and then he goes off to fight in the War and hes
this hero and he gets killed in one of the last battles of the War so its a brilliant story and I think
thats the important thing that actually there are so many rich stories out there which will tap into
lots of different peoples experiences that if you can get that whole mix then everyone gets to feel a
part of it and in terms of that whole Britishness debate I think thats how you define the
Britishness. You look back through British history over the last 500 to 1000 years or so and you
pick out elements which everyone is going to be able to tap into. So thats what we do in History.
W
two of our earlier D2 , it is also important to stress that just as the D2 concludes -
this does not entail a rejection of difference per se. At the same time Liddington
stresses the necessity for schools to implement strategies that do not ignore any
specific needs based upon background difference, in a way that will contribute to an
educational culture in which the school can comfortably balance its own agenda and
priorities against the needs of its pupils:

I think that what schools have got to reco
communities that they serve and that the culture and values of the children who come from
different racial groups, need to be acknowledged and welcomed and absorbed into the
individual institution. How schools deal with that is varied; [] some will be more openly
welcome of the diversity that children of different ethnic backgrounds bring and will seek to
celebrate that diversity as a means to the end of getting people from different minorities, or in
some schools the children from different ethnic groups are not the minority, in order to mould
the culture that the children come from onto the educational culture of the school in a way that
neither is detrimental to the other (Interview, Liddington).
T
education in schools and other civil society sectors, endorses this necessity to
balance past anti-racism and multicultural praxis with present educational priorities,
without, at the same time, undermining the value of these previous approaches but
instead seeking their expansion beyond ethnically diverse localities:

matters, are considered to be necessary in those schools, typically, urban schools, where there
are strong minority ethnic populations, and that they are thought to matter less in areas where
there is an all white population or whatever. It seems to me that schools have a duty to
60
address the reality that whatever the nature of their own locality, that their students will move
in a society that is multicultural by any definition I think that the curriculum needs to address
the needs of young people, whether or not they find themselves in diverse and multicultural
school communities, who will find themselves in diverse and multicultural communities
beyond the school, so we have to teach about matters of justice, about equality, of
opportunity, about race equality, about racism, about a multiplicity of faiths. I do think that
we need to address commonalities as well as differences, I do think there may be something in
the critique of some past multicultural practice in that we may have emphasised difference
rather than commonality. [] We clearly need to do both in balance but we have to
acknowledge and should acknowledge the different identities and beliefs and customs and
heritages that people bring to the table (Interview with Tony Breslin, J une 15, 2007).

Issue 2: the positive fact of diversity

earlier chapters it was argued there is strong evidence to support the view that
tion
adv
There is a government paper called Every Child Matters and it really puts the rights of the
This is certainly not universally welcomed, with Terry Sanderon seeing such language
In
Britain had embedded a recognition of difference into its own self-image. An obvious
question, therefore, is to consider how this is reflected in the educational aspects we
are concerned with. For example, a general sense of ease and comfort with the fact
of difference is cited amongst educators and advocates as characteristic of the British
response to migration related diversity in education. As Lyndon notes: I think that
when people come to Compton they know that its an inner city school, they know its
a diverse community and thats part of the package and they very much buy into the
fact that we have got this diversity. We do have a lot of support for teachers to work
with those students and Ive never come across anyone, in 7 years saying anything
negative about it. Its definitely seen as a strength of the school. The parents as well,
they are very positive about the support that we provide for the students and that they
can see the progress that is being made (Lyndon, Interview). Breslin is also of this
view that we are more at ease [with pupil diversity]. I think that a lot of schools, in
particularly schools where the intake is diverse and has been diverse over many years,
do a lot of work to seek to be culturally sensitive to the needs of their students.
This includes something illustrated by Samia Earle, a bi-lingual educa
ocate and teacher trainer, who describes the way in which current practice
manages to accommodate linguistic diversity. In her view this is because the focus
upon the well being of children is defined broadly enough to take the cultural
background and associated linguistic diversity into account:

individual child the centre of every educational enterprise but also curriculum planning which
means that all schools have to respond to the needs of their community and this means taking
into account children in their own diversity, their own heritage languages. [] I mean there
is real support for EAL [English as an additional language], schools have a budget to make
sure that the children are supported in their English but alongside that theres also recognition
of their own language, so they are offered courses, or GCSEs and there are lots of schools
liaising to make sure that the new key stage 3 framework has actually removed any bars on
language learning i.e. you dont have to learn a European language, it could be any language,
which means that there are some children who may be getting a national curriculum level
education in Urdu (Interview with Samia Earle, 15 J une, 2007)

support as the root of conflicting integration agendas: [Interviewer: Is their any
space for bi-lingual education in schools?] If you mean learning the native language
of people from India or Pakistan, no! I think that simply encourages people not to
think of themselves as British. It continues to drag them back to their roots which,
61
Im sure theyre very proud of, but theyre not living there now. If theyre living
here, lets get on with it. Nevertheless, Earle avoids the explicit politics to stress the
importance of good planning and practice in the accommodation of childrens
diversity within the school setting, and the role of individual teachers in taking
responsibility for this:

Some schools have been very successful in responding to the needs of their community

ruce Liddington is keen to rehearse good practice examples in this regard with the
The number of racial incidents that take place is tiny compared to the large numbers of

o the general acceptance of ethnic diversity as a fact of school life, he adds:
I suppose I go and visit more schools than most peopleand my gut feeling is that in most

Issue 3: current challenges
he view that the challenge posed by migration related diversity is now a national
In the last 3 years, we have seen a really huge influx in some areas that are not necessarily
andin absorbing and developing the strong ethos and the school. Other schools are having
difficulty. It could be staff training, it could be the Head teacher doesnt see it as a priority; it
could be they are paying lip service. I would say where the school has got a strong minority
within that school but is ignored, you may have tensions (Interview, Earle).
B
low number of racial incidents in the schooling environment.

children from different cultures and races in our system and I think thats a testament to the
fact that the schools themselves are highly competent and highly successful at integrating
children from different backgrounds (Interview, Liddington).
T

schools, they are more at ease than they were ten years ago because more teachers have had
more experience of dealing with children from different backgrounds. Certainly, when I
started teaching it was very rare, in the Midlands, and where I started teaching in South
Yorkshire, to have children from different backgrounds, even different, for example, from the
school I did my teacher practice in and taught at for three years, the white working class
families that surrounded the school, it was very unusual to have anyone other than people
from a white working class background. Now, it would be more unusual for a teacher not to
have had children with an EAL, children newly arrived, asylum seekers and so on, somewhere
along the line, in their teaching career and I think the more people are familiar with things, the
more at ease they are with them. So I would say, yes, I think there would be more schools
which are more at ease with the challenges of the diversity agenda than was the case ten years
ago (Interview, Liddington).

T
rather than city based or regional challenge is endorsed by Samia Earle in her
analysis of the urgency of present language needs amongst Polish children, and the
strategies through which these are being met:

cities. They are in a county like Somerset, parts of Portsmouth, Southampton; theyre not
where you would traditionally think there would be an immigrant population. And of course
the resources in these schools are extremely limited and although there is an EAL budget it
actually used to be for the odd child. When you are talking about 30 children, its a massive
amount of money that local authorities have to find to support those kids, but also theres an
implication for the schools to understand how these Polish children come over and what
theyve done in their education, what transferable information data you have when you come
over, and also to be able to have some GCSEs in Maths, Science, written in Polish. They
have to have readers to actually translate the GCSE papers for them, so there are cost
implications that are massive here. [] Schools have to learn very quickly. They are coming
up with very innovative solutions. The school in Lincolnshire have actually applied by the
British Council, for a Polish Language assistant, that is attached to the department to help the
62
Polish children. Thats what they are actually doing. An example of many, I would say
(Interview with Earle, J une 15, 2007).

As chapter one outlines, it is estimated that between May 2004 and August 2006
art of the globe 60 different community languages. So
this place is very, very diverse. [] We have an EAL department which is very strong but we

Ano temporary challenge, characterised as such by some interviewees, has less
nearly 27,000 Polish, Slovakian and Czech children of school age - under 17 yrs -
have arrived with registered workers and sought settlement in British Schools. Dan
Lyndon also describes the urgency of linguistic requirements arising from pupil
diversity in the following terms:

We literally have kids from every p
have a big split between our non fluent and our fluent speakers and EAL tends to be focussed
on those who come to school with no English. So its very much about a rapid integration
programme and thats very, very effective its so crucial because if they are going to get
through their GCSEs that their level of fluency that they need for understanding those
questions is really vital and I think there is a lot of work that still needs to be done on that
We do have a parents group which we are teaching parents to speak English, so there are a
few instances of that but I still think there is probably a bit more we can do (Interview,
Lyndon).
ther con
to do less with new migrant groups but more to do with the public identity and
political claims-making of some established groups, particularly Muslims. As the D1
noted, at a time when Britain is experiencing some of its most significant inward
migration for a generation, the focus is often more upon established groups, and
specifically Muslim minorities. Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular
Society (NSS), for example, is keen to juxtapose Muslim minorities with African-
Caribbean pupils in making this case. Perhaps ironically, for a radical secularist, he
argues that Britain is more comfortable with the latter because of a common
Christian background. He does this by attributing a degree of cultural otherness to
Islam, perceived by Sanderson to be reflected in its aggressiveness or publicly
confessional nature:


63



















Text Box 2. The Case of Shabina Begum:
h School in Luton who claimed that she was required by her
uslim faith to wear a jilbab (a full length gown) to school. The school viewed this as a contravention of
rights
sh
ally-neutral
rm
sion, and in 2006 the case was heard by the Judicial Committee of the House of
r he
ss,
,

Shabina Begum was a pupil at Denbigh Hig
M
its uniform policy and decided that Begum was not allowed to attend until wore the official uniform.
In response Begum issued a claim for a judicial review of the schools decision on the grounds that the
school had interfered with her right to manifest her religion and her right to education (both
en rined in the European Convention on Human Rights). The school argued that because nearly eighty per
cent its pupils were Muslim, it had already accommodated uniform changes that incorporated trousers,
shalwar kameez (a tunic and baggy trousers) and headscarves displaying school uniform colours. The
school also argued that this had been decided in consultation with local mosques and parents.
Shabina Begum maintained, however, that the shalwar kameez was not compliant with the
requirements of Islamic dress as she understood it, and that the jilbab was a preferable, cultur
fo of Islamic attire. To this the school responded that after Begums parents had died, she had come
under the undue influence of her brother a supporter of the Islamist organisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir
(something that the media made a great deal of). More substantively, they claimed that if Begum was
allowed to attend classes wearing a jilbab, other pupils would feel under undue pressure to adopt stricter
forms of Islamic dress.
Begum lost the case in the High Court, but later won on appeal to the Court of Appeal. The school
appealed against this deci
Lo ds which eventually ruled in favour of the school. In doing so Lord Bingham of Cornhill stressed at t
outset of his judgment that this case concerns a particular pupil and a particular school in a particular
place at a particular time. It must be resolved on facts which are now, for purposes of the appeal, agreed.
The House is not, and could not be, invited to rule on whether Islamic dress, or any feature of Islamic dre
should or should not be permitted in the schools of this country. Nevertheless, he concluded that "it would
in my opinion, be irresponsible for any court, lacking the experience, background and detailed knowledge
of the headteacher, staff and governors, to overrule their judgment on a matter as sensitive as this. The
power of decision has been given to them for the compelling reason that they are best placed to exercise it,
and I see no reason to disturb their decision."

I think that there has been a change in that the emphasis has moved away from the black
community onto the Asian community and mainly because of the aggressiveness of some of

The utlined in text box 3, and the apprehension
tion
rela
have a duty to two groups; they have a duty to, and in their instrumental
t in just the interest of the students, to nurture the school as a strong

One ed through a recent policy shift
ward citizenship education.

the young people in the Muslim communities, and that this new found politicising of their
new found religion has pushed them right to the top of the agenda. Its taken the emphasis off
the black community who now seem almost benign in comparison because they understand
our culture. I suppose its because they come from the same kind of Christian background
that they dont dress differently, most of them speak English very well and they dont seem to
be quite as threatening [] I mean the way in which some people are actually trying to
politicise differences through donning quite radical clothing in schools, for example, thats all
about making a point and intimidating other people into doing the same, and this should have
no place in our education system. I mean the case about the girl and the jibab in the Luton
school goes to show how some people are just using the education system to further their own
agendas and ends (Interview, Sanderson).
110
case Sanderson makes reference to is o
toward what are perceived to be quite comprehensive requirements amongst Muslims
in particular is not unique to Sanderson and, indeed, is also evidenced by Sir Bruce
Liddington in his view that you wouldnt have the same challenges around school
uniform in a Church of England or Roman Catholic school that you might have in the
school that has had a significant number of children from a Muslim background.
To address these different challenges there is an overriding view that Britain
should draw upon and learn from past practices in the current approach to migra
ted challenges, something most clearly set out by Breslin when he states that
whatever we do with recent migrants should be informed by the experience weve
had we are not seeking to deal with migration for the first time, so we need to ask,
was that practice effective, can we make it better, etc (Interview). This is most
apparent his reiteration of the necessity to balance the interests of schools and
communities:

I think schools
terest, as it were, no in
community. So that means that, clearly, the needs and the identities of different students need
to be met, acknowledged, embraced, celebrated, whatever. I think equally importantly,
schools need to be conscious of the community beyond their boundaries and not just the
immediate geographical community. (Interview, Breslin)
ways of addressing these dynamics is evidenc
to









Text box 3: From the Crick on Citizenship Education
We aim at no less than a change in the political culture of this country both nationally and
g, able and equipped to have an locally: for people to think of themselves as active citizens, willin
influence in public life and with the critical capacities to weigh evidence before speaking and acting; to
build on and extend radically to young people the best in existing traditions of community involvement
and public service, and to make them individually confident in finding new forms of involvement and
action among themselves (Qualifications Curriculum Authority, 1998: paragraph 1.5)
110
He continues: I think its that kind of thing that gets peoples back up when theyre
aggressively importing a different culture. Im quite happy for people to have their culture
but not when theyre insisting that this culture will be shared by people who dont want to
share it. And thats what some Muslims do, they do try to force on everyone else. Its this
business of I want to wear elaborate religious gear at school so that I can intimidate the other
Muslims at school into wearing it (Sanderson, Interview).
64

Citizenship Education in Britain
sted idea and set of policies that denote a variety
of implications in different contexts (Guttman, 2006). Its formal introduction into
Bri
ow turn out in the
1997 election, the lowest since the war, masked by the size of Labours majority. But here

ey recommendations
Crick is referring here to the then Education Secretary, who later became Home
overnment Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA),
und
nd the teaching of democracy is so important to the future of Britain
that there should be a co-ordinated national strategy for the statutory requirement

ement and political literacy each of
which in habitual interaction constitutes active citizenship.

Citizenship education is a conte
tish schools is a recent development that was preceded by a process of
consultation undertaken by the Advisory Group on Education for Citizenship and
Teaching of Democracy in Schools, which was chaired by Professor Sir Bernard
Crick. This late introduction of citizenship education in Britain, particularly when
compared with North America and some European countries, is an interesting
anomaly. As David Kerr (1999: 204) has put it, the avoidance of any overt official
government direction in schools concerning political socialisation and citizenship
education can almost be seen as a national trait. Whilst this is contradicted by
elements of the compulsory adoption of the National Curriculum, the sense that
British exceptionalism presented itself as an obstacle to citizenship education is
shared by Sir Bernard Crick himself. He describes this in his view that we were the
last civilised country almost in the world to make citizenship part of the national
curriculum. I think we thought we didnt need it being the mother of all parliaments
and a model to the world of parliamentary government; I think those ideas lingered on
and long past reality (Interview, Crick). As the official preceding the introduction of
citizenship education put it, part of the groundswell for its recent emergence is
undoubtedly a sense of civic deficit epitomised by voter apathy
111
amongst young
people which the claims is inexcusably bad and should and could be remedied
(QCA, 1998: section 3. paragraph. 10). Crick elaborates on this:

A good indicator, there are a lot of factors behind the indicator, would be l
contingency also comes in very strongly because Blunkett was quite a powerful 1997 figure
who had obviously been determined to get citizenship on the agenda for a number of years
and then sent for me in the last week of the old Parliament in 1997 (Interview, Crick).
K
Secretary, and the G
er the commission chaired by Crick, which made the following key
recommendations:

Citizenship a
for schools to spend around five per of its curriculum time across the four Key
Stages (Key Stage (KS) 1 includes children aged 5-7 years; KS 2, 7-11 years;
KS 3, 11-14 years, and KS 4, 14-16 years).
Citizenship education includes three interdependent elements comprising social
and moral responsibility; community involv

111
There are worrying levels of apathy, ignorance and cynicism about public life. These,
unless tackled at every level, could well diminish the hoped-for benefit both of constitutional
reform and of the changing nature of the welfare state(QCA, 1998: 8).
65
Citizenship education for citizenship requires more than knowledge. Acting and
behaving as a citizen also requires the development of skills, values, attitudes and
dispositions.
Teaching about citizenship necessarily involves teaching about controversial
issues and this should adhere to guidelines to guard against potential bias and to
assist teachers to achieve a fair balance.
munity involvement and political literacy); essential elements

embership to monitor its progress and recommend amendments.

Whilst nn
Comm oach
avoured in multicultural education, that there is no explicit reference to anti-racism
tional sense of British values encapsulated in citizenship education and nobody
at this means and what it looks like in terms of a set of shared values and a

To

were not willing to give the public the view that the major thrust of citizenship was race
should learn, respect and have knowledge of national, regional ethnic and religious differences.
Whilst citizenship education can draw upon and be enhanced by other subjects, it
must be distinctive since explicit knowledge of social and political institutions
must be achieved.
The framework for citizenship education should consist of the aim & purpose of
citizenship (the rational and justification); the strands (social and moral
responsibility, com
(concepts, values, dispositions, skills, aptitudes, knowledge and understanding)
which provide the basis for the learning outcomes; and the learning outcomes
themselves.
Finally, there should be a Standing Commission on Citizenship education
appointed by the Department for Education & Skills (DfES) with includes a
cross-party m
these are wide ranging and in some respects reiterate elements of the Swa
ission, and in Parekhs view constitute an add-on to the sorts of appr
f
and multiculturalism is viewed by others as an indication of the citizenship agendas
disengagement from these issues. Indeed Osler and Starky (2001: 293) charge the
with institutional racism for demanding that minorities must learn to respect the
laws, codes and conventions as much as the majority (QCA, 1998: 17-18). This they
take as evidence of a colonial approachthat runs throughout the and which falls
into the trap of treating certain ethnicities as Other when it discusses cultural
diversity (Osler and Starky, 292-293.). Elsewhere, Osler (2000: 28) claims that the
most positive and inclusive statements about the nature of multicultural society were
hastily tagged on from the Policy Studies Institute (Modood et al, 1997) at the last
minute. This complaint is supported by Lee J asper, who characterises Cricks
conception of citizenship education as a discontinuation rather than addition to earlier
approaches, before also allowing for the possibility that it could give rise to something
more inclusive:

I think its a retreat from the racial equality agenda as far as theres been an imposition, has
there not, of a no
knows quite wh
notion of British citizenship. [] And I think what we have now is an attempt to sort of impose
a set of British values where no such consensus exists. Though thats not as negative as it
sounds because in essence I think there are sets of more widely shared universal values that are
not British but would provide a stronger basis for consensus around a number of important
codes of behaviour for the UK (Interview, Jasper).
this Sir Crick offers a pragmatic and political response claiming that his committee
relations. We said damn it, its about the whole population including the majority pupils
We were simply taking a broader view. We thought thatall our nations children should
receive an education that would help them to become active citizens: all our nations childrens.
We didnt see any need to talk about the special needs at that stage of immigrant children
(Interview, Crick).
66

Wh
u anti-racist critics of Crick, including a dis-emphasis of anti-
112
that kind of stuff was more
likely to excite racists. Theres nothing extremists like more than fighting each other. I felt

Per of
iti itizenship with national identity
ilst the use of terminology i.e. immigrant to denotes ethnic minority, may be one
mbling block for st
racism in general , another reason for the divergence between J asper and Crick
might be their different conceptions of national identity and how this relates to
citizenship education. Whilst J asper is concerned by the way in which the more
nationalist conceptions of citizenship are by their very nature driven by ethnicity,
residence, blood ties and race [which] are all powerful currents in that discourse
(J asper, Interview), and the prospect that these might be incorporated into citizenship
education, Crick is of the view that citizenship involves civilising national identity
through civic behaviour, activity and tolerance; and the willingness to be active
(Crick, Interview).
113
Indeed, the practices described by Crick may well be
incorporated into the sorts of codes of behaviour alluded to earlier by J asper. What
this does not resolve, however, are other elements of J aspers complaint that in
important ways the current focus upon citizenship education marks a departure from
an earlier focus on anti-racism and multiculturalism. To this Crick offers an
instructive summary of his vision of the role and purpose of a broader civic culture
to which he hopes citizenship education will contribute:

I and most of my colleagues saw that where racism existed it was a failure of the civic culture
so there wasnt much sense in showing racism the red card. All
there was a vacuum that should be filled by civic education that could be filled by racist
prejudice but also by anti-racist education that was too narrowly focused on racial prejudice
that is extremely hard to eliminate in an argument and is only defeated through the course of
time and practice. I would think that anti-racism in the 80sor rather the spectre of racism
in the 80s would be one among several factors that made citizenship as a compulsory part of
the national curriculum seem important (Interview, Crick).
haps surprisingly, J asper is not without allies, even amongst advocates
zenship education, in his concern that coupling c c
may risk the latters coercive imposition. For example, whilst both Copson and
Breslin are very supportive and enthusiastic of the project of citizenship education
114
,

112
Elsewhere Crick (2000: 134) has argued that those government ministers who have
endorsed anti-racism in schools are perhaps not wholly conversant with good practice in
nse of common citizenship, including a national identity that is
ng at you and how to
actual class room settings.
113
In the this is presented in the following terms: A main aim for the whole community
should be to find or restore a se
secure enough to find a place for the plurality of nations, cultures, ethnic identities and
religions long found in the United Kingdom. Citizenship education creates common ground
between different ethnic and religious identities (QCA, 1998: 17).
114
Thus Copson states: The different elements of citizenship for a liberal democracy are a
certain level of media literacy, knowing what the media is throwi
critique it, how to understand it. A certain amount of political literacy, knowing the political
system, under which society governs itself, and a certain understanding of social and civic
contact with the society, that we live in; the different basic world views or religions or beliefs
that people hold within a society, cultures that they maintain in the family or in the home, in
local communities, throughout wider society. I think all those pillars of citizenship within the
curriculum are equally important, and they are all there [in the Crick ] as well (Interview,
Copson). Breslin, meanwhile, is the president of the citizenship foundation which promotes
citizenship education in schools and civil society sectors.
67
each are equally concerned that it might be become as a method of inculcating a
regressive national identity:

I think one of the reasons why a lot of us in the citizenship community have stayed away from
discussion of nationality and identity and that kind of stuff now encapsulated in the so called
Britishness debate, is that we have feared that in talking about citizenship of identity we slip
from process toward status. However, such is the multiplicity of identities that people now
hold, such is the fluidity of societies and of communities, given globalisation and so forth, I
think we are now beginning to acknowledge that we actually have to take on that notion of
citizenship as identity and belonging, and it plays itself out in terms of patterns around
ethnicity and age and the various differentiations and stratifications that exist in our society
(Breslin, Interview)

I actually look with a little bit of suspicion on the sort of re crude essence of national identity
that seems to be encouraged in the last few years. [] I dont like national identity and I
dont think citizenship is necessarily associated with it. We are all citizens of the European
Union for a start and I think of myself, in many ways as being a wider citizen of the world
(Interview, Copson).

Parekh shares Breslin and Copson concerns over the role and purpose of an imposed,
rather than negotiated, national identity. According to Parekh, this potential tendency
is indicative of a contemporary over-emphasis upon the unifying elements of
educational instruction, elements that are informed by a sense of panic over the
integration of Muslims, and elements that are prioritised at the expense of other
dynamic possibilities:

my own feeling is that we seem to have stopped thinking creatively about multicultural
society. We seem to have decided consciously or unconsciously that the most important thing
now is how to integrate Muslims. they have caused a sense of panic, the nation has
panicked unfortunately... So my own feeling is that there is going to be a great deal of
emphasis a) on citizenship education b) on moral education, and I think the third thing will be
on telling a national story, which means less tolerance for diversity. So bring in Indian
history or whatever you want to bring in but for gods sake keeping telling that this is a great
country. So I think there is a silent, unspoken but increasingly invidious, nationalist bias in
our education coming through. Theres an invisible pressure on teachers to tell a common
national story, to teach common British values and to emphasis responsibilities of being good
citizens. So I see lesser openness to diversity and differences (Parekh, Interview).

Faith schools
The issue that really cuts across the development of antiracism, multiculturalism
and citizenship education is the desire for state-funded faith based schooling provided
under the terms of voluntary aided status. What this means is discussed below, but
it is worth noting that anti-racism has often been stridently secularist and implicitly, if
not explicitly, ambivalent or opposed to faith-based schooling, and that the
multiculturalism of the Swann expressly ruled out faith schooling sought by recent
religious minorities (but maintained the status quo as per J ewish and Catholic state
funded faith based schools), whilst the Crick did not engage with the issue of faith
schooling because it fell outside its remit. These discursive dismissals and policy
oversights are problematic because there are currently over 4,700 state funded Church
of England schools; over 2100 Catholic; 35 J ewish and 28 Methodist schools. When
these figures are compared to the number of Muslim schools, of which there are only
7, or the single Sikh school or Seventh Day Adventist School, we find that campaigns
68
for faith schooling in the state sector are indicative of a modern society which is
widely perceived as increasingly secular but is paradoxically increasingly multi-faith
(Skinner, 2002: 172). To explore this further, we first need some historical
background to better inform the ensuing discussion.

Voluntary Aided Faith Schools
The notion of Voluntary Aided (VA) faith schools have their roots in the dual
ing, state and faith based schooling that arose, on the
one
as not the only powerful Christian denomination in
ttish people were not Anglican but Presbyterians.

The each a compromise
tween the historic contribution of faith groups and their internal differences with the
system of parallel, but interact
hand, from the contributions of parish clerics to village teaching, church
foundation grammar schools throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
which established churches as almost exclusive providers in the early stages of
progress towards universal education (Skinner, 2002: 173). On the other hand, and
not withstanding the hesitancy of Victorians to get involved in what had been a
private concern, the social and economic upheaval of the industrial revolution led to
the realisation that education was an important agent of social reform to assist the
nation in its economic endeavours (ibid). This culminated in the creation of a
statutory system of public education with the 1870 Elementary Education Act.
However, as Skinner (2002: 174) describes, this failed to satisfy competing Christian
bodies in their views about education, the practice of providing schooling, and the
money with which to do so because:

[t]he established church of England w
ritain. In Scotland, the majority of Sco B
Protestant nonconformists were strong in Wales and England. The increase in early 18
th

century migration from Ireland meant that Roman Catholic presence was also increasing.
These groups stood out against the state for giving every opportunity to the Church of
England to proselytise through the education system (emphasis added).
introduction of the 1944 Education Act thus sought to r
be
increasing role of the state in education. This was pursued through awarding
independent faith schools the option subject to meeting the appropriate standards
and criteria of becoming Voluntary Aided (VA) or Voluntary Controlled (VC).
The former status allows the provision of denominational religious instruction and
acts of worship, as well as the right to appoint teachers on the understanding that the
school accept half the cost of any structural or building improvements. In addition,
the majority of school administrators could be drawn from the diocesan board of
education or religious authority. The latter, meanwhile, incurred no financial
responsibilities but the schools would have to surrender all denominational worship,
and the majority of administrators would be provided by the LEA. What is most
relevant to the discussion in this is that although it was not anticipated that other
religious groups would one day like to take advantage of the provisions, the relevant
clauses of the 1944 Act did not specify which denominational groups are to be
included in the scheme. Less encouragingly, however, the position that some
religious minorities have in the past found themselves in relation to this provision is
that new schools are rarely required and built, so that if, for example, Muslim or Sikh
schools are to be admitted to the Voluntary Aided category they will of necessity be
already in existence. In effect, this means that in the future a state funded religious
minority school will already exist either as a local authority public school or as a
private establishment (Hewer 2001). This has led to a number of campaigns to take
69
over schools with a significant concentration of Muslim pupils already in attendance.
The most recent effort has culminated in a campaign by the Muslim Association of
Britain (MAB) in Scotland to turn a currently Roman Catholic School in
Pollockshields (Glasgow), which has an eighty per cent Muslim pupil intake, into a
VA Muslim school (for more examples see Hashmi, 2002: 15). One of the leading
proponents of the MABs campaign is Osama Saeed, who argues that:

We are the second-largest faith grouping in Scotland after Christianity yet we d
single Muslim school. Muslim children have to attend supplementary classes on
o not have a
weekends
Current Policy
An important recent inroad into this situation came with the Government White
g to England only, Schools: Achieving Success (2001), in which
par
ory as part of the state education system, and play an
e last four years, we have increased the range of faith

Ind s already underway when in 1998, after 18 years of a
onservative administration, Tony Blairs recently elected Labour government
delivered on a promise made in its election manifesto and awarded two Muslim

and evenings for their Islamic studies, and Muslim schools would go a major way to
redressing this problem. (Saeed, 2005: quoted in the Glasgow Evening Times).

Paper, applyin
agraphs 66-67 provide for the creation of new secondary schools and sets out the
responsibilities of the LEAs and the procedures to be followed to this end. The
summary booklet for the Bill states in paragraph 2.10 that we are taking steps to
encourage greater innovation in the creation of new schools. In particular, we will
take steps to allow greater involvement of external partners in the provision of wholly
new schools [Para 2.11 is about setting up city academies] 2.12 Innovation in the
provision of new schools will also be extended much more widely. Where a new
secondary school is required, the LEA will advertise, so that any interested party can
put forward proposals for a new school. Any promoter, including a community or
faith group, an LEA or another public, private or voluntary body can publish
proposals. These will be judged on the basis of their educational merits, value for
money and the outcome of consultation. Para 5.30 then sets out the Government
position in its fullest, stating that:

Faith schools have a significant hist
important role in its diversity. Over th
schools in the maintained sector, including the first Muslim, Sikh and Greek Orthodox
schools. There are also many independent faith schools and we know that some faith groups
are interested in extending their contribution to state education. We wish to welcome faith
schools, with their distinctive ethos and character, into the maintained sector where there is
clear local agreement. Guidance to School Organisation Committees will require them to give
proposals from faith groups to establish schools the same consideration as those from others,
including LEAs. Decisions to establish faith schools should take account of the interests of all
sections of the community.
115
eed, some movement wa
C

115
As both D1 and D2 s make clear, however, following 9/11 and, particularly, the London
bombings, the governments position has been less openly enthusiastic with respect to
inviting Muslim communities to seek state support in these matters. The Labour MP Tony
Wright, for example, in commenting on the expansion of the faith schooling sector, stated that
[b]efore September 11 it looked like a bad idea, it now looks like a mad idea (see BBC
News, 22/11/2001 available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1670704.stm). It is
nevertheless the case that since these events some Muslim schools have continued to be
awarded or promised state funding, though less numerously than was anticipated.
70
primary schools (Islamia in London and Al- Furqan in Birmingham), soon followed
by a Sikh school in 1999, voluntary aided (VA) status. This arrived fourteen years
and five Secretaries of State after the first naive approach (Hewitt, 1998: 22) and
followed a strict inspection process by OFSTED which required these schools to meet
the appropriate governmental for independent schools seeking state funding.
116
As
Rajinder Singh Sandhu, head teacher of Guru Nanak, the only state funded Sikh
schools, describes:

I think the DfES is changing with the times in 1999 they didnt know us and its fair to say
that the DfES and the civil servants were not keen for the school to go into the [state] system,
because they thought it would open the flood gates. [] They subsequently kept a close eye

At nd
obj nd
i-racist camps alike. Terry Sanderson of the NSS, for example, is convinced that

In or
sch
ns supporting

on us over the years, and now as a school we work very closely with their innovation unit, we
quite regularly get visitors to the school and really, they couldnt be more supportive I think
faith schools have moved on as well. (Interview with Rajinder Singh Sandhu, 13 J une 2007).
the same time these developments have not been universally welcomed, a
ections to the expansion of faith schooling have been made by anti-religious a
ant
were heading towards catastrophe unless the government change their policy, and there
seems to be no difference of opinion between any of the main parties and I cant see a change
happening, and were heading towards further separation in education by the creation of more
faith schools. The more Christian ones they create, the more the clamour becomes for
Muslim schools to be created and I think its a disaster because the only way that were going
to break down barriers between people is to bring them together at a very early age and this
government is going in completely the opposite direction to that. It is creating schools that
will keep them separate (Sanderson, Interview).
less apocalyptic but equally strident terms, Dan Lyndon of black history f
ools voices similar concerns of separatism and in-egalitarianism:

I am worried about the development of faith schools because I think that just encourages
separation Personally, I would never teach in a religious school. Whatever religion,
absolutely fundamentally, no. [] I think if you took the approach of religio
tolerance and supporting loose moral code which we follow then I think there is no reason
why they cant be compatible with anti-racist education. I suppose if you had the idea of, if
youve got an area where you are prioritising one over the other then thats going to cause

116
Aside from obvious requirements such as the delivery of a good standard of education and
the economic feasibility of the school, the criteria for the VA inclusion includes: (i) adoption
and delivery of the National Curriculum (ranging from a thinner to thicker version
depending on whether the school is VA or voluntary controlled); (ii) appointment of
appropriately qualified staff; (iii) suitable school buildings; (iv) equality of opportunity for
both male and female pupils; and (v) consideration of parental demand. All of this, of course,
is premised upon the need for a school in a given area based upon the number of available
pupil spaces. In the past, the availability of school places (and therefore the lack of a need)
has been cited as the principle reason forhaving met all other criteriarefusing some
schools to opt into the state system. Nevertheless, the incorporation of religious minority
faith schools was given significant impetus by government Green Paper, Schools: Building on
Success (Department for Education and Employment, 2001), so that the current number of
state-funded Muslim faith schools had risen to seven. This includes Al-Hijrah (a secondary
school in Birmingham), Feversham College (a secondary school in Bradford), Gatton Primary
School (Wandsworth, South London), Tauheedul Islam Girls High School (Blackburn,
Lancashire), and The Avenue School (another primary school in Brent, London).
71
conflict and thats going to cause problems. If you come from an egalitarian philosophy then
hopefully that should over ride that (Lyndon, Interview).
117

he most nuanced and, given the earlier discussion, historically informed assessment
The fact of the matter is that if one looks at the history of the emergence of any group of faith

reslin is undoubtedly correct in highlighting the historical dimension of faith
What are the motivations for Muslim schools?
n of Muslim Schools (AMS) describes
why
I think a general point which is very important to get across is that the state schools do not

deed, there are several broader factors informing Muslim mobilisation for the
accommodation of faith schools.

T
is offered by Tony Breslin of the Citizenship foundation

schools they have tended to emerge from a desire to strengthen and support that faith in a
particular societal setting. Catholic Schools are a case in point. Im not convinced that we are
at that starting point today. The starting point of the first generations of faith schools, were
very much in much more monocultural societies. Faith schools, it seems to me, offer a lot in
terms of ethos and all the rest of it. I just wonder whether non-faith schools can do the same
thing and whether we should seek to get them to do that. [] Part of the debate clearly about
faith schools at the moment, is not really about faith schools, its just the specificity of
Muslim Schools, and I think people should be more honest about that. [] I dont think that
because a particular group was granted the right to build a faith school fifty years ago, it is a
rationale to grant that to a different group now or another group in fifty years time. I think its
about saying, where is our society at (Breslin, Interview).
B
schooling against which contemporary arguments concerning parity are often made,
as well as the centrality of Muslim mobilisations to these arguments. Yet whilst it
may be true to say that Muslim communities have been the most vocal in seeking
inclusion in the faith schooling sector, to what extent is it true to say that they have
premised these mobilisations upon the issue of parity alone and, if they have not, what
other factors have been and remain salient? To consider these questions the next
section incorporates and s upon data gathered from Muslim education advocates and
educators.

Idreas Mears, director of the Associatio
his organisation has been at the forefront of promoting Muslim schools:

handle the meaning of Muslim identity well for the children. In actual fact, the way that
general society looks at Muslims is as an immigrant minority-ethnic-racial-group and
how young people are made to look at themselves through the teaching in state schools
tells them you are this marginal group/minority group and have therefore got to integrate
with the mainstream. So theres a process of marginalisation and that often leads to
resentment. But in a Muslim school that identity is built upon being a Muslim not an
ethnic minority (Interview, 1 April 2006).
In

117
Though this is not a universal view amongst anti-racists, not least because some have, in
the past, also endorsed the need for black schooling. To this end Lee J asper clarifies his
position: What I did advocate is the following: that there are already majority black schools
that have majority white teachers and white governors, what Ive said is that if you have a
school thats 90 or 80 per cent of one ethnicity or another, then its quite proper to expect the
teaching staff and governors to reflect that local community. That was my view and Im still
of that view; when majority black churches want to get together and do that they should be
able to do so. That doesnt extend to creating an apartheid regime within education but it does
extend to creating the choice for minority communities (Interview, J asper).
72

Holistic Education
The first and arguably broadest factor is paralleled by the interest in other
ed faith schooling, and stems from the desire to incorporate more
fait
vinity in theological perspectives: in classical terms
one is tashbih which is like Allahs nearness, immersion in our daily life or divine

Perha f this
roject at Islamia School proceeds through an introduction to classical Arabic;
of Muslim
lture that the language of its philosophy, the language particularly of its spirituality is

Islam o find the teaching of
uranic Arabic listed on many Muslim Schools curricula and mission statements
religiously inform
h-based principles into an integrated education system, so that the whole person
can be educated in an Islamic environment (AMSS, 2004; Hewer, 2001). This would
presuppose faith rather than treating it as something extraneous to education and
external to its major objects (Ashraf, 1990). For example, one of the
recommendations to emerge from the First World Conference on Muslim Education
states that education should aim at the balanced growth of the total personality
through the training of spirit, intellect, the rational self, feelings and bodily senses
(cited in AMSS, 2004: 12). Two approaches proposed by the AMSS in their position
paper on Muslim schools include the Steiner and Montessori approaches, both of
which encourage personal and team responsibility while the childs creativity is also
given full freedom for expression (ibid: 19). Hence the objective is to encourage
intellectual, spiritual, and moral development within an Islamic ethos and framework.
Thus, at Islamia School Abdullah Trevathan states that a key curriculum objective is
to prevent sources of Islamic guidance from becoming extrinsic to educational
development, where the sunnah and the Quran...becomes the third person in an
encounter. In his view, children will only properly know, explore and evaluate
knowledge presented within an Islamic environment if the children are incorporated
into Islams interpretative traditions:

There are two types of views of the di
interventions in daily affairs, and the other is tanzih: the incomparability or what they call
negative theology, the absolute omnipotence, distance from the individual Now I believe
what were trying to do in this school is to return to a more tashbih... its very important
that theyre [the pupils] exposed to the classical ussal al-fiqh... basically the methodology
of applying principles to different situations, rather than taking or transporting rules or
regulations out of another time and another place...literally (Interview 6 March, 2006).
ps surprisingly, given its pragmatic emphasis upon the present, part o
p
presented as a conduit through which this holistic immersion can begin:

We teach classical Quranic Arabic. We think its fundamental to the flowering
cu
taught. And also there are key concepts such that if youve got the Arabic you immediately
have access to that nuance, that feeling that the word evokes! (ibid).
ia School is not alone in this view, for it is common t
Q
(IHRC, 2005). This manner of incorporating faith-based principles into an integrated
education system, as opposed to a more straightforward approach of teaching
scriptures or religious history, for example, is the preferred approach that is advocated
by the Association for Muslim Schools (AMS). To this end Idreas Mears describes
how a childs understanding of the interpretative traditions within Islam is akin to
wielding a powerful educational tool that is simultaneously spiritual and educative:

73
Muslims are people that bring down a meaning to an event: were creatures of meaning, and
The characterisation of Muslim schools providing Muslim children with something
he AMS has made an application to the DfES to deliver inspection services for OFSTED
Once again, Mears is at pains to stress the distinction between school premised upon
Separation of sexes
that Muslim schools have sometimes served as cultural protection
zon
85) and
the
a Muslim expresses his real meaning by his evada because he sees that the ultimate
meaning is to be a worshipper of Allah but then bringing that down onto the axis of events
changes how you act in the world. So I think the most important for Muslim schools is to
give young people that as a tool in their hands that they can pick up and run with (Mears,
Interview).

like a launch-pad is not advanced naively by the Mears. In a measure of increasing
confidence, critical self-evaluation, and institutional networking, the AMS has been at
the forefront of creating an inter-faith inspectorate to monitor the content and
standard of different faith based schooling. This is informed by the recognition that
whilst the areas of numeracy and literacy are stringently monitored by OFSTED,
religious instruction is more likely to be left to the schools discretion and so may not
always be of an appropriate standard:

T
inspections of independent Muslim Schools. And weve done it in conjunction with a
group of independent Christian schools the Christian Schools Trust. Weve joined
together to create the faith schools inspectorate and we will be able to inspect member
schools: Christian or Muslim. As well as looking at the areas that are necessary in the
OFSTED criteria as to whether a school is providing numeracy and literacy and citizenship
skills etc, we will be looking at how the school is delivering the religious ethos, because up
until this point we accept that Muslim schools are Muslim schools because they say so.
Theres no real inspection of that and there can be a whole spectrum of people delivering
nothing about Islam at all, but instead being a cultural protection zone for children and
thats happened for children quite a lot, especially in the early years when the main criteria
of a Muslim school wasnt about teaching Islam but the protection of Muslim girls from
going into the state system. It was culturally driven rather than Islamically driven I think
(Mears, Interview).

an ethnic origin conception of Islam, driven by a desire for cultural protection zones,
and an Islamically driven environment that moves outward to build upon evaluative
criteria already established and in place.

This criticism
es is often made through the example of Muslim parents preferences for single
sex schooling (Dawkins, 2007; Grayling, 2006; Bell, 2005; NSS, 2004; HPG, 2001).
Through an interpretation of Islam which posits that after puberty boys and girls
should be separated (Hashmi, 2002: 14), there is a genuine concern to develop safe
environments for post-pubescent children, and in this regard single-sex schooling
undoubtedly appeals (Hewer, 2001). According to Trevathan, however, this need not
be an expression of separatism since in many ways the community want their
children to be raised in a safe environment but still aspire to what successful people
aspire to in the west (Interview), namely social mobility through education.
The retention of single sex schools was recommended by the Swann (19
ir increasing non-availability may also be influencing Muslim parents interest in
faith schooling. Hence, this conservatism need not be an example of the sorts of
cultural protection zones feared my Mears. This is a view shared by Akhmed Hussain
of Al-Hijrah school, a school which maintains separate teaching rooms to ensure that
74
they [pupils] are more focused on their studies.... it is primarily about their learning.
Thus, for example, the Muslim Parents Association (MPA) formed in 1974 on this
single issue, and continues to support the creation of a number of independent single-
sex Muslim schools with separate teaching rooms in secondary schooling (cf Haw,
1998). In addition to Al-Hijrah, the creation of the high-flying Feversham College in
Bradford exemplifies this approach, which is paralleled in some Catholic faith
schooling (Halstead, 1991). This is not a policy desired for primary schooling,
however, and is contradicted by some existing co-educational Muslim schools that
employ mixed teaching classes. So whilst the demand for single sex schooling is
neither universally sought by Muslims nor is unproblematic, dismissing it as simply
patriarchal can suggest that it is without precedent amongst other groups and specific
to Muslims, and denies the possibility that valid pedagogical arguments might support
it (Keaton, 1999).

Specialist Training
informing the Muslim interest in faith schooling is the current lack
of
The problem is that theres a vacuum here because the mosques just arent set up to deal
Tahir Alam sketches out some of the dynamics informing the considerations and
here are schools that do actually give more curriculum time to more traditional sciences,
At the same time, Alam is not alone amongst advocates and co-ordinators of Muslim
A third factor
specialist training in the Islamic religious sciences in conjunction with general
education, so that young people might be educated to serve their communities as
potential religious leaders (Hewer, 2001: 518). This includes the desire to have more
British trained theologians who can discuss theological issues with a contemporary
resonance to the lived experiences of being Muslim in Britain. The immediacy of this
requirement is illustrated with the example of unsuitable religious insructors,
including non-British Imams that are unfamiliar with the particular contexts and
experiential lives of Muslims in Britain:

with the problems of modern people. If you import an Imam from Egypt or from Pakistan
and somebody comes to them with a problem which is within a modern European context,
it would often be things that the Imams would have never encountered in their lives and so
have no means - or the wrong means - of dealing with it (Trevathan, Interview).

balances that schools must take into account when off-setting the desire for home-
grown religious instructors, with broader and more wide-ranging programmes of
education:

T
you call it theology but I would call it traditional sciences to do with Sunnah and Hadith
and those sorts of subjects. So there are schools that do specialise in this but they also do
English, Maths and Science...they just dont allocate as much time to these subjects as they
would if the school was funded by the state. So there you have the flexibility as an
independent institution so, currently, all those that are state funded couldnt have the luxury
of being able to do that. I think schools would say that yes they would like more time but
theres not enough time to deliver the national curriculum, which is a requirement, as well
as devoting adequate time to really focus properly on some of the traditional sciences and
subjects as well. So theres a trade-off I suppose, and a debate about the balance in each
school (Alam, Interview).

Schooling in Britain who point to an inevitable limitation in the scope to incorporate,
into the state sector, schools which do deliver a greater proportion of theological
75
education and training, in order to attend to the aspiration for establishments that can
offer specialist training:

If a school wants to retain an emphasis on teaching traditional sciences and for them thats
important perhaps, then they may well be reluctant to receive funding because they then
have to teach the national curriculum and compromises have to be made on other things
such as teaching the Quran and Islamic history to a level they would like and so on. So
some of those institutions that specialise in these areas are not going to come into the state
sector, because if they did theyd have to drop everything else and change the nature of
their institution to a very large degree and thats not what theyre about (ibid.).

This willingness or hesitation to become co-opted into the state sector is retuned to
below with a more detailed consideration of the factors informing or dissuading
successful independent Muslim schools from seeking voluntary aided status.

Ethnocentric curricula
Fourthly, in order to impart more accurate knowledge of Islamic civilisations;
literature; languages and arts (both past and present), there is a desire to see more
aspects of Islamic culture embedded within the teaching and ethos of school curricula
that are otherwise normatively couched within a Christian-European tradition. As it
stands, however, and as Alam recognises, there appears to be scope in existing
conventions to address some of these concerns:

The national curriculum does lend itself to a reasonable degree of flexibility, and you can
read it objectively when youre teaching geography, history or so on, and you can be fairly
inclusive, barring resource issues. Theres a lot of material available to teach the national
curriculum from a certain sort of perspective if you like, so if you wanted to be more
inclusive of the Islamic perspective whilst delivering the national curriculum, there is a
pretty decent scope for that (Alam, Interview).

Whilst this maybe so, it remains the case that the sorts of materials currently adopted
in the teaching of Islam are often unsatisfactory. For example, Douglass and Shaikhs
(2004) study found that throughout commonly used textbooks, Islam is rarely
portrayed in the ways its adherents understand, but more through the ethnocentric
perspectives of editors who frame their commentary for textbook adoption committee
audiences. Common examples of the sorts of inaccuracies that follow from this
tendency include the portrayal of the prophet Muhammad as the inventor of Islam
rather than a messenger or prophet, as well an artificial separation of Islam from other
monotheistic faiths. This has led Ameli et al (2005: 26) to argue that it is difficult to
escape the conclusion that textbooks deliberately downplay or exclude connections
between Islam and Abraham in order to maintain neat partitions among the symbols,
beliefs and major figures. This complaint feeds into the broader charge that Local
Education Authorities (LEAs) have only tinkered with the largely ethnocentric
curricula, leaving Muslim children feeling alienated and with damaged self-esteem
(Ansari, 2002: 22).

Low educational attainment
Finally, there is the concern over the lower educational attainment of Bangladeshi
and Pakistani boys in particular, and the belief that greater accommodation of
76
religious and cultural difference will help address this low achievement and prevent
further marginalisation.

There is a gap between British Muslims and other groups that underscores the urgency of
the need for target-based policies to address these problems if were going to ensure that
Muslims dont become an underclass in society underachievement in education will have
a knock on effect for employment and so on (Inayat Bunglawala, Interview, 21 May, 2006).

According to ONS (2004) data, nearly 50 per cent of men and women of Bangladeshi
ethnic origin and 27 per cent of men and 40 per cent of women of Pakistani ethnic
origin hold no academic qualifications (see also Haque (2002). Educational outcomes
amongst young Muslims in relation to this general ethnic breakdown are similarly
concerning. According to some sources, in 2000 only 30 per cent of young males
with Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic origin achieved five GCSEs
118
at grades A*-C,
compared with 50 per cent of the national population as a whole. Within this,
however, data from the National Literacy Trust (2004) highlights how in Birmingham
(home to around 125,000 Muslims - the largest concentration of a Muslim population
outside London) Muslim girls have been outperforming Muslim boys with 50 per cent
of girls of Pakistani origin (compared with 33 per cent of boys) and 58 per cent of
girls of Bangladeshi origin (compared with 43 per cent of boys) achieving five
GCSEs at grades A*-C or more.
According to Halstead (2005: 136), these figures indicate a sense of alienation
and disaffection felt by many young male Muslims at school, an assertion given
empirical support in a study undertaken by the IQRA Trust (see Pye, Lee and Bhabra
(2000), and was also raised in the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain
(CMEB) (2000: 152) which recommended that the government implement targets to
decrease the number of school exclusions currently experienced by some Muslim
groups.
Simultaneously, in some respects, educational ambition seems to be staving off
the immediate impact of socio-economic shortfalls, for although Muslims boys in
particular are performing significantly less well than the national average, when
compared to their non-Muslim counterparts with the same socio-economic
background, they are doing much better than expected (Halstead, 2005: 136). This is
given further support by the number of Pakistani and Bangladeshi entrants into newer
British universities (Shiner and Modood (2002). Whilst it is accepted that parental
education and social class play an important role in shaping these educational
outcomes, Halstead (2005: 137) lists a host of other relevant issues: religious
discrimination; Islamophobia; the lack of Muslim role models in schools; low
expectations on the part of teachers; time spent in mosque schools; the lack of
recognition of the British Muslim identity of the student. According to Alam,
Muslim schools sensitive to these experiences can help elevate educational outcomes:

On the whole the Muslim schools are performing pretty well; theyre better than their like
for like in state sector... In terms of the focus they provide for their children, and the
dedication, and quite often many of the teachers in these schools are not even qualified
teachers, yet their students get better results than people who are qualified! You do get
examples where Muslim schools in the independent sector perform badly, but theyre
resource issues really, to do with under-funding and not really anything else... shoe string
budgets and you cant really do anything on those. Barring those sorts of schools, and there

118
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is the standard qualification for
students enrolled in compulsory schooling until the age of 16 years.
77
are a few around, the vast majority of schools in fact if you take into account the student
budgets that they operate on what they do is in fact quite remarkable (Alam, Interview).

The academic achievements of Muslim schools Alam is pointing to include the
examples of 100 per cent of G.C.S.E entrants from Al-Furqan Community College
(Birmingham), Leicester Islamic Academy, Madani School (Tower Hamlets),
Tayyibah School (Hackney), and Brondesbury College (Brent) achieving five or more
passes at grades A*-C; along with Feversham College (Bradford) achieving 53 per
cent of such passes, higher than the national average (and well above the Bradford
average). It is also evident in the successes of Islamia School coming first (or third,
depending on the measure used) in a district of fifty-one schools examined at the key
stage two level (ibid).

Form and structure of schools
Where religious minorities have opted out of the state-sector, the desire for more
holistic schooling has resulted into the creation of institutions that have been
established in various homes, places of worship or community centres by groups of
concerned parents and community leaders.
119
The example of Guru Nanak School in
Hayes, Middlesex, is instructive here, as Raminder Singh Sandhu, its head teacher,
describes the early stages of its creation:

It first opened in J anuary 1993 as an Independent School. The trust which runs the school
purchased this land from the Diocese of Westminster and bought it for 1.2 million, when all
other Catholic schools had closed down. Because the trust did not have a track record in
education in this country, forty trust members put up their houses as collateral. So if the
school had failed they would have lost their houses! Forty of them! But they didnt do that
[] The mortgage at that time was 30,000 a month because of the rates. Plus youre
running a school. I mean it was a really hard times. Literally you would come in, in the
morning and see if you could get through the day it would be wonderful. (Interview, 13 J une,
2007).

The vast majority of non-state funded faith schools have low fees and are located in
poor quality buildings which, unsurprisingly, lack many of the basic facilities
common to state schools (Walford, 2003). The main reason for this is financial
insecurity. Since they rely upon community support and are seldom purpose built,
they may open and close depending upon the resources and stability afforded by the
local communities themselves. As Sandhus above comment illustrates, every school
is a microcosm of the society around it which means that despite being private
institutions they are better thought of as community-based schools since they rarely
operate commercially
120
. This is reiterated in his description of how the schools staff

119
Tahir Alam is not exceptional in recounting his story of involvement: I got involved in
education sometime ago just to help local schools to maybe improve their standards and
provide some kind of rigour and challenge in relation to performance... thats why I got
involved locally and then tried to get these issues on the agenda elsewhere through my
involvement with the MCB.
120
A fascinating illustration of the community focus involves pastoral advice to pupils
parents: One of the things weve realised frequently is that first of all were not just a school
- were much more. In many ways were educating parents as much as were educating
children and frequently we get a request for an appointment to see me and theyll insist that
its something personal, and then theyll come in and they wont be parents or prospective
parent, but a married couple having relationship problems. So myself and Sheikh Ahmed
78
coped during periods of economic hardship, stating that in the early days a lot of our
staff were not paid for up to 2 or 3 months at a time. They didnt get any salary. And
this is staff from all different religions, because they shared the vision and then round
about 1996, 1997 the school turned the corner (Interview, Sandhu).

Registration
All independent schools are now required to register with the Department of
Education and Skills under The Education (Independent School Standards) (England)
Regulations (2003). Failure to do so risks the prospect of closure and since the
criteria is not dissimilar from the conditions that have to be met before voluntary-
aided status (discussed in the next section) can be achieved, it was feared that these
guidelines would have a disproportionate affect on Muslim schools. One such recent
closure has included Scotlands only Muslim School, Muhammad Zakariya girls'
secondary near Dundee which, having offered a very limited curriculum, consisting
of Arabic, sewing and cookery (Daily Record, 25 J anuary 2006), has now been
removed from the Register of Independent Schools. It is therefore surprising that
these guidelines are viewed as a process necessary to raising the basic standard of all
would be Muslim schools.

There always was a history of starting up and then not managing to continue. Those
schools were born and died, almost like they were still born. Whereas now if they get
through the registration process theyre prone to grow very quickly. At this point I actually
welcome anything that makes Muslim schools more rigorous in their own standards and it
doesnt just have to be about the registration and inspection process which looks at the
general criteria of Education. Now where they do come into existence theyre stronger
schools than they would otherwise have been. (Mears, Interview).

In this sense, not only has the requirement been embraced but its effects welcomed:

There was a lot of concern in some quarters, as it made the process more rigorous, and it
raised the benchmark. So youre required to have a proper building and a better quality of
teaching and so on. So the benchmark is higher and youre given limited time to achieve
full registration, but you can be provisionally registered where the benchmark is very low to
start with basically nothing really depending on how many children youve got, and then
they give you two years to make sure you reach some of the other requirements, which are
essential for you to be a registered school. So its a more rigorous process but I think it
hasnt had a negative effect, because all it means is that people need to be in a better
position before they start, and have a reasonable plan for the capital and financial plan
thats required. So people have had to raise their game if you know what I mean, so I
suppose its been positive in that sense, although its made life difficult for some schools
(Alam, Interview).

Of course the incentive for official registration is the accompanying professional
inspection and advice (Hewer, 2001: 518), with the long-term aim of becoming co-
opted into the state sector under the status of a Voluntary Aided (VA) school. This
process has often been co-ordinated by organisations such as the Association of
Muslim Schools (AMS) and the Islamic Schools Trust (IST), who facilitate many
schools dialogue with LEAs and the DfES.

who is the imam here would if we could give some marriage counselling. And we will do
that if the parents are of our children because its part of our responsibility to the children as
educators. (Interview, Trevathan).

79

Conclusions
Anti-racist and multicultural educational concerns, while sometimes amounting to an
internally contested debate, have had a continuing impact on educational policy and
discourse. This is most evident in the view that educators should be proactive in
ensuring that ethnic minorities are not disadvantaged by ethnic and racial difference,
and that one way of ensuring this is to promote and recognise the positive benefits of
diversity. Moreover, the challenges posed by migration related diversity in education
are more frequently discussed in terms national concerns, where in the past they may
have been more regionally focused in issues relating to local education authorities.
To some extent this was precipitated by the introduction of the Education Reform Act
(ERA) (1988) which curbed the operation of anti-racist and multicultural education
but also incorporated some of their concerns. This ambiguous relationship between
the imposition of a prescribed unity alongside the recognition of difference and
diversity continues to be apparent in the recent introduction and mandatory teaching
of citizenship education as a core national curriculum requirement.
Running alongside the issues that have arisen within mainstream education,
religious minorities are increasingly seeking an expansion of schools with a religious
ethos in the state maintained faith sector. One the one hand this marks a continuation
of the settlement achieved under the terms of the 1944 Education Act, whilst on the
other hand the mobilisations for Muslim schooling in particular is not solely premised
upon the issue of parity, but also upon the recognition of Muslim particularity in the
pluralizing the type of faith schooling in the voluntary aided sector.
























80
CHAPTER FOUR
Migration and Discrimination
It may come as some surprise to learn that possession of British citizenship has never
conferred a formal or constitutional right to non-discrimination. What has been
amassed instead is a body of legislation that is overseen by the judiciary and which
protects citizens from discrimination on specific grounds. Since the introduction of
Human Rights Act (1998) created provisions compatible with the European
Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), non-citizens too have been afforded a basic
level of protection from discrimination. It nevertheless remains the case, however,
that it is specific anti-discrimination measures that have traditionally offered the most
robust protections.

Previous chapters have explained how some of these measures were developed in
response to migration related diversity, in a way that gave specific emphasis to
managing group relations. In so doing Britain has perhaps borrowed something from
an American approach. If this is so, then it has also gone further in focusing upon how
society can achieve fair treatment for different groups, something that reaches beyond
how these groups could blend into society. This means that British anti-
discrimination frameworks have tried to address the rights of distinct groups as well
as their modes of interaction, and so are not merely concerned with the rights of
individuals. This is how previous chapters have characterised what we describe as the
specificity of British multiculturalism.

Legislative traditions concerned with non-discrimination have of course developed
incrementally within particular political climates, and it is through this framing that
we should understand the incorporation and implementation of recent EC Directives
derived from Article 13 of the treaty of Amsterdam. This is because their
implementation is party to important changes in and perhaps even a reorientation of
established legal responses to migration related diversity in Britain. As such, these
new directives have provided an impetus to review the operation of anti-
discrimination legislation in Britain.

In this chapter we will trace the imposition of these directives by considering their
antecedents in current anti-discrimination legislation, focusing particularly upon the
extent to which they are informed by the types of racial equality formulations outlined
in earlier chapters. This will allow us to assess the material capacity and limitations
of these EC directives, as well as their broader implications in helping to shape the
present equalities and non-discrimination approach.

By drawing upon original fieldwork, this chapter will explore these issues through the
use of primary interviews with stake-holders, including legislators, legal practitioners
and journalists, alongside other case study instruments including documentary and
discourse analysis (see appendix I).

In the first section we detail the contrast and interaction between the specific British
approach and generic EC directives, before assessing the impact and scope of new
legislation that, for the first time, directly addresses religious discrimination. In the
following section we will consider what broader approaches these directives may be
81
tied to politically, as well as legally, with respect to Human Rights discourses, a new
Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), and a potential Single Equalities
Act (SEA). The final section considers whether Britain is being Europeanised before
ending with some conclusions.

Current legislation and application
The chair of the now defunct Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), J ulie
Mellor, has previously complained that Britains equality laws are a mess.
Inconsistent and incomplete, they offer different levels of protection for different
groups and none at all for others.
121
Her conclusion is supported by Barbara Cohen,
Chair of the Discrimination Law Association (DLA), who maintains that for various
reasons successive governments have introduced legislation on one ground that is
inconsistent with the legislation they have passed on another for example, in the
RRA [Race Relations Act] we have two different definitions of indirect
discrimination and harassment, different rules regarding where the burden of proof
will lie, and gender and race equality legislation are completely out of sync
(interview).
122


It is not surprising then to learn that commentators and public policy analysts long
concerned with the welfare of Britains migration related minorities (Parekh, 1990;
Modood, 1992; 1994; CBMI 1997, 2004; CMEB, 2000) have each argued that the
broad development of Britains anti-discrimination legislation has sometimes been
piecemeal and is often inconsistent. That this is acutely and disproportionately felt by
some minorities more than others is a complaint frequently made by a number of
Muslim organisations (UKACIA, 1993; MCB, 1997; FAIR, 2002; IHRC, 2004). This
requires some elaboration.

Previous chapters have established that British anti-discrimination legislation has
taken a largely gradualist approach that has proceeded through group specific
instruments in outlawing discrimination based upon race and ethnicity, gender,
disability, age, sexual orientation and so forth, as well as the institutional monitoring
of under-representation amongst such groups. In Squires (2004: 75) we find a useful
catalogue of these developments:

The Labour governments of the 1970s introduced a range of equality laws designed to
remedy group discrimination (in preparation for joining the European Economic
Community): The Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA), the Race
Relations Act 1976 and the Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act 1976. Article 119 of
the Treaty of Rome (signed by the UK in 1973) also established the principle of equal pay.
The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) and Commission for Racial Equality (CRE)
were established to uphold these laws. The Disability Discrimination Act was introduced in
1995 and the Disability Rights Commission established in 2000. The Race Relations
(Amendment) Act 2000 amended the 1976 Act (fulfilling recommendation 11 of the

121
Quoted in The Guardian, 16 May, 2002
122
Eight years ago Hepple, Coussey and Choudhury (2000) calculated that a comprehensive
picture of Britains discrimination legislation would need to consult at least thirty Acts, thirty-
eight Statutory Instruments, eleven Codes of Practice and twelve EC Directives and
Recommendations.
82
Stephen Lawrence Inquiry ) and The Race Relations Act 1976 (Amendment) Regulations
2003 implements the EC Article 13 Race Directive.

Each of this substantial legislation has been moderated through legal precedent and
introduced sequentially according to the political climate of the day, and what is
perhaps most significant for this chapter is the Race Relations legislation which
prohibits direct and indirect forms of discrimination and imposes a statutory duty of
care. This means that under section 71(1) of the Race Relations Act 1976 (as
amended in 2000) all public authorities have a general duty to promote race equality,
which requires them to eliminate racial discrimination, ensure equality of opportunity,
and promote good race relations through such things as outreach work and diversity
awareness training.

There are also specific duties such as the implementation of a written policy on race
equality, perhaps as part of an overall policy; an assessment of the impact of new and
current policies on ethnic minority staff, students and other service users, the
monitoring of recruitment and progression of ethnic minority staff and students, and
monitoring grievance, disciplinary, appraisal, staff development and termination
procedures by ethnicity. The Secretary of State is also empowered to impose specific
duties on key, listed public authorities. Broadly, these selected authorities must
publish a Race Equalities Scheme and meet specific employment duties (the scheme
is effectively a strategy and action plan).

By any measure, therefore, this is a potentially robust body of legislation that applies
to all ethnic and racial minorities categorised according to race, colour, nationality
(including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins. All racial groups are protected
from unlawful racial discrimination under the RRA.
123

For some religious minorities, namely Sikhs
124
and J ews
125
, case law has cumulatively
established precedents in the application of this legislation to protect them in a way
that has not been extended to Muslim minorities. This is despite the fact that in its
application the courts have tried to operationalize an understanding of the law that
functions in a wide sense. Thus in the case of Mandla v. Dowell Lee (1983) the House
of Lords set out several characteristics that could warrant minority inclusion in
possessing: (i) a long shared history the group is conscious of as distinguishing it from
other groups, (ii) a cultural tradition of its own, including family and social customs
and manners, often but not necessarily associated with religious observance, and (iii)
either a common geographical origin, or descent from a small number of common
ancestors - which is one of the main criterion for identifying group membership,
including perceived group membership.
126
These criteria emerged from Lord
Frasers ruling in favour of Sikh inclusion under the RRA in which he stated that

123
See Racial Group in CRE glossary http://www.cre.gov.uk/duty/grr/glossary.html
124
cf Panesar v. Nestle Co Ltd, 1980 [IRLR 64]; Mandla v. Dowell Lee (1983) [2AC 548];
Singh v. British Rail Engineering Ltd (1986) [ICR 22]; Dhanjal v. British Steel plc (1994)
[uned].
125
cf Seide v. Gillette Industries Ltd (1980) [IRLR 427]; Morgan v. CSC & British Library
(1990) [DCLD 6 19177/89]
126
There were also four other, arguably lesser, criteria in addition to those identified above
including: (iv) a common language, not necessarily peculiar to the group, (v) a common
literature peculiar to the group, (vi) a common religion different from that of neighbouring
83

[I]t would be absurd to assume that Parliament can have intended that membership of a
particular racial group should depend on scientific proof that a person possessed the
relevant distinctive biological characteristics it is clear that parliament must have used
the word in some more popular sense.
127


With his emphasis upon the use of race in some popular sense, Frasers adjudication
led the Liverpool Law Review in 1983 to conclude that a major consequence of the
judgment is the protection which will be afforded to other groups. For example,
Muslims will be a racial group for the purposes of the Act.
128
That this prediction
has not materialized in the twenty three years since points to a number of factors that
have informed an active denial to legislative recourse in making it clear that direct
discrimination against Muslims (as opposed to, say, Pakistanis) is not unlawful
(Modood, 2005: 215 footnote 2). For example, in the case of Nyazi v. Rymans Ltd
129

the industrial tribunal settled in favour of the employer after it held that Muslims
include people of many nations and colours, who speak many languages and whose
only common denominator is religion and religious culture.
130


The decisive rationale common to this and further rulings is that Muslim
heterogeneity disqualifies their inclusion as an ethnic or racial grouping.
131
This
means that the very helpful comments of Lord Fraser, with regards to the popular
meaning of race do not apply. Neither does the idea that an ethnic grouping can be
premised upon subjectively defined attributes of conscious value. Thus Arzu Merali
of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) protests that the level of anti-
discrimination legislation protecting Muslims in Britain
has been getting worse, not just with regards to legislation but with the lack of political will to
deal with it [] Its difficult to say that there was a point that it was ok; the last fifteen years
have been quite turbulent with the development of Islamophobia being quite distinct
(interview).

Merali, the IHRC, and organizations like it argue that there is both a legislative and
political deficit in addressing issues of religious discrimination. We are perhaps
fortunate, therefore, in having just such legislation with which to evaluate not only
this complaint but the how British anti-discrimination measures do indeed contrast
with their European counterparts.


groups or from the general community surrounding it, and (vii) being a minority or being an
oppressed or a dominant group within a larger community, for example a conquered people
(say, the inhabitants of England shortly after the Norman conquest) and their conquerors
might both be ethnic groups). See Mandla v. Dowell Lee House of Lords Transcript available
at: http://www.hrcr.org/safrica/equality/Mandla_DowellLee.htm
127
Ibid.
128
Liverpool Law Review Editorial, Turban or not Turban, 1 (5), 1983: 83.
129
EAT 10 May, 1988 uned
130
Quoted in Dobe and Chhokar (2000: 382).
131
cf CRE v Precision Engineering, 1991 and Malik v Bertram Personnel Group, 1990
[DCLD 7 4343/90].
84
The incorporation of EC Directives
Across the EU there has been no consistent level of protection against racial
discrimination and, like the UK, little legislation that consistently protects people
from discrimination that takes place on grounds of religion, disability, age or sexual
orientation.
132
In recognition of this, and following proposals set out in November
1999, the European Commission proposed the following, under Article 13 of the
Treaty of Amsterdam, in December 2003:

Without prejudice to the other provisions of this Treaty and within the limits of the powers
conferred by it upon the Community, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from
the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, may take appropriate action
to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability,
age or sexual orientation (Office J ournal of European Communities C325/33 pp: 11 and
Council Directive 2000/78/EC).
133

It is perhaps worth summarising the three broad directives issued to member states:

The first established a general framework for equal treatment in employment
and occupation (the Employment Directive), which would require member
states to make discrimination unlawful on grounds of racial or ethnic origin,
religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation in the areas of
employment and training.
The second directive implemented the principle of equal treatment irrespective
of racial or ethnic origin (the Race Directive). Like the Employment
Directive, the Race Directive requires member states to make discrimination
on grounds of racial or ethnic origin unlawful in employment and training.
Unlike the employment directive, it goes further in requiring member states to
provide protection against discrimination in non-employment areas, such as
education, access to social welfare, and the provision of goods and services.
The final directive sought to establish an Action Programme, with an
allocated budget of one hundred million euros over six years, to fund practical
action by member states in promoting equality in all the areas covered by the
two directives; effectively mirroring the approach of the RRA in pursuing
proactive initiatives in combating discrimination in member states.
134
Key

132
Sex discrimination is covered by existing European Union legislation under Article 141
EC (Ex. Art. 119 EEC). See also Equal Pay Directive Dir. 75/117 EEC; Equal Treatment
Directive 1976 Dir. 76/207 EEC; and Equal Treatment in Social Security Directive 79/7 EEC;
Burden of Proof Directive1997 Dir. 97/80/EC.
133
Cohen provides an interesting contextual insight when she recounts that the Race
Directive was approved in Europe very quickly this was when Haider had been elected in
Austria and there were too many racist incidents across Europe so no Member State would
want to be seen to be voting against an anti-racism measure. For the next directive there was
much more politicking going on. The Catholic Church used its influence so protection for
religious organisations is particularly good. The conflicts between the grounds covered by
the Framework Employment Directive are now coming out - especially conflicts between
religion or belief and sexual orientation. If it were not for the EU Directives I do not think we
would have legislation on religious discrimination or sexual orientation discrimination and
very definitely would not be expecting legislation on age discrimination (interview).
134
The Action Programme is administered by the EC, assisted by an advisory committee
made up of representatives from all the member states.
85
objectives include a promotion of transnational co-operation between
organisations in member states, as well as encouragement to tackle
discrimination throughout the European Union, and to exchange ideas and
information.

In a similar manner to the way in which the RRA has operated, the scope of the
Employment Directive is not limited to an employees actual religion or belief; it is
simply that they are treated less favourably on the grounds of religion or belief.
Hence, the discriminators perception (whether accurate or erroneous) of the religion
or belief of the person discriminated against will therefore suffice (Ahdar and Leigh,
2005: 305). The Race Equality Directive, meanwhile, requires member states to
establish bodies as an institutional support for equal treatment provisions, but it is
arguable whether it endorses proactive measures to promote equality within
institutions. For example, the positive action clause in the Directives, which is
phrased as an exception rather than as an explicit means to achieve equal treatment,
offers an insufficient basis for such an approach [because] the Directives remain
focused upon individual litigation against specific acts of discrimination once they
have occurred (Rudiger, 2007: 49).

Since the directives are concerned with laying down broad objectives to ensure that
discrimination is prohibited and that victims are entitled to a minimum level of
redress, they do not prohibit the introduction of greater degrees of protection. Thus
where higher levels of protection already exist, member states will be required to
uphold these so that in theory, at least, anybody working or simply travelling within
the European Union will enjoy the same minimum level of protection from
discrimination in all the member states.
135


This begs the question, however, over what contribution these directives can make
where they do not increase the levels of protection that are already available in
Britain. As such, according to Claude Moraes MEP, a former trade unionist and
equalities lawyer, they have made an uneven contribution to the British legal
landscape:


135
It is worth noting, however, that some countries are proving better than others at
incorporating these directives into national legislative frameworks (see Dhami, Squires and
Modood, 2006). Indeed, according to Claude Morraes MEP there is plenty of evidence to
show that the Race Equality Directive has not been implemented in countries like Greece and
Germany, even now. Countries who say theyve implemented it, France is a big example,
have simply not done it. The quality of legislation is low, the understanding that you would
have a national body that would promote positive action and promote a comprehensive race
equality idea is meaningless in France, where the concept isnt even advanced, so how major
countries like France can say theyve implemented the Race Equalities Directive is beyond
me. I think the Commission have overall been quite good in enforcing the implementation of
the Race Directive but its very difficult for the Commission to get into the area of equality of
legislation because, on race, virtually no member has taken it seriously apart from countries
like the UK and one or two other exceptions (interview). Indeed, this has led the EC to
initiate legal infringement proceedings against six countries (news release issued by the
Commission in Brussels on 19 J uly 2004: Commission goes to European Court of J ustice to
enforce EU anti-discrimination law (IP/04/947)).

86
...the race equality directive was not a huge advance because we already had a fairly
comprehensive Race Relations Act. But it did improve it in the area of burden of proof and
it also showed the UK that this was the right way to go and stopped any kind of regression
or going backwards in terms of race equality legislation. The key areas which are still to be
fully developed in the UK are disability and age, and in both these areas the employment
directive has been helpful in pushing the UK further than we were going, as well as religion
of course (interview).

Thus for Moraes the impact has mainly been political, which is not to be understated
in his view, in shoring up a particular approach, while in practical terms it has moved
the burden of proof away from the claimant onto the organisation or party against
whom a charge of discrimination is made. This is also true of the Employment
Directive, perhaps the most important addition for the purposes of our discussion, and
which has been invoked in a number of occasions of which the following two
examples are typical.

















Text Box A - Khan v. NIC Hygiene Ltd, (2005) [ET 1803250/04].

Having worked for a cleaning company in Leeds for nine years, Mr. Khan used his
annual 25-day holiday entitlement and another weeks unpaid leave to make a
pilgrimage to Mecca to perform the Hajj. It later transpired that although he had
requested this leave in good time he had received no response from his employer
and was advised by his trade union (Transport & General Workers Union) that if
he had not heard anything he could assume his request for leave would be granted.
Upon his return he was suspended without pay and later had his contract
terminated. Upon taking his complaint to an employment tribunal in J anuary
2005, it was ruled that he had been unfairly dismissed in contravention of the
employment directive, specifically because his employers had not made a
reasonable accommodation of his religious requirements even though they had
been notified in good time.
According to Huang and Kleiner (2001: 128), these examples are symptomatic of a
much broader trend where requests for religious accommodation in the workplace
may well explode over the next decade. They continue:














Text Box B - Mohammed v Virgin Trains (2005) [ET 2201814/04].

In his capacity as a Virgin trains rail worker Mr Mohammed claimed that he had
been dismissed because he had refused to trim his beard shorter than the ten
centimetres that he argued was required by his faith, and that his requests to wear a
religious skullcap had repeatedly been refused. The employer argued that Mr
Mohammed had been offered the job after agreeing to trim his beard to comply
with the companys neat and tidy facial hair policy, and that he had been told
that he could wear a skullcap if it was in the corporate colours. In this case the
employment tribunal found that there was no religious discrimination because Mr.
Mohammeds dismissal was based purely upon poor performance.

In the 1960s and 1970s, blacks and women fought for their rights. In the 1980s and
1990s, it was gays and lesbians. Now it has turned into employers and employees
87
and the battlefield is religion in the workplace. As a result, workers are suing
employers for the freedom to express their religion (ibid).

The difficulty with this reading is that such requests have been in evidence from
Muslims in Britain since as far back as the 1970s. Typical of such examples is the
case of Ahmed v. ILEA (1976) [1QB36CA], where it was deemed not unlawful to
deny a Muslim teacher the time to observe prayers for an hour on Friday afternoons.
Nevertheless, it may appear that Huang and Kleiners analysis may be correct in so
far as that episodes of discrimination are rarely discussed in public and media
discourse unless the facts of a case are especially newsworthy. This is particularly the
case where the complainant is Muslim, an analysis supported by Cohens view that
discrimination cases involving Muslims will continue to be prominent because of the
continuing anti-terrorism measures that fuels Islamophobia (interview). This analysis
is endorsed by Paul J ohnson, Deputy Editor of one the leading national newspapers,
The Guardian, who maintains:

Some of the issues surrounding discrimination are very difficult. Sometimes in some
newspapers they arent interested in understanding these I think its an easy thing to slide
into this characterisation of one particular communityas having one approach to life in
Britain but not of Britain (interview).
136

The Race Equality Directive shares with the RRA the criterion of racial and ethnic
groupings that exclude religious minorities which may result from the assumption
that religion would be covered by the parallel Employment Directive. This invites the
criticism that, although encompassing the important arena of employment, it will
continue to deny Muslims in Britain broader legal protections in the areas of social
welfare, including health care, and public services, education and housing, amongst
others. This is a point made by Arzu Merali when she notes:

...the application that is afforded in employment doesnt go across the board so again were
in that position again where some communities are covered from religious discrimination
because they are accepted as racial minorities while others are not. And again, Muslims are
out of that loop (interview).

This is of particular concern given the levels of disadvantage experienced by Muslim
minorities in these very areas
137
(Abrams and Houston, 2006; Performance Innovation
Unit (PIU), 2001; Modood et al 1997), and is further undermined by the fact that there

136
Prof. Francesca Klug shares this view in arguing that [The] media perhaps isnt the
vehicle that is necessarily able to tease out these kinds of issues. They're complicated and
they're difficult and they're full of misunderstandings and once people start from there they
just carry on because there isnt the immediate, you know, comeback to help people out of
their confusions (interview).
137
For example, Abrams and Houston (2006) found that Muslims have disproportionately
lower incomes and higher rates of unemployment. They have comparatively lower skills both
in education and in vocational training. They are more likely to reside in deprived housing
situations and disproportionately suffer from bad health. The PIU (2001) on ethnic minorities
found that those who are also Muslims are generally more likely to say that they feel unsafe at
night both in their homes and walking alone in their neighborhoods, and that more than half
of all Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, who are a significant part of the Muslim community in
Britain, live in the 10 percent of the most deprived wards in England and Scotland. Around
one third of these Pakistanis and Bangladeshis live in properties that are deemed unfit
within the private sector, and around 30 percent live in the most deprived neighbourhoods.
88
is no legal aid available for people to bring their cases. Crucially, this legislation does
not as yet stipulate regulatory or enforcement functions as in the case of RRA. The
head of legal policy at the now defunct CRE (see section two), Razia Karim, states
that the inclusion of religious discrimination was discussed at the time [of the
implementation of the Employment Directives] but rejectedby both parties, the
CRE and the Home Office, that we wouldnt venture into religious discrimination
cases. Indeed, she concedes that:

.theres no one place where a person can go to for advice if they felt theyve suffered
religious discrimination [outside the work place]. There are very few advice agencies with
the funding to represent peopleand I think that remains a big issue for victims of
discrimination on religious grounds (interview).

There is also an issue of how this legislation has been implemented, since the
government initially adopted it via secondary legislation by transposing it onto
existing legislative instruments, rather than introducing it through a new
Parliamentary Act. This is, according to Cohen, because the government felt that
after the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry
138
and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000
they had spent enough time dealing with race and that their priorities and
parliamentary schedules wouldnt allow for another race bill (interview).

A new Single Equalities Act was advocated both by the Commission on the Future of
Multi-Ethnic Britain (CMEB) (2000) as well as the Forum of Action against
Islamophobia and Racism (FAIR). The latter argued that it would show the
indivisibility of the principle of equality andplace all grounds of discrimination on
an equal footing More importantly, the amalgamation would rid the area of anti-
discrimination law from the confusion, complexities and inconsistencies that currently
exist (FAIR, 2002: Section 4, Paragraph 20). These arguments are evaluated in the
next section but is worth noting how some of the issues highlighted by FAIR were
perhaps already been raised when Human Rights Act (1998) came into effect in
October 2000 and required the British government to make legislative provisions
compatible with the ECHR. Of course, this legislation is not suited to addressing more
subtle or low-level religious discrimination for the reasons outlined by Prof. Fracessca
Klug, a Human Rights advocate who advised the government on the introduction of
this legislation:

The way to understand the introduction of the Human Rights Act is in the context of a
debate about the Bill of Rights rather than as specifically about equality and
discrimination although that was certainly part of it. [] However, it's not particularly
helpful at dealing with all the details of discrimination in everyday life, which is why you
also need specific equalities legislation for example, the Human Rights Act cannot be
used directly against private bodies, although all law must comply with it, while specific
discrimination legislation directly impacts on the private sphere (interview).

Indeed, the HRA promotes a more individualistic approach which considers the
majority of people in need of protection from some form of discrimination, and

138
The Stephen Lawrence inquiry into the police handling of the murder of black British
teenager living in London found that the Metropolitan Police Service was institutionally
racist (see MacPherson , 1999). One of the recommendations of the public inquiry was that
all public authorities should be required to adhere to a statutory duty of care in the manner
outlined earlier. To operationalize this, the government needed to spend time amending the
legislation through the introduction of a parliamentary amendment act.
89
perhaps risks de-emphasising specific experiences of historically disadvantaged
minorities. The implication for policy making purposes is that uniform rights for
individual citizens could take precedence over recognising the situation of diverse and
disadvantaged groups in society. In so doing this may facilitate a shift from a group-
based equality approach to a focus on individual rights.

While such a move might assist the principled operation of human rights legislation in
promoting, for example, the right to religious freedom, it may be less sensitive to
promoting specific anti-discrimination measures. For example, while the former
might protect the right to practise religion in accordance with religious beliefs, as is
exemplified by provisions including Article 9 of the ECHR and the Human Rights
Act (1998), the latter approach might be concerned with how discrimination against
religious minorities picks out individuals on the basis of discernible characteristics,
and attributes to them an alleged group tendency, or emphasizes those features that
are used to stigmatize or that reflect pejorative or negative assumptions based on the
individuals real or perceived membership of that group (Meer, 2008).

As Klug suggests, an increasing focus upon the former risks ignoring how different
minorities are disadvantaged in different ways, and moves the emphasis away from a
more specific recognition of diversity. Indeed, Rudiger (2007: 52) argues that this is
perceptible at the EU policy making level where a new focus upon human rights has
informed the plan to turn the European Centre on Monitoring Racism and Xenophobia
into an EU human rights agency. It is to these issues that we now turn through
examples of recent changes to longstanding British approaches that have historically
recognised diversity in their promotion of equality.

Harmonising different commissions and legislation
On 30 October 2003, the Government announced its intention to establish a
single Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). This announcement
followed the consultation - Equality and Diversity: Making It Happen - which
launched the most significant review of UK equality institutions in a generation. The
review stated

We [the government] want to see a Britain where there is increasing empowerment of all
groups, with economic empowerment a key goal; where attitudes and biases that hinder the
progress of individuals and groups are tackled; where cultural, racial, and social diversity is
respected and celebrated; where communities live together in mutual respect and tolerance;
and where discrimination against individuals is tackled robustly (Equality and Diversity,
2003: part 1 section 2).

The Government then issued a White Paper entitled Fairness for All: A New
Commission for Equality and Human Rights. The enabling legislation, the Equality
Bill, was considered by Parliament and introduced as The Equality Act (2006)
139
, and
is assumed to be a precursor to the promised Single Equality Act (SEA) which is

139
While this Act named the new body the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, this
is not how it has come to be knowm. According to one commentator, during the early stages
of drawing up communications plans it was decided that the term Commission would play
less favoutably with the publc than the term Equality, so that the latter was gven precedence
over the former (Lovenduski, 2008).
90
expected to combine all UK equality enactments and so to provide comparable
protections across all equality strands.
140


Those explicitly mentioned in The Equality Act (2006) include age; disability;
gender; proposed; commenced or completed gender reassignment; race; religion or
belief and sexual orientation. This act is also particularly noteworthy because it is
probably the first occasion on which equality and diversity have been expressly linked
in an anti-discrimination act,
141
and are presented as a blend of traditional non-
discrimination obligations, substantive equality goals around equal participation, and
statutory duties to promote respect for diversity, human dignity and human rights.
142

It remains the case, however, that as yet there is no proposed statutory duty on
religion (described on pg. 5), and because Muslims are omitted from the statutory
duty required by Race Relations legislation, there is a concern that public authorities
in which Muslims reside will not be required to proactively take the needs of Muslim
communities into account.

Nevertheless, it would appear that in reflecting a complementary relation between
non-discrimination and equality of opportunity, there are enough grounds in the
Equality Act (2006) to allow the EHRC to conceive non-discrimination in a
substantive sense.
143


Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
During 2004 the government consulted widely on its proposals for the role and
structure of a new equalities body that would simultaneously monitor the
implementation and application of the different anti-discrimination strands. This
body has only very recently become operative, in October 2007, which of course
makes it far too soon to assess its progress in any meaningful way, not least because it
has planned for a six-month setting up period in which its final agenda will be set, and
organisational issues of staffing and structure completed.

As the Director of the Runneymede Trust, Michelynn Lafleche, describes: it will
take a lot of time for them to bed down and be able to rebuild networks in a way that

140
The Discrimination Law Review (DLR) was set up alongside the independent Equalities
Review, chaired by the incumbent chair of the CRE, Trevor Phillips, to look at the underlying
societal and cultural causes of disadvantage and inequality. The Equalities Review published
an interim for consultation in March 2006 and its final , Fairness and Freedom, in February
2007. According to Cohen, [another] review of discrimination law is unlikely to happen
again for a long while and that this presented the opportunity as a bare minimum to
harmonise some quite disparate pieces of legislation (interview).
141
See especially s.8(1) & (2) of the Equality Act 2006.
142
See in particular s3 of the Equality Act 2006.
143
The Act specifically enables the Commission to seek to ensure that (i) peoples ability to
achieve their potential is not limited by prejudice or discrimination, (ii) there is respect for
and protection of each individual's human rights, (iii) there is respect for the dignity and
worth of each individual, (iv) each individual has an equal opportunity to participate in
society, and (v) there is mutual respect between groups based on understanding and valuing of
diversity and on shared respect for equality and human rights. This has led its chair to refer to
the EHRC as changing the weather, not simply protecting people from its effects (quoted in
Niven, 2008: 17).
91
make them capable of interacting across the different strands. I think they are moving
towards that successfully, at least on paper; I dont know how that will work out when
its real people involved (interview).

Indeed, with an annual budget of 57m that will make it one of Europes largest
human rights bodies (Birt, 2006: 4), and having amalgamated the powers of the
CRE, Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) and Disability Rights Commission
(DRC), as well as assuming a similar role overseeing other equality strands with
respect to sexual orientation, religion or belief, and age that have emerged from the
EU Employment Directive, it is perhaps unsurprising to learn that some equality
advocates anticipate that the new commission will face difficulties.







































92
Text Box C - Towards Equality and Diversity

A newapproach a single equality body
1. The consultation document Towards Equality and Diversity stated that the government saw
arguments in favour of a single statutory equality commission that would offer integrated
guidance and support to individuals and businesses and help ensure a coherent approach to
equality issues across the board.
2. Any body that delivered the benefits of coherence and integration would need capability to:
o Promote equality on an integrated basis, taking account of the full range of barriers to
equality and the needs of all groups covered by equality legislation; to engage with
government, public service providers and business and catalyse change and be heard by
the public; to understand the commonalities of discrimination and develop and promote
strategies for addressing them across the board.
o Promote good practice to business, service providers and others in mainstreaming equality
across the breadth of their operations. Businesses are increasingly addressing all facets of
diversity in their people management and broader business strategies. Support from equality
machinery needs to match this integrated approach and play a strong role in driving cultural
change.
o Serve clients through providing:
A single point of contact for individuals, providing information, advice and guidance
across the full breadth of their equality rights reflecting their real life experience.
A single point of advice to employers and service providers covering all discrimination
grounds; and support and partnership to other organisations providing advice
More effective support for individuals facing discrimination, especially discrimination on
multiple grounds
A better basis for fostering local networks focused on the issues on the ground.
o Become a centre of comprehensive knowledge and expertise, making best use of specialist
research and legal capabilities; be a learning organisation, able to innovate, pilot, transfer
success and be flexible in responding to new challenges.
o Have the ability to engage with all stakeholders and NGOs, dealing with the full range of
issues of concern; and make partnership working a key tool.

It should be noted, however, that the EHRC has no powers to assist individuals in
cases under other legislation, for example discrimination on one of the protected
grounds that falls outside the scope of anti-discrimination legislation but is within the
scope of the HRA (1998) and Article 14 of the ECHR. Indeed, a related issue that
was first raised in the original white paper, Fairness for All: A New Commission for
Equality and Human Rights, concerns how very few of the EHRCs resources will be
allocated to assisting individual victims of discrimination. As Peter Herbert, chair of
the Society of Black Lawyers (SBL), complains: they are not going to take legal
challenges [T]he CRE used to take cutting edge decisions and that used to be
reasonably effective and its virtually stopped so I cannot see the, I dont care what
you call it, if it doesnt have the political will to take significant cases.it almost
ceases to be relevant (interview).

Moreover, and despite its name, the EHRC will have a policy role in promoting
understanding and encouraging good practice but no enforcement powers in relation
to human rights legislation. This is surprising given the extent to which that Human
Rights legislation is described by Klug an advisor to government on the HRA as
well as a Commissioner on the EHRC - as having been the catalyst for the new
amalgamated body:

The Governments position, as I recall, was that either there wouldn't be commissions for
the new areas covered by anti-discrimination legislation or there would be a single equality
body to cover all anti-discrimination law. There was never realistically going to be 6
commissions. In the course of that consultationI think many stakeholders became
converted to the idea that if you're going to have a single equality body, let it be a human
rights commission because it gives it a new perspective, a new framework; one that is
potentially capable of addressing the conflicts and tensions between the different groups..
And so as the interest in the new body becoming more than a commission for 6 strands but
a human rights commission grew as time went on (interview).

Like the bodies it would replace, members of the new Commission would be
appointed by a Secretary of State to serve for a fixed term. Funding will be designated
by the Secretary of State out of their departmental budget, and the EHRC will
annually to them. Hence there is nothing to suggest that the EHRC will have any
greater independence than the equality bodies it has amalgamated and, as its remit
will also include basic human rights; there is a concern that some real independence
from government may be essential.

As such, during the consultation there were strong representations that the EHRC
should directly to parliament or a committee of parliament instead of to the executive.
As Herbert maintains: you cant have a body which is clearly independent and
cutting edge if its part of the Home Office, you cant do it (interview), though it is
worth noting that this was exactly the relationship between the earlier commissions,
including the CRE, and various governments. And it is also worth noting the how this
exact charge has previously been made against how the CRE has dealt with
complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination, not least surrounding the imposition of
anti-terrorism legislation. For example, Merali argues it [the CRE] positioned itself
very much in the government camp, dictating from the top down on what it is to be a
minority; what we can get and what we should expect, rather than actually looking at
their experiencesand how to redress that (Merali, interview).

93
More specifically, and as the D2 outlined, the current Chair of the EHRC, previously
chair of the CRE, Trevor Phillips, is an outspoken critic of multiculturalism and has
already stated that Muslim faith schools pose a threat to the coherence of British
society, and that British Muslims seeking to abide by principles of the sharia should
leave the country (Bowcott, 2006). According to one Muslim commentator this
propensity to rhetoric has arguably helped to isolate and stereotype Muslims
rather...than understand, support and help them (Birt, 2006: 4). What it also suggests
is that the delivery of anti-discriminatory and equality policy on the basis of religion
is in the hands of someone who has such little sympathy or liking for Muslims
(ibid). Whilst this may be a little strong, there certainly appears to be a dissonance
between the head of the EHRC and Muslim communities on a number of key issues
concerning the public recognition of Muslim identities, not least over the lack in
desire for this new body to address issues of anti-Muslim discrimination. Indeed,
some Muslim organisations were already pointing to a loss of confidence in the CRE
specifically along these lines:


[W]hat has traditionally been understood as the race-relations mandate seems to be
regressing rather than being taken further, so that in itself is a hugely worrying development
and were finding it quite difficult to see how that situation has come about, but I think it
reflects the lack of willingness of government to engage with the grass roots, including
Muslim organisations, with regards to discrimination on these topics (Merali, Interview).

This complaint was situated in a general picture of CRE operational withdrawal
described by Cohen
144
and supported by Karim
145
. While the latter rationalised this
withdrawal in terms of a broader CRE strategy, the former lamented the practice as
politically motivated.

The view amongst some Muslim organisations that established equality bodies had
proven ineffectual was not easily explained away by stressing operational
imperatives, however, and there is evidence that Muslim bodies such as the Islamic
Human Rights Commission (IHRC) are increasingly materially supporting cases
where the claimant is not otherwise assisted because the complaint concerns anti-
Muslim discrimination outside the sphere of employment.

However, these are not compelling reasons against amalgamating different equality
commissions per se, as much as a critique of the lack of a body to take up religious
discrimination in the ways that ethnic and racial minorities are protected. A more
specific and critical issue facing the new commission concerns that of a dilution in its
enforcement powers, and it is worth quoting MEP Claude Moraes on this point:


144
The CRE itself seems to be disengaging from frontline community work and links.... The
current mantra is integration not litigation andthe not unsurprising result has been to
dissuade applicants from pursuing their cases. Its absolutely ridiculous theres no point in
having good laws if the people the laws should benefit cant use them (Cohen, Interview).
145
The Muslim community may feel that were not taking their cases and litigating on their
behalf, but I think many other groups would feel the same because our litigating strategy had
changed in that we were taking fewer cases and the cases are more strategic. [...] Its partly a
general trend where we felt that after many years of doing high volume case work and
litigation, there was a genuine need to move towards a strategy that would last across a sector
or a group with one case rather than the 10 or 20 cases (Karim, interview).
94
[B]ecause of the nature of the political struggle which created equalities legislation and
because those political struggles were at different stages
146
, what a single equalities
commission then does is dilute areas that were very strong you are no longer talking
about any minority because you are putting gender, disability, age in fact I would suggest
that today you are talking about the majority of the British population when you are talking
about who is covered by the single Equalities Commission. The people excluded are the
minority that would be white male heterosexuals, if you are young of course, not old, which
is a tiny group, or a small group.

The risks associated with de-emphasising historically disadvantaged minorities in
institutionalizing a more generic approach returns us to the earlier discussion
surrounding Human Rights legislation. Yet these are met with some very important
counter arguments in favour of amalgamating the different equality commissions.
One is the long held view that individual commissions are perceived to be too
partisan and that where there is a potential for that to be overcome the opportunity
should not be ignored (Lafleche, interview).

This is particularly relevant to redressing the issue of multiple discrimination where a
single equalities commission is not only able to arbitrate with greater even-
handedness, but can pursue several issues of discrimination simultaneously.
Moreover, fitting the enforcement of these strands together could perhaps deepen the
public policy understanding of equality and non-discrimination, so that by drawing
upon examples of best practice from each commission, an amalgamated body might
craft a better method of implementing and monitoring both the old and newly
formulated anti-discrimination protections that have emerged from Article 13.

Another argument in favour of a single commission concerns economies of scale and
the use of limited funds in achieving the maximum impact in exactly the sorts of ways
Peter Herbert of the Society of Black Lawyers conceives that cutting edge anti-
discrimination litigation should proceed. In addition, the political context in which
the EHRC was itself conceived should not, of course, be ignored. As Klug maintains:

there wasn't going to then be any other kind of vehicle for moving forward the
agenda and I suppose I have come to the conclusion and did along the way, that if what
is being created is able to live up to its vision then that would be a wholly progressive
development even though we say goodbye to the old commissions with regret
(interview).

It is thus widely accepted that this commission will face a significant task in
establishing itself across different equality issues, and there is a view that it would be
much better served if it were supported by a dedicated single equality enactment
unifying the different strands. This could also, it is argued by its advocates, address
the inconsistencies, conflict and confusion arising from the many different places in
which anti-discrimination and equality laws are to be found, a particular problem for
equality practitioners and public and private organisations alike. Whilst there is hope
in the fact that Britains complex anti-discrimination framework is under review, as
discussed in the next section, there is no immediate prospect of a resolution to this,
which means that in the meantime the status quo must prevail through an associated

146
Something supported by Francesca Klug: I think that the disadvantages, which I always
personally shared in the early days, is obviously you lose the focus and you lose some of the
heritage and history inevitably and struggle in something like the CRE in particular, to some
extent the DRC [Disability Rights Commission] which had only just been set up (interview)
95
government machinery that is awkward, divided among different government
departments and ministers (Lovenduski, 2008: 4)


Single Equalities Act (SEA)
A government bill to introduce a Single Equalities Act will not be tabled this
year, and the Runneymede director, Michelyne Lafleche, remains pessimistic over
whether it will ever be introduced and particularly over and what negotiations will
have to take place
147
- even if, in her view, that it is the only way we have to go
(interview). One method of approaching such an act is elaborated in the advocacy of
equalities solicitor Robin Allen QC (2003: 8), and consists of taking the texts of the
existing legislation and other provisions as the raw material with which to create a
single more serviceable piece of legislation. This is characterised as a patchwork
approach which consists of three elements: (i) the choice of material, (ii) the care in
construction, and (iii) the harmony achieved by the overall design.

Taking each in turn, (i) materially this would include legislation summarised earlier
by Squires, specifically the Equal Pay Act (1970), the Sex Discrimination Act (1975),
and the Race Relations Act (1976); (ii) in construction there would be a basic unity
across definitions of discrimination including indirect discrimination and burdens of
proof, so that (iii) its design would be more comprehensible but not simply a
compilation of a large number of discrimination rights without any added purpose.
In sum this should seek to achieve:

[A] simple and accessible code which will promote real equality, since otherwise equality
law will be an easy target for the cynics and detractors and an unjustifiable burden on those
who have to administer it. It must be flexible allowing for change as it happensand it
must be universal else it cannot claim the title of a Single Equality Act (Allen, 2003: 15).

Genuine harmonisation, however, would entail extending protection from
discrimination in goods, facilities and services to the grounds of age, sexual
orientation and, of course, religion and belief. Indeed, full parity would require
mapping the race equality duty discussed earlier onto each of the other grounds.

After grappling with these sorts of issues during two years of consultation and debate,
the Discrimination Law Reviews feed-back culminated in a Green Paper in J une
2007 that provided the basis for a Single Equality Act but which was widely
criticised as rowing back on existing provisions (Spencer, 2008: 10) and is
understood to have been discarded. Specific concerns focused upon the way in which
such bill, if enacted, could permit regressionwithout it appearing as regression
(Lafleche, interview), and which may only be realised through test cases by which
time it would be very difficult to correct.

This concern shares something with others, delineated earlier, and which focus upon a
potential dilution of powers in an amalgamated body. These not a universally shared
concerns, however, and according to Klug the arguments against a single equalities
act are much weaker than the arguments that existed against a single commission to
be honest. Its effectiveness will be a question of political will. There's no inevitability

147
Something that is disputed by Klug who maintains that it has not been abandoned.
96
about losing focus because of a single Act (interview). Moreover, while different
equality strands provide different levels of protection, it will compound Meralis
sense of an equality hierarchy in which some groups are better protected than others.

There is thus optimism in Moraes assessment that there is no need for anyone to be
levelled down and, indeed, the clear advantage rests in the prospect of levelling-up
equality protections. This of course requires both a political as well as legislative
dimension that is dynamic enough to span civil society. Is this, then, where Britain is
headed?





























Text Box D - From the Equalities Review
There needs to be a dramatic reduction in the use of process-based legal requirements: this is
not the place for bureaucratic prescription. The methods used to achieve equality are of course
important, but there are many means to this end and the law should focus on the results
achieved. And the new framework needs to build in recognition of the differences between the
many organisations covered by equality law: small, large, public, private and voluntary. The
current legal framework is also inconsistent and complex. So an excellent starting point for
creating a better framework for achieving equality is simpler law: namely, a single Equality Act.
The Governments Discrimination Law Review (DLR) provides a once only opportunity to develop
a legislative package that promotes equality effectively in the 21st century. It will be essential that
the single Equality Act that results:
focuses on a simpler, more coherent framework; and
facilitates action to help groups as well as individuals (the latter having been the
traditional focus of discrimination law and other relevant legislation). The more recent
positive duties have begun a move away from that focus, and we believe there is a
need to reinforce that trend.
As such, we welcome the DLRs intended focus on both simplification and harmonisation: the
latter because we have found, despite the unevenness of data availability, severe inequalities
facing all groups, and therefore see no reason why the legislative framework should not cover all
those groups. Specifically, the Act should cover equality on the basis of sexual orientation,
gender, disability, ethnicity, religion and belief, transgender, and age.
Britain and Europe in the ways forward?

The original legal approach to anti-discrimination in Britain was the statutory tort of
unlawful discrimination (created by the SDA 1975 and RRA 1976). This technique
grafted an important collective value (non-discrimination on the grounds of sex and
race) on to the existing private law structure. Yet although private law and individual
rights were chosen as the preferred paradigm, there was also recognition in the White
Papers that preceded the SDA 1975 and RRA 1976 that discrimination law serves
important collective interests. Subsequent developments, especially through European
developments, have meant that this public function of discrimination law has
97
become more explicit. Most importantly, UK discrimination law has to accommodate
the provisions of the ECHR, e.g. the equality provision in Article 14 or the right to
privacy in Article 8. This has created a body of constitutional discrimination law
which is now incorporated into domestic law through the Human Rights Act (1998).
These developments have led to what is sometimes described as the
constitutionalising of discrimination law. In other words the incorporation of the
ECHR through the HRA has proven to be catalyst in shaping recent changes to anti-
discrimination measures. This is perhaps most evident in the decision to name the
new commission entrusted with the task of monitoring the implementation and
practice of all previous anti-discrimination legislation, as well as the two most recent
EC Directives, as an Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

If this is read in conjunction with the findings of earlier chapters, specifically the re-
balancing of broader policies of multiculturalism described in chapter two , as well as
the introduction of Citizenship Education examined in chapter three, it may lend
support to the perception that Britain is moving away from diversity friendly policies
in favour of more unitary European-like approaches (J oppke, 2004).

Yet a competing reading may view these particular changes as part of an
incorporation of broader trends that subsume the EU. It could, for example, be argued
that the ECHR and the European Court of Human Rights are themselves a regional
manifestation of a global idea of universal human rights set out in the United Nations
Declaration of Human Rights. This is indeed the view of Lafleche who maintains that
rather than being Europeanised, we are being internationalised.

With respect to the specific directives meanwhile, there is a view that because Britain
has already had a particular history of substantive Equality enactments, the recent
directives are an addition to it and would not in themselves constitute a big enough
social advance for anyone to make the assumption thatEurope showing us what to
do, I dont think they reach that level of social significance (interview). This is
particularly the case when other leading EU countries have not incorporated these
measures or even made provisions to incorporate these measures. A less diplomatic
analysis is offered by the Chair of the Society of Black Lawyers, Peter Herbert, who
is of the view that:

[W]ere not taking on board lessons for Europeif you are starving, beaten, whipped and in
a boat, then they might just send a rescue boat out for you so they dont embarrass them and
die on their beach but apart from that I dont see the legislation as being particularly strong
anywhere else in Europe (interview).

Although this is a flippant comment that conflates a range of issues concerning
attitudes toward economic migrants and refugees, as well as other minorities, it is a
comment that is implicitly informed by a concern with attitudes toward conceiving the
treatment of minorities within a race-equality framework, and so is helpful in drawing
our attention back to important and continuing differences that can be found in the
British approach.

Principally, the harmonisation of different equality strands that has been prompted by
the incorporation of recent EC directives has not led to an abandonment of non-
discrimination traditions that are sensitive ethnic and racial particularity. While it is
true that the Race Equality Directive has not substantially strengthened existing
98
legislation, the Employment Directive has begun to address an anomaly that may
result in a reformulation of anti-discrimination measures that are able to level upward
in the protections they confer.

There is then a great hope for the harmonisation of different protections across
different strands, but whether this materialises in a progressive form remains subject
to debate. Michelynne Lafleche, Director of the Runneymede Trust offers the
following appraisal:

In policy terms I think we are going to see, in the next five years, a funny kind of imbalance
between actual policies directed at specific groups and an overall policy approach that mixes
and melds issues without understanding difference anymore.

Perhaps inevitably, this can only be overcome through a willingness on the part of
public authorities, and the wider public, to remain vigilant on matters of difference
and non-discrimination, which in turn requires conditions in civil society that cannot
be created through legal regulation alone (Modood, 2007).


































99

CHAPER FIVE
Migration and Political Participation
This chapter explores the remit of political rights conferred to migration related
minorities, the extent of their political participation and the scale of their political
representation. Each of these issues sufficiently overlaps so that the focus can be
described as being concerned with minority political engagement. This will
inevitably include a discussion of the broader discourses surrounding different kinds
of identity related claims-making that should also allow us to ascertain whether
Muslim identity political engagement should be conceived as an outgrowth or
departure from what has preceded it. There are five parts to this . In section one, we
outline the relationship between political rights and citizenship conferred to migration
related minorities, and the routes this can take. In section two we narrow the focus to
concentrate on formal political participation and examine electoral matters in terms of
voter registration and other factors informing voter activity, before discussing the
political party choice amongst ethnic minorities. In section three we begin to broaden
the discussion with reference to political party identity, appeal, and strategy in the
recruitment of ethnic minority participation. In section four we elaborate our case
studies of black and ethnic minority Parliamentary representation in the House of
Commons and House of Lords. Finally, in section five we draw together the
proceeding discussion and offer our interim conclusions.

Political rights
Full political rights (encompassing a range of entitlements beyond voting rights)
in Britain are only secured if an immigrant becomes a UK citizen. This requires a
minimum of five years legal stay in the UK, of which at least one year must be
classed as indefinite leave to enter or remain. As described in chapter one, these
categories denotetheimmigration status conferred to a person who does not hold the
right of permanent abode but who has been admitted to the UK without any time
limit on their stay and so is free to travel to and from the UK, and to take up
employment or study and so forth without restriction. So while it remains the case
that full social and political rights are only secured if an immigrant becomes a UK
citizen, including access to social welfare, it is also the case that people with leave to
enter or with leave to remain in Britain are entitled to vote (and this potentially
covers any length of time from three months to many years, but of course excludes a
person who has entered the country illegally).
It is important to bear in mind, however, that this describes the formal legal
arrangements which are not necessarily taken up, or are inhibited by convoluted
opportunity structures. This is particularly evident in the practical issues surrounding
the formal political participation of some ethnic minorities in general, as described
below, but is perhaps most starkly illustrated by the experiences of asylum seekers
and refugees. As J onathon Ellis, Director of Policy and Development at the Refugee
Council UK maintains, the political participation of these migration related minorities
who have applied for and achieved one or another status of indefinite leave, on route
100
to seeking permanent residency and full citizenship, can be subject to a number of
obstacles:

I think there are barriers around information. I think knowing how to engage, how to
go about it. I think its mixed messages being set out around whether the country wants
refugees to take on citizenship. For many people the cost of doing it is quite
substantial, the cost of going through the process. For some people its thinking about
whether they actually want it in terms of their relationship with their own country [of
origin], whether its something they want to take on; the hope that they would return
and how that might play in terms of going back [S]o its a bizarre contradiction that
youd have people who for their very political activity were forced to leave [their
country of origin], then not be politically active in this country! (interviewed 3
September 2008).

Issues of newness are not limited to asylum seekers and refugees, however, though
as discussed below there appears to be additional factors informing the non-
participation of other ethnic minorities.
The status of new non-EU member migrants, including asylum seekers and
refugees, is further complicated by the formal arrangements stipulated in the
Representation of the People Act (1983 and 2000) which states that Irish and
Commonwealth citizens are also entitled to vote in national elections. The right of
Irish and Commonwealth citizens to vote in British elections is perhaps unusual
compared to the arrangements amongst European counterparts, and partly stems from
the earlier Representation of the People Act 1918. This laid the ground to eventually
extend the franchise to British subjects which at the time included the people of
Ireland then part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and all
other parts of the British Empire. During de-colonisation, until they acquired one or
other of the national citizenships of newly post-colonial countries, formerly British
subjects continued to retain their British status which conferred a right to the
franchise (see Lester, 2008). This was enshrined in the 1948 British Nationality Act
which also granted freedom of movement to all formerly or presently dependent, and
now Commonwealth, territories (irregardless of whether their passports were issued
by independent or colonial states) by creating the status of Citizenship of the United
Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) (so although most of Ireland and the majority of the
colonies became independent nations, their citizens have retained the right to vote in
British elections if they live in the UK).
148

One outcome of this arrangement is that immigrants without leave to enter or
remain, but who are Commonwealth citizens, are entitled to vote, whilst immigrants
without leave to remain from non-Commonwealth countries are not eligible vote.
This means that any citizen of the 53 Commonwealth member states with its nearly 2
billion citizens can in theory, if residing in the UK, be registered on the electoral
register. In practice, however, it is not uncommon to find that significant numbers of
resident ethnic minorities bearing Commonwealth citizenship are unaware of this
right and, moreover, do not register for the variety of reasons elaborated below
(Mortimore and Kaur-Ballagan, 2006). This contradicts the specific arguments put
forward by Migration Watch, a prominent lobby group which advocates radical
limitations upon immigration to Britain, and which argues that Commonwealth

148
The 1981 Nationality Act tried to delineate this further through the creation of three
categories of British citizenship: (i) British Citizen, (ii) British Dependent Territories Citizen
or (iii) British Overseas Citizen (see chapter 1).
101
citizenship categories are overly subscribed on the electoral register (Briefing Paper,
8.15, 12 April 2007).
The important fact to bear in mind is that Britain has one of the highest ethnic
minority citizenry with a right to the franchise in Europe (Hansen, 2000: 3), and this
can be very much part of the self-identity of civil society groups promoting ethnic
minority political participation. As Ashok Viswanathan of Operation Black Vote
(OBV) reminds us: Britain has an exceptional set of circumstances where many of
them [black and ethnic minorities] have been in this country for a long timeand
have had full citizenship rights, which cant always be claimed for people of African
or Asian descent in Germany or in Spain or in other parts of Europe (interviewed 7
October, 2008).
People from other European Union member states irrespective of immigration
status, meanwhile, who are classed as citizens of the European Union (which would
exclude some ethnic minorities such as visiting German born Turks without leave to
remain in Britain), may vote in local elections and in elections for devolved
assemblies (Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Mayor of London) but not in
general elections. Conversely, British citizens living abroad can register as overseas
electors and are eligible to vote in the UK and European Parliamentary elections for
up to fifteen years after they have left the country.

Political participation conceived as an exercise of franchise
Ethnic minority voter registration
The formal political participation of ethnic minorities by means of voting is,
therefore, inevitably premised upon their levels of electoral registration. This is not an
easy figure to ascertain, however, for as Fieldhouse and Cutts (2008: 336) note:
obtaining reliable registration rates can be a difficult and imprecise process given
uncertainty about the size of the eligible voting age population (because of census
under coverage, temporary residency of foreign nationals, etc). An obvious
methodological implication of these contingent factors for our analysis is that if a
section of the population is underrepresented on the electoral register, the level of
turnout will appear artificially high, and not necessarily offer the most reliable
account of formal political participation. While it is a legal requirement to be
registered to vote if you are a resident British citizen, of whichever category,
individuals have only been prosecuted for actively avoiding electoral registration in
order to commit fraud (local authorities, instead of a national body, have
responsibility for compiling and updating individual electoral registers).
149
According
to one study produced for the Electoral Commission (2005) by the Office for National
Statistics (ONS) just before the last general election in 2005, national registration
figures were ed to be at 92-93%. How, then, are levels of electoral registration in
Britain affected by ethnicity dynamics associated with migration related minorities?
Firstly, it is widely accepted that young people are more likely not to be
registered to vote than older people, and because the age profiles of minority

149
Changes introduced in 2001 served to make registration easier with the introduction of a
rolling registration programme. The register is now updated each month and people can
register to vote in the weeks before the election, but not once the election has been called.
There was a 1.3% increase in the number eligible to vote in 2001 compared to 1997 (The
Electoral Commission, 2001).
102
communities, particularly Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, are substantially lower than
those of white people (ONS, 2008), some ethnic minority communities are
disproportionately affected by the lower levels of registration among younger voters
(see Russell et al., 2002). Secondly, evidence suggests that fewer ethnic minority
women register to vote than men, and following the 2001 general election an
Operation Black Vote (OBV) opinion survey ed that only 44% of black and Asian
women were registered (as compared to 60% of black and Asian men) (OBV, 2001).
Other factors affecting ethnic minority registration, not only disproportionately in
relation to the wider population but also singularly, include an unfamiliarity with
institutions and procedures or a newness, language difficulties, concerns over
anonymity and confidentiality, fear of harassment, fear of officialdom, administrative
inefficiency, and anxieties over residence status (Anwar, 1990, 1996, 1998). There is
also the issue of housing tenure since disproportionately high levels of black African
and black Caribbean minorities reside in social or rented housing which can lead to
frequent movement and thus a requirement to continually re-register (though,
conversely, there are disproportionately high levels of home ownership amongst some
Asian communities, see Modood et al 1997). Given the transitory nature of
contemporary migration from EU accession countries, it can only be assumed that
these patterns of residence are being replicated, although we are yet to generate large-
scale meaningful data on this (see Favell, 2008).
Research by Mortimore and Kaur-Ballagan (2006: 7) on the levels of voter
registration at the 2005 general election found that a little over eight in ten (83%) of
ethnic minority respondents claimed to be registered, with 14% not registered and 3%
who did not know. They were also able to confirm significant differences across
subgroups, notably age, with only 75% of 18-24 year olds registered to vote, as
compared to 95% of those aged 55 and above (a similar pattern to white Britons).
While these sorts of discrepancies have led Anwar (1998) to conclude that registration
offices have not sufficiently developed their strategies to service ethnically diverse
electorates, what is interesting to note is that where research has expressly sought to
ascertain why ethnic minorities are disproportionately not registered, rarely has it ed
that they do not want to participate in politics. For example, Le Lohes (1998) surveys
of Bradford found that only 0.9 percent of all Asian respondents missing from the
register did not want to participate in politics, and a study conducted by the Electoral
Commission (Purdham, Feildhouse, Kalra and Russell, 2002: 35) ed that less than 1
percent of ethnic minorities who said that they did not vote in the 2001 general
election did not do so because they were uninterested in politics. As figure 1 outlines,
the most significant factors for non-participation concern issues of convenience.
Figure 1: Reasons for not voting in the 2001 general election.









Source: Purdham, Feildhouse, Kalra and Russell (2002:
35)

103
The majority of this research is of course based upon attitudinal surveys of
representative population samples, and there is clearly a need to do more research on
what people do rather than what they say they do (Purdham et al quoted in Cutts et
al 2008: 398). The potential unreliability of such data is illustrated by Purdham et al
(2002) who refer to a MORI survey undertaken shortly after the 2001 general election
that presented self-ed levels of turnout amongst ethnic minorities to be around 80%
and 70% for whites, when in reality the turnout for the election as a whole was only
59%. But until such data is created and made available we must work with the data
that is already in existence (and as the data used in this confirms, research referring to
ethnic minority political participation is becoming more sophisticated with each
election).
A brief summary of the changing levels of ethnic minority electoral registration
can therefore illustrate the progress that has been made since the early 1960s when
Deakin (1965) showed that only half of all settled Commonwealth immigrants were
registered. By the mid-1970s, a follow-up study identified that when people who had
very recently arrived were excluded from the sample, around 32% of ethnic minorities
were not registered (27% Asians and 37% Afro-Caribbeans) compared with 6% of the
white population (Anwar and Kohler, 1975). During the early 1980s the now defunct
CRE ed that in inner-city areas 20% of ethnic minority communities in comparison
with 17% of the white population were not registered to vote (Anwar, 1984), and by
the early nineteen nineties an Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS)
(cited in Anwar) stated that 24% of black people, 15% of South Asians and 24% of
Other ethnic groups, compared which 7% of white people, were not registered (Smith,
1993). As these categories gave way or were complemented by others, Saggars
(1998) analyses of the 1997 general election found that people of black African
heritage had one of the lowest registration levels at 87.1% compared with those of
black Caribbean (96%), white (96.9%), Indian (96.9%), Pakistani (90.2%) and
Bangladeshi (91.3%) heritage. The lower level of registration amongst Pakistani
groups ed by Saggar appears anomalous, however, given other sources and is further
queried by the more recent data contained in figure 2, as is the higher levels of
registration amongst black Caribbeans. This is returned to below.
The important point is that the levels of registration among ethnic minority
communities have increased substantially in recent years, albeit in varying degrees
across and within different communities, and specific initiatives in certain local
authority areas have shown that there is scope for significantly increasing registration
levels among ethnic minority communities. Recent campaigns by Operation Black
Vote (OBV), which was set up in 1996
150
in order to increase the political
participation of ethnic minorities, including in terms of voter registration, have had a
considerable impact.
151
This kind of activity convinces Raj J ethwa, Ethnic Minorities

150
As one of its founding members Ashok Viswanathan describes: Operation Black Vote
was formed twelve years ago to really look at democratic reform and look at the democratic
deficit that exists within the Black communities and try and get those communities fully
engaged in the democratic process because we believed that unless all communities are
playing a full and positive role, democracy as a whole suffers. Thats really the origins of the
organisation and there were a number of volunteers; two who are now the Director and the
Assistant Director, myself and Simon Woolly, and also other people working in civil rights
arena who were working in human rights and who are working around democratic reform
(Interview).
151
The 1998 OBV local election campaign included registration cards, leaflets and posters
and the setting up of over 90 registration points in venues such as colleges, religious centres
104
Officer for the London region of the Labour Party, that the reason for this [lower
participation] is actually not to do with the fact that ethnic minority voters are less
inclined to vote per se but we lack intermediary organisations to channel and assist
this interest (interviewed 13 September, 2008).

Ethnic minority voting behaviour
Such intermediary organisations and campaigns require local political mobilisation,
but it may also be that other forms of politics are also operating in some local
authorities, including the political implications of increasing the registration levels of
largely Labour-supporting sections of the electorate, and so it is important to consider
relationships between voter registration and voter turnout, for Saggars (2000)
research on the 1997 general election found that while 87.1% of black Africans were
registered only 64.4% actually turned out to vote, and that the voter turnout among
registered Indian voters exceeded that of registered white groups. More specifically
he ed the following levels of turnout of those registered during the 1997 general
election Indian: 82.4%, Pakistani: 75.6%, Bangladeshi: 73.9%, contrasted with
78.7% for white voters. Anwar (2001) too has established considerable differences
between minorities, not least the comparably lower electoral turn out of registered
Black Caribbean as compared with registered Asian groups, while Purdham et al
(2002) have identified a higher level of turnout from Indian groups compared with
other minorities. According to Mortimore and Kaur-Ballagan (2006: 7), the turnout
amongst ethnic minorities at the last general election was higher among those from
the main Asian national-origin groups than among the main Black groups: three
quarters of all Bangladeshis, seven in ten Pakistanis and two-thirds of Indians said
that they voted, while the figures fell to three in five for Caribbeans and a little over
half for Africans (see figure 2). Much lower still, though, were turnout rates among
other ethnic minorities and among those of mixed race; in the latter case, however,
this may partly reflect that the mixed race group has a much younger age profile than
do the other ethnic groups, as turnout was very much lower among the young than
among the middle-aged and old across the board.



and community centres. It is estimated that over 2,000 people directly registered to vote
during this campaign (OBV, 2000). In the 1999 European Parliament elections, OBV, along
with a number of local authorities and race equality councils, conducted a major registration
drive which also resulted in a substantial increase in ethnic minority registration. Other
campaigns were conducted across the country in relation to the devolved government
elections, the 2001 and 2005 general elections, and most recently the 2008 London Mayoral
elections. Such a dramatic impact provides further evidence that given guidance and
encouragement, ethnic minority communities are not against being registered to vote.
105
Figure 2: Self-ed levels of turnout in 2005 relative to registration


What, then, of party choice? Every survey of ethnic minority voters that has been
conducted since the 1970s confirms that ethnic minorities favour the Labour Party so
that in each general election since 1979, Labour has been the preferred party choice of
no less than two-thirds of ethnic minority voters. A contrast between the voting
patterns between the 1997 and 2005 general elections will allow us to elaborate on the
continuity and contemporary dynamics of these trends in ethnic minority voting
behaviour. The vast majority of all ethnic minorities voted Labour in 1997, and this
was particularly accentuated amongst Black groups, but a significant minority of the
Asian groups also voted Conservative
152
. As outlined in figure 3, however, two
general elections later in 2005, the support for the Conservatives amongst Pakistanis
subsequently dipped, reasons for which vary but include two very negative anti-
immigrant electoral campaigns (2001 and 2005). The main beneficiaries of these
shifts in allegiance were the Liberal Democrats. Nevertheless, what is particularly
noteworthy is that while support for the Labour party decreased amongst all ethnic
minorities in the last general election, it did so radically amongst Bangladeshi groups,
which indeed virtually halved, with the most dramatic example being the defeat of
mixed race female MP Oona King in the London constituency of Bethnal Green and
Bow (where 39% of voters are Muslim), by George Galloway, a former Labour MP,
who led the anti-War Respect party. These conflicts raise two important over whether
a discernable Muslim vote has emerged. As it is elaborated with the example of the
Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) vote card below, it is clear that Muslim
organisations campaigned on a distinctive equality agenda that centred on the

152
According to Anwar (2001), however, a significant minority of the Asian groups also
voted Conservative and, indeed, Pakistani minorities were more likely than their white
counterparts to do so. This appears anomalous, however, when contextualised in the general
pattern., and it is important to bare in mind the area variations in such support. For example,
Anwar (1998) s that in the constituency of Bradford West, during the 1997 general election
campaign, a majority of Pakistanis (61%) voted for the Conservative candidate compared
with the labour candidate (35%). For the Indians this pattern was the opposite with 74% who
voted for the Labour party candidate and 23% who voted Conservative. While this
constituency was home to long established Pakistani communities and was considered to be
an important barometer of electoral preference. This outcome was connected to the fact that
the Labour Party fielded a candidate with an Indian background, and the Conservatives
fielded a candidate with a Pakistani background.
106
vilification of Muslims and focuses on the way Muslims have become victims of the
anti-terrorism campaign and related Islamophobia (Modood, 2005). While this
campaign put them partly on the same side as the Liberal Democrats, they did not
dramatically shift to the Conservatives nor the Liberal Democrats, and thus in figure 4
we find that 21 percent of Bangladeshis voted for none of the main three political
parties. There are at least two clear implications that can be discerned from this
outcome. The first is that voting patterns amongst Asian groups and black groups
continue to be differentiated and fragmentary with about 80% of all Black groups
continuing to support the Labour party. Secondly, there is a marked contrast between
Muslim and non-Muslim Asian groups.

Figure 3: Voting patterns by ethnic group in the 2005 General Election survey (%)
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Ethnic Group Labour Conservative Liberal Democrat Other refused to say
____________________________________________________________________
Caribbean 80 3 5 2 11
African 79 2 11 1 7
Indian 56 11 14 1 17
Bangladeshi 41 9 16 21 13
Pakistani 50 11 25 8 7
Mixed/other 47 13 22 5 12


Source: Ipsos MORI/Electoral Commission (2008: 4)

There is more than one plausible explanation for this. Government foreign policy has
generated a particular opposition among certain ethnic minorities and this played
itself out during the last general election, specifically in the opposition amongst
Muslim Asians to the governments military involvements in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The figures may demonstrate a general affect displaying no more than a residual
loyalty to Labour among older ethnic minority voters, who feel a historical gratitude
towards the party, and which is less widespread among younger ethnic minorities
whose political memories do not extend back so far. As Raj J ethwa, Ethnic
Minorities Officer for the London region of the Labour Party describes:

Ethnic minorities have traditionally been very loyal to the Labour Party. In terms of
policy and principle; [Labour] have been fairly supportive of tackling racism and
encouraging diversity this is what the Labour Party has to think about: we are used to
working with first or second generation migrant communities and actually compared to
traditional indigenous white communities the level of generation upward mobility is
much greater in some ethnic minority communities which means over time you are
going to see people emerging in higher socio-economic groupsand its not
inconceivable that some of these communities are not uncomfortable being involved in
the Conservative Party despite the politics of the party maybe twenty or thirty years ago
around immigration and Enoch Powell for example (interviewed 17 September, 2008).

This general effect might specifically be in evidence amongst Bangladeshi groups
who yield a much younger demographic spread than other groups. This in itself
might begin to explain the willingness to shift allegiances to the Liberal Democrats,
which would then be accentuated by the opposition to foreign policy and the
movement towards the Respect Party. It is important not to over emphasise these
shifts, however, since the vast majority of Asian Muslims still voted Labour at the last
107
general election, and other factors, such as increases in social mobility, would also
need to be explored in explaining any kinds of realignments.

Text Box 1 - I took the Muslim vote for granted - but that has all changed

Former MP and Deputy Leader of Labour, Roy Hattersley - The Guardian, 8 April, 2005.

For more than 30 years, I took the votes of Birmingham Muslims for granted if, at any time
between 1964 and 1997 I heard of a Khan, Saleem or Iqbal who did not support Labour I was
both outraged and astonished. [] The Muslim view of Labour has changed. Back in
Birmingham this week it was clear that the Khans, Saleems and Iqbals have developed a new
- and more healthy - attitude towards politics. Anxious immigrants who throw themselves on
the mercy of their members of parliament are now a minority. Their children and
grandchildren will only vote for politicians who explicitly meet their demands. [] George
Galloway chose the name of his new political party with care. Respect is what the Muslim
community - more confident than ever before - demands. They are not sure that it is available
within the present political system. And they are certain that the west's war on terror has made
its achievement far less likely. [] Muslims expect something approaching a personal
relationship with their members of parliament. They demand audible and visible support -
particularly in face of the fashionable suspicion of all things Islamic. [] There is a real fear
that, in the present climate, the whole community will be libelled as the enemies of
democracy. Shafique (the chair of Labour's Sparkbrook branch) insists that his party, which
has gained so much from Muslim support, has done too little in return. Part of his complaint
concerns the perennial dispute about whether or not the Sparkbrook-Small Heath constituency
(where in one ward 80% of residents are classified as "ethnic minority") should be
represented by a Muslim MP. But he also insists that "the authorities" have an oppressive
"attitude" towards his community. [] "In your day," he told me, "Muslims needed Labour
MPs for protection. Now most of them can protect themselves." In future they will pick and
choose between the parties and ask: "What have you done for me?"

What is important to recognise, however, is the extent of Muslim political electoral
participation and how it is, as Fieldhouse and Cutts (2008: 333) recent study of the
2001 general election s, closely connected to the size of the local Muslim population
[which] indicate that registration, like turnout, is affected by the forces of
mobilisation (ibid. 348). One example of Muslim electoral mobilisation was much
in evidence during the last general election when the Muslim Council of Britain
(MCB) issued a ten point check card to encourage Muslim voters to evaluate various
politicians positions on matters concerning both domestic and foreign policy.
153
The
reception of such a strategy is vividly illustrated in Text Box 1 above, and in which a
former leading Labour politician ruminates on the electoral impact of attitudinal and
social shifts amongst the contemporary Muslim electorate of his former constituency.
The central thread running through his account is that of a confident Muslim
democratic engagement, and which is further illustrated by Sher Khan of the MCB:

Our position has always been that we see ourselves as part of this society. I do not think
that you can be part of it if you are not willing to take part in electing your own
representatives. So, engage with the process of governance or of your community as
part of being a citizen of this community. We think it is imperative.
154

153
See: http://www.mcb.org.uk/vote2005/
154
Quoted in Muslims test their strength as voters and candidates, David Charter, The
Times, 22 March 2005.
108

These sorts of initiatives inherently concern matters of political participation and
exemplify what Saggar and Geddes (2001: 28) describe as the transition from
migrants and their descendents as objects of policy as a public policy problem to
be managed by tight immigration control and the paternalistic apparatus of race
relations to actors in the political process. To develop and unpack these points
further we need to expand the discussion of political participation through a
consideration of political representation, and how this relates to shifts in identities, the
discursive character of citizenship, and broader perspectives on political engagement
that impact on how minorities see themselves in terms of political participation.

Satisfaction in electoral systems and representation
In 2004, Mori, on behalf of the Electoral Commission and the Hansard Society (2004)
conducted an Audit of political engagement and ed that only 30 per cent of ethnic
minority respondents are satisfied with their MP, compared with 42 per cent of white
people. These and other findings have informed organisations such as OBVs position
that there is very much a symbiosis between those communities that vote and what
would make them vote so there is a direct link between people seeing Black faces in
high places and feeling that the democratic process is something that belongs to them
and something that they want to take part in (interview with Viswanathan). It is
unsurprising then to learn that ethnic minority Parliamentarians are contacted by
ethnic minority electorate from outside their ward on the basis that they are more
likely to respond to their concerns (Purdam, 2001). As Diane Abbot MP describes:

I think that ethnic minority people think that I am their MP. Keith [Vaz MP], when he
started had Asians coming to him from all over the Midlands with immigration. Weve
never run from being an ethnic minority MP, obviously you cant take all cases that
come to you from over the country otherwise you wouldnt have time to do your own
work, but Ive never run from being an ethnic minority MP, its a privilege (interview).

It has been argued that the direct link provided between voters and their local Member
of Parliament in the first past the post (FPTP) system would be lost if certain systems
of proportional representation were adopted. This need not be the case, however, if a
hybrid PR system was used, such as the Additional Member System (used for the
Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly) or alternative vote top-ups (suggested by
the J enkins Commission). The multi-seat electoral system used in the Republic of
Ireland ensures every voter has a direct link to not one, but between 3 and 5 members,
directly elected by their constituency. But would this redress the issue of ethnic
minority under representation? Not according to Dianne Abbot MP:

One of the reasons I was able to get elected was when you have first past the post, the
MP has a much closer relationship with their constituency than with multi member
constituencies. PR would be detrimental because PR means, in effect, MPs are chosen
by the centre. I can tell you if Neil Kinnock [former Labour leader] had been asked to
select Black MPs from the centre, he would not have done so. It was local parties that
said in Hackney, in Tottenham, in Leicester, in Brent we want a Black MP. It came
from the bottom up (Interview).

This is not a universally held position amongst those seeking greater ethnic minority
political representation, however, as some organisations consider electoral reform as
109
being tied to a wider concern of democratic representation. This tension is captured
by Ashok Viswanathan of Operation Black Vote:

The fact is that if you come out of an organisation that believed in democratic reform,
anything that makes democracy more modern and more relevant to everyday people is
something that we would welcome, but what we would also caution is although we
would agree with electoral reform we think the case has to be made to Black
communities who feel that PR will make it easier for the far right and other extremist
groups to gain seats in areas, especially in local and European elections (interview).

There are then several issues at stake that go beyond an ambivalence to electoral
reform, and these inevitably give rise to a concern with the electoral possibilities
afforded to far right groups. As Raj J ethwa describes: Im not sure whether
proportional representation would necessarily solve the problem here. [] Im
opposed to PR slightly on the grounds that for example the BNP has got a seat in
London and it gives them legitimacy if they can win in systems like that (interview).
It is to this issue that we now turn.

The rise of the Far Right
The British National Party is not represented in Parliament. In the last general election
it secured less than 1 per cent of the popular vote (around 0.7 per cent), and this gave
it the eighth largest share of the vote (though it only contested English seats and came
5th in these). During the May 2008 local elections it secured a total of 58 elected
councillors in local government in England, which is less than 1% of the total number
of seats available, though it now also holds one London-wide seat on the London
Assembly.
155
This does not, then, amount to a significant electoral presence, which
may be contrasted with situations of EU counterparts since the far right in this
country have not been as adept as they have in, say France and other places, in
gaining respectability (Baroness Young, interview). Nevertheless, these
developments do mark an increase in British Far Right electoral activity, which begs
the question as to why the they should be making these advances now. Some
explanation might be garnered from the broader electoral strategies pursued by
political parties that would normally draw voters currently selecting the BNP. As Raj
J ethwa describes:

In many ways the New Labour strategy of triangulation moving to the centre ground,
has almost consciously left behind sections of the white working class who feel theyve
got no voice and some of the issues are bread and butter issues like housing, like the
quality of work and so they have been made easy prey for the BNP. [] These were
people that would previously have been Labour voters and again local organisations
have broken down. [T]here is no obvious voice for these concerns white low income
voters dont see the point in voting unless they have a really strong protest.
156



155
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7382831.stm
156
This is an analysis shared by Baroness Young: It has enabled them to flourish in a way
that was more stifled in the 70s and 80s because of the division between left and right,
Conservative and Labour which is very murky now. Nothing feels as clear cut anymore so it
leaves a bit of a vacuum into which they step. In a way, thats kind of predictable given the
political climate (Interview). It is worth noting that the Far Right in Britain to best when the
Labour party is in government, and the Conservatives move towards the Centre and so vacate
some right-wing ground, especially where the Conservatives do not look electable.
110
One anomalous piece of research which perhaps points to something else to do with
the prevalence of certain social attitudes, can be found in a YouGov poll conducted in
April 2006 which ed that a small majority of Britons agreed with many BNP policies,
when unaware they were associated with the BNP. Thus 59% supported the halting
of all further immigration, and average support for the BNP propositions cited in the
poll among those who did not know they were associated with the BNP was 55%.
While many of the statements put forward coincided with views also put forward by
other political parties, there were also certain BNP propositions including the partys
policy of encouraging the repatriation of ethnic minorities which was endorsed by
around 50% of those polled. Curiously, other BNP propositions were strongly
opposed by those polled, including that non-white citizens were inherently less
British, and overall support fell among those who were told that the policies were
those of the BNP.
157
Either way, whether the threat of the BNP is exaggerated or not,
organisations concerned with ethnic minority political representation consider the
activities of the BNP a key electoral issue, as Ashok Viswanathan of OBV describes:

We did quite a lot of polling in London and we found that for every person that didnt
vote for one of the other mainstream parties there was an increased likelihood of the
BNP getting in. Its surprising that they got just one seat. People did come out and
they voted but not enough, especially in a city as diverse as London. If more people
would have come out and voted it would have automatically precluded that the BNP
wouldnt have got a seat (Interview)

Political representation and the role of parties
While it is clear that ethnic minorities share similar concerns to the wider
electorate on matters such as education, health care, crime, unemployment and so
forth, they also have specific concerns about the operation of racial discrimination in
these very areas, as well as the impact of immigration policies, and, of course,
transnational and international issues. Such concerns may be specific to different
minorities, and these can be in tension with the political outlooks and campaign
strategies of political parties or particular groups in a party (Knowles,1992; Ali and
Percival, 1993; Messina, 1998; Purdam, 2001). A number of studies have also
highlighted experiences of discrimination and frustration centring on the failure to
represent issues of concern or to allow equal access to positions of power, or to
promote and support minority candidates (Amin and Richardson, 1992; Fitzgerald,
1987; Solomos and Back, 1995; Geddes, 1993, 1998; Messina, 1998; J effers, 1991;
Ali and O'Cinneide, 2002). One particular complaint concerns the suspicion that
ethnic minority candidates are only given non-safe, non-winnable seats, so that while
the formal procedures in themselves may be largely free of discrimination, the pool
of talent from which elected politicians are drawn appears to be alarmingly
homogeneous (Saggar, 2000: 206). Consequently, only 15 of 643 Members of
Parliament are of ethnic minority background, 29 peers who are members of the
House of Lords, and 662 were local councillors before the 2008 local elections (3 per
cent of 21.498 councillors in England and Wales).
This is elaborated in our case studies below, but it is worth noting how this
situation has prompted the conclusion that political parties want ethnic minority votes
but not ethnic minority opinions (Adolino, 1998), and it is plausible that where

157
See http://yougov.com/archives/pdf/omi060101069_1.pdf
111
mainstream political parties do not attempt to take minority interests on board, that
this can lead to their distrust of the political process. For example, the OBV survey
referred to earlier found that that one of the principal factors that could encourage
ethnic minority non-voters to cast a vote included listening to minority concerns. As
such it is has long been argued that the political participation of ethnic minorities in
Britain is affected by the policies and initiatives taken by the political parties to do
just this.
These policies and initiatives can include special arrangements to attract ethnic
minority support, Party manifesto commitments, and most substantively the number
of ethnic minority candidates and elected MPs and councillors. For example, the
Labour Partys National Executive Committee (NEC) has a race and equality sub-
committee which performs a similar function to the Partys women and local
government committees. Its main objectives include the promotion of ethnic minority
participation in the party, to ensure equality of opportunity for ethnic minority
prospective Parliamentary candidates, and to get and maintain ethnic minority support
for the party (additionally an ethnic minority officer is appointed at the Labour Party
national headquarters). The activities of Raj J ethwa, Ethnic Minorities Officer for the
London region of the Labour Party, himself a candidate for the European Parliament,
provide a good illustration of the workings of these committees:

I try and support ethnic minority activists within the Party who want to get more
involved, to put issues forward at a regional level Also to raise the profile of a)
potential candidates, and b) the issues that ethnic minorities want to raise within the
Party. This is how I see the role. []. Weve had events on a London wide basis with
one hundred activists which involve cabinet ministers. So at that sort of level, weve
managed to do that element of it of trying to raise the profile and exposure for the
mainstream Party in terms of leaders, ministers and MPs to the concerns of ethnic
minority activists. I think thats been very successful. Weve managed to do some
training events and draw together a network of ethnic minorities activists and what I
dont think weve been successful in doing is going much further forward in promoting
potential candidates for public office (interviewed 17 September, 2008).
158

Indeed, the formerly labour party affiliated Black Socialist Society (BSS) has recently
re-launched as the Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic Society (BAME) with a membership
of 4500 labour party supporters, with the endorsement of the labour leader and Prime
Minister, Gordon Brown.
159
At a recent meeting of the Labour Partys National
Policy Forum (NPF), delegates, including cabinet ministers, members of the NEC,
trade unionists and constituency representatives, passed a resolution proposed by
BAMEs chair, Ahmad Shahzad, committing the party to using a new Equalities Bill
(see chapter 4) to push the issue of minority political representation:

Labour will use the new Equality Bill to introduce specific provisions to allow for
positive action measures to redress under-representation and to seek to ensure increased

158
He continues: I think the Party, at a leadership level regionally and nationally, the Party
places a great deal of diversity and ethnic minority concerns. [] I think people have all
sorts of avenues that they try and explore in order to tap into ethnic minority views. There are
a range of organisations within the Party, a range of individuals who are consulted, there is no
one systematic way of doing it but there is a lot of, I use the word, lip service but not in a
derogatory way.
159
See http://www.labourhome.org/story/2007/11/25/114334/85 and
http://www.tmponline.org/2007/11/25/bame-labour-is-born/
112
BAME representation in all areas of politics and public life, and specifically in the
Westminster and European Parliaments, other assemblies and public bodies.
160

The specifics of this are returned to below, but what it means is that as official party
policy, it will form part of Labour's manifesto for the next general election, and its
sentiments will be incorporated into the Equalities Bill, which Labour will present to
parliament in November this year.
The Conservative party too has inaugurated an Ethnic Diversity Council (EDC)
which seeks to actively engage with members of the ethnic community and get them
involved in the affairs of the party.
161
To this end it has announced a series of A-list
prospective parliamentary candidates which consists of at least fifty ethnic minority
candidates including Priti Patel - a British Asian woman - for the safe Essex seat of
Witham. On this matter David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, has
promised positive action to counter the degree of under-representation of minorities
within his party, as described in Text Box 2.

Text Box 2 David Cameron speech to Ethnic Media Conference, 29 November, 2006.

We need to address the current under-representation of minorities and lack of diversity that
exists in all parties, including my own. [] In the past, the Conservative Party thought it was
enough to remove formal barriers to entry and to provide equality of opportunity. We
believed that we were operating a meritocracy. But we weren't. The fact is that it's not enough
just to open the door to ethnic minorities. If people look in and a see an all-white room they
are less likely to hang around. An unlocked door is not the same as a genuine invitation to
come in. That's why the Conservative Party needs positive action if we are to represent
Britain as it is. This isn't just morally right - it's enlightened self-interest. If we don't change
we will be at a huge disadvantage. A mono-ethnic party cannot represent a multi-ethnic
country. How can we understand the country we aspire to govern if the conversation inside
the Conservative Party doesn't reflect the conversation in the broader community? [] Better
representation of black and minority communities is vital for all of us. We are all part of the
same country, the same political system. In order to feel that, we need to show it. A system
that locks out all the talent in ethnic minority communities is failing them - and failing
everyone else as well.
162

160
Moreover its aims and objectives includes the following items: (i) to influence and
participate in policy making process at all levels of the Labour Party and through its work
BSS will ensure that issues and concerns of BSS members are raised at the highest levels of
the Party; (ii) to ensure that Black, Asian and Ethnic minority members are represented
throughout the Party bodies and are selected for the Welsh Assembly, Scottish, Westminster
and European Parliaments and for public office in local and central government; (iii) to
eliminate racism and discrimination in all forms and will support its members in their struggle
against racism in the United Kingdom and Worldwide, whilst developing links with other
similar organizations to achieve this end, and (iv) BAME Labour shall work to achieve
support for the Labour Party. See http://bamelabour.org.uk/bame_labour_executive.
161
http://www.conservativemuslimforum.com/_lord_sheikh_b_speech.php
162
David Cameron speech to Ethnic Media Conference, 29 November, 2006. Available
here:http://www.conservativeparty.org.uk/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=133939&spee
ches=1. In the same speech, however, he attacks multiculturalism thus: As a country, we're
comfortable with multiple identities. What is a problem, however, is the weakening of our
common culture. [] When I say 'multiculturalism' let's be absolutely clear what I'm talking
about. I'm not referring to the reality of our ethnically diverse society that we all celebrate and
only embittered reactionaries like the BNP object to. I mean the doctrine that seeks to
113

These sentiments mark a radical departure in the position of the Conservative party
during the era of Margaret Thatcher who led the party for 15 years without ever
making a speech on race equality (Shukra, 1998). It would be fair to conclude, then,
that it was the debates about practices and policies within the Labour Party that first
established the import of promoting meaningful political representation that is
inclusive of ethnic minorities. For example, the labour partys present race equality
committee has its roots in the Labour Party Race and Action Group (LPRAG) which
was conceived in the mid-seventies as a pressure group, and to educate and advise
party members and leadership on matters of race equality. This was followed by a
long campaign to set up Black Sections in the Labour party, a move that was
eventually defeated during several party conferences throughout the 1980s. This
warrants some elaboration, however, because while the Black Sections remained an
unofficial movement, they are illustrative of the British case in that they not only
reflected but also contributed substantially to the growth in thinking in British ethnic
minority politics (Saggar, 2000: 156).

Labour party black sections
Within the national Labour party a group or caucus of its black members insisted
that only by organising and mobilising a black constituency within it could they orient
the party toward more substantively addressing matters of ethnic minority
Parliamentary representation. Black could be taken as a political racial identity in
two different senses: a race in the sense that a population has been conceived as a race
by white people, which may have nothing more in common than how white people
treat them; or, a race in the sense of a similar physical appearance ('black'), a similar
territorial origin, a common history and so on. In short, not just as a subordinated
population but as a people. The development of this racial identity drew upon an
American experience and became much more than just a political construct but a
racial-ethnic-cultural pride movement. It was a movement by and for people of
African roots and origins in the enslavement of African peoples in the New World,
as symbolised in the slogan black is beautiful. The celebration of the positive
elements of the black diasporic African heritage of struggle, and of the achievements
of the contemporary bearers of that heritage became integral to the meaning of black
as it was picked up across the world, Britain. But this created a serious incoherence in
the meaning of black as a positive political identity (Modood, 1994). On the one
hand, it was a non-ethnic term referring to a movement of resistance to racial
subordination, and therefore, in aspiration, fully including Asians. On the other hand,
it referred to a black diasporic African ethnicity and therefore by definition excluded
Asians even though they were the numerical majority of non-whites in Britain. That
for many years this contradiction was not noticed or not thought problematic by
advocates of political blackness - which included the majority of Asians involved in
anti-racism as a political movement for most of the 1970s and 1980s enabling it to
become the hegemonic minority discourse of the 1980s and accepted as such by the
political classes reflects two things about this period. Indeed, the fundamental

Balkanise people and communities according to race and background. A way of seeing the
world that encourages us to concentrate on what divides us, what makes us different. [] It's
been done in the name of multiculturalism. [] Multicultural policies provide a powerful
incentive to proclaim one's victim status. This leads to a grievance culture - a zero sum game
that views every concession to one group as a slight to others.
114
problem for political blackness came from the internal ambivalence, namely whether
blackness as a political identity was sufficiently distinct from and could mobilise
without blackness as an ethnic pride movement. This black identity movement, in a
growing climate of opinion favourable to identity politics of various kinds, was
successful in shifting the terms of the debate from colour-blind individualistic
assimilation to questions about how white British society had to change to
accommodate new groups. But its success in imposing or making a singular identity
upon or out of a diverse ethnic minority population was temporary (probably at no
time did a majority of Asians think of themselves as part of a positive black identity
(Modood et al, 1997: 294-297)). What it did was pave the way for a plural ethnic
assertiveness, as Asian groups borrowed the logic of ethnic pride and tried to catch up
with the success of a newly legitimised black public identity.
Within the Labour Party this constituency (or smaller groups of constituencies)
became known as the Labour Party Black Sections (LPBS) which sought a
constitutional status within the party on a par with already existing Women and Youth
sections (Shukra, 1998). As one of its founding and leading members, Dianne
Abbott MP, explains:

[H]aving got on the council I started to meet other Black people who were active in
other parts of London. We askedif you could have women sections and youth
sections why didnt we have a Black section? So a number of us in our local parties set
up Black Sections. I forget the year now [1983], but we came together for the first
National Black Sections conference and having started off trying to organise people in
the Labour party we then formulated a set of demands around representation.
Representation was always about trying to form a political agenda on fundamental
issues around employment, around race discrimination, against police harassment and
so on. As we moved into the issue of representation we felt there should be more Black
councillors (some of us were councillors at that point), more Black leaders of councils
and more Black MPs (interviewed 22 J uly 2008).

Though now defunct, the LPBS initially contained the soon to be all four non-white
and ethnic minority Members of Parliament (which increased to 15 in 2005 see fg. 5)
and achieved marked success in increasing the number of ethnic minority councillors.
While it was criticised for seeking a corporatist style of representation without
connecting this to grass-roots support, so that an emphasis on organisational matters
made political debate secondary (Shukra, 1998: 73), as Dianne Abbot MP explains the
LPBS succeeded in establishing the need for, and potential of, organisational
representation within the party:

We created a climate where, and its interesting, all the constituencies that in 1987
elected Black MPs had Black sections because it was the Black sections inside the
local parties that made common causes with Black groups outside and said we want a
Black MP in Hackney, Tottenham, and Brixton and so on (interview, ibid).

In this sense Abbot and her colleagues graphically elevated the under-representation
debate, even if this was frequently conceived as fragmentary, not least within a
Labour Party where the LPBS were met by scorn and derisionbecause they said it
was separatist (ibid.). On the other hand, there is no mistaking the prominent roles
played by several minority political figures during this period which served to give
the impression that securing ethnic minority Parliamentary representation would be
the same as changing the agenda of political issues as well (specifically concerning
race equality and anti-discrimination). For some, including Diane Abbot, the two
agendas were certainly interdependent. This was also the case with Lady Shreela
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Flather who was one of the first ethnic minority peers appointed to the House of
Lords, and who recalls:

When I arrived I realised that I was the only Asian there so I immediately started
looking at the bills which were coming up from the point of view of how they affected
the minorities. My first big amendment was Clause 95 in the 91 Criminal J ustice Act.
It was to make it a duty for everyone working in the Criminal J ustice system not to
discriminate. So by adding just one word duty, it meant that if anybody felt that they
had been discriminated against they could actually bring a case or have a judicial
review (interviewed 8 September, 2008)..

Others, however, remain unconvinced of these relationships. As the former Chair of
the now defunct Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), Lord Herman Ouseley
formulates it: if we get a higher proportion of ethnic minority people in Parliament
would it make any difference other than look representative? (Interviewed 11 August
2008). It is to this issue and others, including a more focused discussion on the matter
of Parliamentary representation, to which the will shortly turn. Before this, however,
it is worth noting the testimony of David Lammy MP, who replaced Bernie Grant MP
in the constituency of Tottenham after the latters death caused a by-election. As a
young and dynamic politician, with a Harvard degree, Lammy is particularly
interesting because of how he understands himself as bridging earlier movements for
representation with contemporary issues. He describes:

I found myself constantly being the bridge, the oracle, the means by which various
black and ethnic minorities would sort of, come to me as a lawyer and ask my advice,
and I was able to be an advocate on their behalf, and the thing is when you're a lawyer
you begin to realise that the system needs changing as well, and so I found myself at
the right place at the right time, and that was basically, Bernie Grant very sadly died, as
the MP for Tottenham, I was there I was young, but clearly I was doing things and in an
advocacy position and I put my name forward, and so I'm in that tradition of Labour
MPs who recognise that most people from their community, from their background, are
nowhere near public life, are nowhere near the potential of power, and I was one of the
very very few young people in Tottenham at that point in time who felt connected in
that sense, so that's why, my motives were, I knew that I had the gift of the gab, I knew
I had the means to communicate, I knew I bridged many worlds, because of my own
educational background the ability to move and operate in what is in the end a very
white middle class world, as well as deeply rooted and connected in communities, so a
certain kind of authenticity, was where I found myself (interviewed 6 Oct 2008).
Case study of ethnic minority political participation:
The 2005 General election witnessed a small increase in the number of ethnic
minority MPs to 15
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, which is short of the 51 MPs from ethnic minority
backgrounds that would reflect the 8% national proportion of ethnic minorities.




163
These were: Adam Afriyie, MP (Con); Ashok Kumar, Dr.; MP (Lab); David Lammy, MP
(Lab); Dawn Butler, MP (Lab); Diane Abbott, MP (Lab); Keith Vaz, MP (Lab); Khalid
Mahmood, MP (Lab); Mark Hendrick, MP (Lab); Marsha Singh, MP (Lab); Mohammed
Sarwar, MP (Lab); Parmjit Dhanda, MP (Lab); Sadiq Khan, MP (Lab); Shahid Malik, MP
(Lab); Virendra Sharma, MP (Lab); Shailesh Vara, MP (Con).
116
Figure 5: Ethnic minority MPs elected according to party at the 2005 General Election

Party Ethnic minority MPs Increase/Decrease Proportion of
Party
Labour 12 +1 3.7%
Conservative 2 +2 1%
Liberal Dems 0 -1 0%

Source: Sanders, Clarke, Stewart and Whiteley (2005)

During this general election the Conservative Party elected their first black MP
(Adam Afriyie in Windsor) and one Asian MP (Shailesh Vara in Cambridgeshire
North West). Both were selected as candidates in safe seats where the incumbent was
retiring, without using measures of positive action i.e. all ethnic minority short lists
mirroring all women shortlists used by the Labour party during the 1997 general
election. In contrast, the Liberal Democrats lost their only ethnic minority MP,
Parmijt Singh Gill, who won the Leicester South by-election in 2004, seeing the seat
pass back to the Labour Party after just ten months in Parliament. In contrast, the
Labour Party increased its total number of ethnic minority MPs by one to 13, with
three new, including two Muslim, candidates elected (Sadiq Khan, Shahid Malik and
Dawn Butler, who replaced retiring MP Paul Boateng). As noted earlier, Oona King, a
mixed race female MP, was unsuccessful in her bid to hold her Bethnal Green and
Bow seat, but Labour still have the only two black women MPs Diane Abbot and
Dawn Butler. Yasmin Qureshi, meanwhile, was unable to re-take Brent East, lost to
the Liberal Democrats in a 2003 by-election. Had she been returned, she would have
been Britains first Muslim woman MP. Geographically, one third of ethnic minority
MPs represent London constituencies, and most others are in large towns and cities,
all with minority ethnic populations above the UK average. The two Conservative
ethnic minority MPs, and Labours Parmjit Dhanda (Gloucester) and Ashok Kumar
(Middlesbrough South and Cleveland East) are exceptions (Scotland has only one
Asian MP (Mohammed Sarwar) while Wales has none).

Candidature Selection
One of the obvious constraints upon greater representation was touched upon
earlier and concerns the party selection techniques that were so intentionally
politicised by the Labour Party Black Sections. As Shreela Flather, a cross-bench
member of the House of Lords, the first Asian woman to be raised to this position in
1990 (at the time by the Conservatives), describes:

Its really not an easy route [to be selected to stand for a constituency]. Everybody has
to present themselves forever and everybody has to work extremely hard. There are
different ways of getting into parliament between the different parties. With the Labour
party you have to start on the local root level and then work your way up. Its a hard
grind. With the Tories its slightly different because you can be put on a list, they dont
do it on the basis of groups and roots you see and if you can do it by being there on the
list then its easier, but still incredibly hard (interviewed on 8 September, 2008).

Another perspective on these selection processes delves deeper and problematises this
state of affairs:

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[I]n many safe seats black candidates cancel each other out for example in West Ham
the seat went to a white woman because there were six candidates, one White woman,
five black candidates, one man, four women, two African Caribbean, two Asian. They
all split the vote and the White candidate ended up getting into the seat. I think thats
the problem with a lot of safe seats. You get a single white candidate, you maybe get
two and you get several Black candidates. The local party split the vote between their
candidates because theres no sort of strategy (Viswanathan, Interview).

To ensure a greater ethnic minority movement through these proceedures, in February
of this year Keith Vaz MP, one of the first four ethnic minority MPs elected through
the LPBS movement in 1987, introduced a Bill seeking to exclude political parties
selection of Parliamentary candidates from the application of Race-Relations Act
(1976 as amended in 2000 and 2003 see chapters 2 & 4) which prohibits the selection
or promotion of candidates (in any form of employment) based upon racial or ethnic
grounds. The Bill specifically proposed to allow for the creation of shortlists on the
grounds of ethnicity in the selection of parliamentary candidates (this would be
voluntary and not oblige or compel parties in any way). As he insisted:

Positive action [which is promoted by the legislation but is different from positive
discrimination] is achieved by exempting the selection of candidates from the
provisions of the Race Relations Act 1976. [] The creation of ethnic minority
shortlists will undoubtedly see more ethnic minorities taking up seats in Parliament,
which will mean a Parliament that mirrors the society it represents, a Parliament that
citizens can identify with and a Parliament that better reflects their needs. It will
encourage many more to engage in civic society and afford them a greater sense of
belonging (Hansard, 6 Feb 2008: Column 974).

It is important to note that such an amendment would operate under a sunset clause
limiting its use to a particular time-period, and that while this approach may well
appear radical it is not without precedent. For example, to ensure that the Labour
partys all women short lists could not be subject to legal challenge, the government
made several amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act in order to provide all
political parties with brief exemption in which to pursue such measures if they wished
(this expires in 2012). The amendment to the Race Relations Act would permit
parties to use twinning (combining two constituencies and selecting one ethnic
minority and non-ethnic minority). The equivalent on the grounds of Gender has
ensured that the Welsh Assembly has the best gender balance in an elected democracy
in the world. Where twinning might be difficult to implement zipping (where the
names of ethnic minority and non-ethnic minority candidates alternate equally in the
critical top positions of the Party list of candidates) might be used on a top-up list.
The change in the law would also permit parties to introduce all ethnic minority
shortlists paralleling all women shorlists.

Text Box 3 - Rushanara Ali, Labour Party Parliamentary Candidate

We will have a great sense of responsibility because when you are among the first you have to
watch yourself even more than everybody else, because you are measured whether you like it
or not. Its the mixed blessing of being in a minority, in particular fields because you are
going to be measured. The experience of Muslim women and South Asian women will often
be viewed through that lens and its a symbolic value isnt it in addition to your own actions
and what you do and the symbolic values of be it women of Muslim, South Asian origin
going into politics so for me that means I am very aware of the depth of responsibility that
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that means and entails. I didnt enter into this lightly, I thought very hard about that and I
came on the side of deciding to do this because I think that it would be good for us as a
society [] I felt that, even if its in a modest way, if by going into politics I can make a
difference, which I believe I can, and then I should. But also I think its important for women
to seeother young women, but older women as well, Ive had lots of women particularly of
South Asian origin, older women that have come up and said we are treated like this or we are
treated like that or we are seen as passive victims and so on, well this will show them!

At the moment the Labour Party use zipping which means that as a minimum each
constituency ward has to nominate at least one woman and least one ethnic minority
candidate; this could be satisfied by nominating a woman of ethnic minority
background (some wards may nominate two women and others might nominate one
woman of ethnic minority background and two men). These are rules which are
nationally implemented by the Labour Party, so that each ward will have the right to
nominate three people for the long list before it goes to the shortlist, but if over 50%
of the proportion of the membership votes for one candidate then that candidate
automatically joins the shortlist of four to eight prospective candidates. As Rushanara
Ali, a Labour Party candidate standing in Bethnal Green at the next general election
describes:

Its broken into two lots and those who dont get over 50% of the nominations have to
then present themselves to the general committee of the Labour Party which is the
decision making body of the local party and usually they are about thirty or forty
member depending on the size of the constituency and then they would do speeches and
then there will be a vote. From that vote the final short list will be decided (interviewed
16 October, 2008).

The important point is that the final short list will have to have 50% women and then
whatevers left is allocated to those who performed the best and can lobby for the
votes of the general committee members.

Text Box 4 Historical ethnic minority figures in Parliament

Due to the historical and colonial links of Asians and Afro-Caribbeans with Britain, they
had a legal right to participate fully in the countrys politics even before the post war
mass migration. Therefore, such participation is not new. Three MPs from the Indian
subcontinent were elected to the House of Commons before World War II, all
representing London constituencies. The first, Dadabhai Naoroji, was elected in 1892 as a
Liberal in Finsbury Central. The second, Sir Mancherjee Bhownagree, was twice elected
as a Conservative for Bethnal Green North East in 1895 and 1900. The third, Shapurji
Saklatvala, was twice elected for Battersea North, as a Labour candidate in 1922 and as a
Communist in 1924. All three were Parsees. In the House of Lords, there was one
member from the Indian subcontinent, Lord Sinha of Raipur (1863-1928). At a local
level, in 1934 Chunilal Katial, a medical doctor, was elected as a Labour councillor in
Finsbury, and in 1938 he became the first ethnic minority origin mayor in Britain.
Krishna Menon, a teacher, was also elected in 1934 as a Labour councillor for St Pancras
ward in London. In 1936, another doctor, J ainti Saggar, was elected as a Labour
councillor in Dundee and served for 18 years. There are other examples of ethnic
minority candidates who were elected by a mainly white electorate.

Mohammed Anwar (2001: 538)

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The House of Lords
The key area of Parliament that has seen an increase in the number of figures from
ethnic minorities is the House of Lords. In 2000 a Royal Commission on the Reform
of the House of Lords recommended that the upper chamber of Parliament, a
chamber historically made up of either hereditary or politically appointed Peers,
should become broadly representative of the people of Britain. To this end the
Commission insisted that: All people should be able to feel that there is a voice in
Parliament for the different aspects of their personalities, whether regional,
vocational, ethnic, professional, cultural or religious, expressed by a person or persons
with whom they identify (quoted in CMEB, 2000: 231). It specifically
recommended that an Appointments Commission should be set up to ensure a level
of representation for members of minority ethnic groups which is at least
proportionate to their presence in the population as a whole (quoted in CMEB:
232).
164
While it did not introduce anything like a statutory duty
165
, the House of
Lords has seen its number of ethnic minority Peer leap from 5 in 1997 to 29 today,
which resulted from a combination of both political appointments and open access
applications from individuals active in civil society. The impact of these
appointments, according to Lord Herman Ousely, amounts to one big example that
exists within Britain today of how you shift the culture of an institution. He
continues:

I think what New Labour have done, together with the Conservatives who brought in a
few, in the last year under Cameron, it has actually changed the dynamic of the way in
which the Lords functions and how the Lords sees itself [] A lot of the peers who
were in their cosy existence in the culture that has existed for decades; its their club,
with their style and culture and the way they do things, suddenly they were seeing black
faces and in particular black women in positions of power, as the leader of the House
and leading with a particular political portfolio. [] I think over a period of three to
four years they started to be much more responsive and respectful of that diversity as
more and more BME people and women were in leadership positions. [] This was
actually shifting opinion; they were getting men to actually sit back and listen and
respect. What has happened is a real example of how you can change a culture of a
bastion of power by the numbers of people you put in (interview, 11 August 2008).

This change has been recent and cumulative, however, and Lady Shreela Flather
provides an interesting anecdote detailing her first experiences of the Lords (as the
first the Asian woman to be appointed) which illustrates the sorts of contrasts Lord
Ouseley is referring to:

There hadnt been any other Asian woman, but there had been one man, but hed left
already, hed given up the Lords. [] One of the hereditary peers said, you wouldnt

164
In contrast, the CMEB recommended that an appointments committee go further in
introducing a statutory duty to ensure that the chamber would be representative with respect
to gender and ethnicity.
165
Something that is regretted by Baroness Lola Young who raised the concern that one of
the questions for me would be around the appointments commission; what is the ratio of
appointments to applications from Black and minority ethnic people, and trying to think
through when I come across people that I think should stand a chance or I think ought to be
seen (interview).

120
have liked him you know, he was much too English for you! [] It was a very
different House of Lords. All the hereditary peers were there and I hadnt actually met
anybody from the aristocracy from my normal life and you do wonder if some kind of
different interaction is required but actually I realised that after a few months they were
just very shy and they didnt have any openers. They couldnt say, wheres your
family from? Which school did you go to? What would they ask me? (Interview)

It is then, undeniable, that real progress has been made in the House of Lords, but this
is now subject to the final settlement of the reform of the upper chamber and in some
commentators minds, any final settlement opting for a fully elected chamber would
radically reduce the numbers of ethnic minorities, for reasons tied to broader issues of
Parliamentary representation discussed earlier. But this need not be so, according to
Viswanathan, for an example can be found in the American experience:

Text Box 5: Baroness Lola Youngs Story:

We can be invisible and highly visible at the same time

When I started [in the Lords] it was fantastic because when Id introduce people, especially
African Americans, and say heres the leader of the House, a Black woman, heres the Home
Office Minister, Patricia Scotland, a Black woman and then theres so and so from the Labour
benches and shes African Caribbean. [] It does feel quite extraordinary and again, its
when people point it out. You know how it works, as visible minorities so to speak, we can
be invisible and highly visible at the same time. There are any number of peers I could point
to, mainly on the Tory benches, mainly hereditary, but not exclusively so, who either look at
me like, why have I come from the canteen kind of a look, or look straight through me,
dont acknowledge me, let the door swing, all of that. There are a handful of those as you
might imagine. In its own way its still a microcosm of wider society although it might not
look like it! [] What I say to myself is that you have one vote, I have one vote; we have
equal power in this chamber when it comes to the voting. To be fair most people are really
very friendly to the degree that surprised me, I have to say. Now there is an air of exoticism
because Im tall, I dress in a particular way, Im an artsy person, so theres a level on which
everybody knows who I am, but by the same token I feel there is this thing of, and I havent
experienced it in quite this way, but other Black members have told me of incidents where in
the past theyve been laughing and somebodys asked them to keep quiet in a way that they
wouldnt other people or made a comment about clothing or about the fact that there are two
Black women and an Asian man sitting together, whats the conspiracy!

There are different ways you could do it. You could do it on percentages of the
national vote or you could do it on a lottery system a bit like the peoples peers where
people put applications in and they are drawn out of a hat [] The reason why the
House of Representatives is an institution that looks more like America than the Senate
is because they try and use it to address the imbalances of the Senate. [] The way
they address that in the U.S. they look at the district, they look at whether they are
Black districts or white districts, what sorts of populations they have and they select
candidates accordingly so there is no reason they couldnt redraw the House of Lords
with a very similar system (Interview, Viswanathan).

Viswanathans analysis re-establishes the importance of examples garnered from the
American experiences, specifically with respect to ideas of substantive representation
that is indicative of the continuing inspiration garnered from an Atlantocentric race-
equality movement.

121
Conclusions
The political representation of migration related minorities in British occupies
an important place in debates around political participation in general, but at present
the proportion of minority representatives holding elected office does not sufficiently
reflect Britains ethnic diversity. As such, less progress appears to have been made on
this issue than on, for example, encouraging ethnic minority voter registration and
ethnic minority voter participation. Indeed, across several arenas discussed
throughout this , ethnic minority political participation in Britain could be
characterised as incrementally improving and expanding. Mainstream Muslim identity
politics, by and large, appears to comprise another strand of this engagement and will
provide an interesting dimension of the debate in coming years. As such it appears to
remain the case that the challenge for political parties is how to appeal to all sections
of society including ethnic minorities, but specifically ensure that ethnic minorities
participate, and that minority candidates are selected and elected. On this matter there
is widespread recognition within political parties and among the wider public of the
need to address ethnic under-representation in British politics. Perhaps contrasted
with European counterparts this is a positive development. However, the progress has
been slow to the extent that, for example, and despite attracting the majority of the
ethnic minority voters, the Labour Party still has only 13 ethnic minority MPs. Thus
Rushanara Ali insists that the only one thing that is common to all parties is what
they are doing is still not enough. It is not enough to get the large number of ethnic
minority MPs that is genuinely needed to really transform the face of British
politics. Whilst political parties are not covered by the duty to promote equality
under Section 71 of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (see chapter one),
parties could expand and more aggressively develop strategies that actively promote
equality in order to address ethnic minority under-representation. These measures of
positive action could be designed to eliminate cultural and procedural obstacles that
contribute to ethnic under-representation. Such strategies may well be necessary to
off-set the likelihood that as things stand, probably six, possibly eight [ethnic
minority] MPs could lose their seats at the next general election under Labour
(Interview, Viswanathan). To ensure that ethnic minority candidates are not
disproportionately affected in party political electoral losses, the Government could
explore the options for introducing legislation to allow certain limited and
proportionate positive action measures to address ethnic under-representation in
politics. Such action could be time-limited, objectively justified, and narrowly
targeted to achieve clear objectives to satisfy proportionality requirements.













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CHAPTER SIX
Conceiving contemporary British citizenship
What earlier chapters have established is that how a state or a citizenry responds to
the claims of migrants, even what kinds of claims can be seriously and legitimately made
by migrants and others, depends upon the extent to which a state or a citizenry conceives
of individuals, minorities and majorities, and the (nation-) state as (i) coherent unities,
(ii) the bearers of ethical claims, and (iii) that these may be integrated with each other
(Modood, 2009a). As the previous five chapters have illustrated, the British response to
these questions has been characterised by the syntheses of liberal and multiculturalist
arrangements. These herald both general (comparable) and specific (unique) forms,
and each have been intertwined with how particular racial minority experiences have
cultivated types of identities and mobilizations that have made certain conditions of
politics possible (particularly around racial equality, positive action, and representation).

The question we are faced with today is to what extent such syntheses remain
paradigmatic of the British approach, or in what ways they have developed and
are changing?

To answer this requires a deeper grasp of some of our organising themes. Firstly, the
rationale informing the British liberal constituent of earlier settlements assumed that
old and new residents have to adjust their sense of self, community, and country as
change occurs (perhaps gradually, certainly repeatedly) but that few major political
projects other than the elimination of discrimination is required to achieve this. This
is now joined by an ascendant political liberalism which seeks to promote active
citizenship through the inculcation of a civic education in British democratic
traditions and ideals. On some levels this is presently competing with race-equality
and equal opportunities approaches, while on other levels coalescing, in the contest
between a syncretic (or dialogically informed) or more imposed and proscribed vision
of common living (beyond the legal entitlements and duties conferred by
membership). This is giving rise to a civic re-balancing that is concerned with
promoting and fostering unity, in the ways elaborated below, but which is also
marked by an urgency surrounding widespread anxieties concerning terrorism and
violent (Muslim) extremism.

The multiculturalist part of earlier settlements, meanwhile, has recognized that social
life consists of individuals and groups, and that both need to be provided for in the
formal and informal distribution of powers. Not just in law, but in representation in
the offices of the state, public committees, consultative exercises, and access to public
fora. The present concern with equal and positive representation remains strong and
has seen a proliferation rather than a diminution in, for example, increasing the
number of black and ethnic minority Parliamentarians. Greater ambiguity surrounds
the extension of the acceptance that groups be encouraged as active public players and
fora for political discussion and even have a formal political representation in the
state. The challenge facing contemporary integrationists is how to reconcile
transplanted cultures, heritages, and peoples into long-established yet ongoing,
historic national cultures, heritages, and so on, in new ways of extending, reforming,
and syncretizing existing forms of public culture and citizenship (Modood, 2007).

123
Muslims are central to present debates and not solely because counter-radicalism and
anti-terrorism measures are occupying an increasing share of the diversity and
equalities agenda. The understanding that individuals are partly constituted by the
lives of families and communities is still very much alive, and fits well with the
recognition that the moral individual is partly shaped by the social order constituted
by citizenship and the publics that amplify and qualify, sustain, critique, and reform
citizenship. Muslims, a religious group, are drawing upon such understandings in
making a claim that Muslim identity, just like certain other forms identity, should not
just be privatised or tolerated, but should be part of the public space. In their case,
however, they come into conflict with two additional dimensions of contemporary
citizenship. The first we can refer to as secularism: the view that religion is a feature,
perhaps uniquely, of private identity and not public identity. The second surrounds a
more general anxiety concerning the relationship between religion and violent
extremism.

Citizens and non citizens
Prior to building upon and developing this discussion of the contemporary
meaning of citizenship in Britain, we need to unpack some of the boundaries around
citizens and non-citizens, and trace the relationship between this status and the
content that it confers. For example, full social and political entitlements in Britain are
only secured if an immigrant becomes a citizen, and while this encompasses access to
social welfare and voting rights many legal rights concerning anti-discrimination do
not require the acquisition of British citizenship.

To attain British citizenship requires a minimum of five years legal stay in the UK, of
which at least one year must be classed as indefinite leave to enter or remain. These
categories refer to the immigration status conferred to a person who does not hold the
right of permanent abode but who has been admitted to the UK without any time
limit on their stay and so is free to travel to and from the UK, and to take up
employment, study and so forth without restriction.

This means that while full social and political rights are technically only secured if an
immigrant becomes a British citizen, people with leave to enter or with leave to
remain (and this potentially covers any length of time from three months to many
years, but of course excludes a person who has entered the country illegally) are
entitled to social rights, such as job-seekers allowance (provided they have been
credited with class 1 National Insurance (NI) contributions), and political rights
including a right to the franchise. This is in addition to the provision of universal
healthcare and education which are also conferred by international treaties such as the
European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The status of new non-EU member migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees,
is complicated by the formal arrangements stipulated in legislation conceived during
the colonial era. For example, the Representation of the People Act (1983 and 2000)
states that Irish and Commonwealth citizenry are also entitled to vote in UK national
elections. Compared to the arrangements amongst other post-imperial counterparts
this may appear unusual but stems from an earlier version of the Act (1918) which
laid the ground to eventually extend the franchise to British subjects which at the
124
time included the people of Ireland then part of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland and all other parts of the British Empire.

What is important to note in any summary discussion is how during the move from an
imperial to a post-imperial power, Britain approached the jus soli and jus sanguinis
fork in the road but took a distinct path by implementing a peculiar synthesis of
mainly jus soli with a doctrine of continual allegiance to the Crown. Accordingly,
those born as subject of the crown remained subjects, regardless of emigration or
even naturalisation (Koslowski, quoted in Owen, 2005: 9). It is therefore no co-
incidence that during contemporary naturalisation ceremonies, only introduced within
the last ten years, new citizens must swear an allegiance to the Monarch rather than a
sovereign Parliament.

This is also part of one of the reasons why a common distinction between national
minority rights and ethno-cultural minority rights contained within Anglophone social
and political theory (Kymlicka, 1994) is not easily transposed on to Britain (see
Modood, 2007). For example, the 1948 British Nationality Act granted freedom of
movement to all formerly or presently dependent, and now Commonwealth, territories
(irrespective of whether their passports were issued by independent or colonial states)
by creating the status of Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC).
Until they acquired one or other of the national citizenships in these post-colonial
countries, formerly British subjects continued to retain their British status (Lester,
2008).

The 1971 Immigrants Act broke with pure jus soli by bringing in an element of jus
sanguinis type of legal citizenship, based upon ethnic descent, through the
introduction of a partiality clause. Accordingly a person seeking entry from the
Commonwealth would need to demonstrate that a parent or grandparent had been
born in the UK. This meant that new Commonwealth citizens (of the West Indies,
South Asia and East Africa) were less likely that old Commonwealth citizens
(Australia or Canada) to qualify. The 1981 Nationality Act tried to delineate this
further through the creation of three categories of British citizenship: (i) British
Citizen, (ii) British Dependent Territories Citizen or (iii) British Overseas Citizen.
The imperial and post-imperial traffic in diversity, however, allied to Britains
continued role as head of the Commonwealth, meant that these developments are
more accurately interpreted as a modification of [a kind of] jus soli than as the
institutionalisation of jus sanguinis (Diez and Squire, 2008: 570).

These conceptions have narrowed somewhat in recent years. A good illustration is the
Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain (2002)
which sought the transformation of processes of naturalization into an act of
commitment to Britain [as] an important step in the process of achieving integration
into our society (ibid. 32). Hence it promoted the acquisition of the English
language competencies and knowledge of life in the United Kingdom as a means of
successful integration for new migrants, as well as civic engagement as a means of
active citizenship in a way that was horizontally tied to such measures as citizenship
education and other civic integrationist matters. These in turn have informed the
points-based managed migration system introduced in the Controlling Our Borders
White Paper of 2005, and the new earned citizenship proposals made in the Paths to
Citizenship Green Paper in February 2008.
125
Liberal and Civic citizenship
It is discernable then that the content of the kinds of citizenship that Britain has
been conferring in recent years has included a movement from a perceived neglect to
affirmation of Britishness, presented as a meta-membership with which all,
minorities and majorities, should engage. For example, the government endorsed
entitled A J ourney to Citizenship (2005: 15) chaired by the late Sir Bernard Crick
has characterised Britishness as denoting

respect [for] the laws, the elected parliamentary and democratic political structures,
traditional values of mutual tolerance, respect for equal rights and mutual concern... To
be British is to respect those over-arching specific institutions, values, beliefs and
traditions that bind us all, the different nations and cultures together in peace and in a
legal order. [...] So to be British does not mean assimilation into a common culture so
that original identities are lost.

Similarly, the Cantle (2001: 10) which followed the inquiry into the civil unrest and
rioting in some Northern English cities, argues for a greater sense of citizenship
informed by common elements of nationhood [including] the use of the English
language (2001: 19), while equally stressing that we are never going to turn the
clock back to what was perceived to be a dominant or monoculturalist view of
nationality (2001: 18). Its lead author has elsewhere pleaded: lets not just throw out
the concept of multiculturalism; lets update it and move it to a more sophisticated
and developed approach (Cantle, 2006: 91). To this we could add the conclusions of
the Home Office sponsored Denham (2002: 20) which stressed that our society is
multicultural, and it is shaped by the interaction between people of diverse cultures.
There is no single dominant and unchanging culture into which all must assimilate.
Indeed, Tony Blairs last speech on the topic presented this affirmation in a strong
civic sense in which the whole point is that multicultural Britain was never
supposed to be a celebration of division; but of diversity. [...] So it is not that we need
to dispense with multicultural Britain. On the contrary we should continue celebrating
it (Blair, 2006). The development of citizenship education is illustrative of this
sentiment, and its late introduction in England, particularly when compared with
North America and some European countries, is an interesting anomaly. As the late
Sir Bernard Crick himself, chair of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
(QCA) commission into citizenship education, insisted:

We were the last civilised country almost in the world to make citizenship part of the
national curriculum. I think we thought we didnt need it being the mother of all
parliaments and a model to the world of parliamentary government; I think those ideas
lingered on and long past reality (B. Crick, personal communication, June, 27, 2007).

As his recommending the introduction of citizenship education put it, part of the
groundswell for its recent emergence is undoubtedly a sense of civic deficit
epitomised by voter apathy amongst young people which the claims is inexcusably
bad and should and could be remedied (QCA, 1998, sec. 3. para. 10). To this end the
QCA promoted the implementation of a co-ordinated national strategy for the
statutory requirement for schools to spend around five percent of their curriculum
time teaching three interdependent elements of citizenship education. These would
comprise (i) social and moral responsibility, (ii) community involvement, and (iii)
political literacy.

126
Such emphases constitute a modification of earlier approaches, and this requires some
explanation. Before we turn to this below, it is worth considering the gender
dimension to these developments, and particularly how the focus upon civic
interaction has sometimes directed attention toward Muslim women. For example,
the former Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, J ack Straw (2006), initiated a
national debate on facets of national identity, citizenship and gender equality by
describing how he asks Muslim women to remove their face veil (niqab) when
meeting him in his Blackburn constituency office (Meer, Dwyer, and Modood, 2008).
While Straw continually distinguished between the full face veil and other types of
Muslim coverings, such as the headscarf (hijab), he maintained that the face veil was
a visible statement of separation and difference that made better, positive relations
between the two communities more difficult.

Until recently, and in contrast to other national contexts, the wearing of Muslim head
coverings in Britain has not attracted intense political attention. They tended instead
to be viewed as consistent with the right accorded to ethnic dress within a
multicultural society such as wearing appropriately coloured shalwar kameez (loose
trousers and over-tunic) as a modification of school uniforms (as well as the Sikh
turban or J ewish Yarmulke (Mandla v. Dowell Lee, 1983)). The novelty of this
attention on the Muslim face veil is in part due to how less than a decade ago Muslim
identities remained a minor feature of mainstream accounts of ethnic minorities and
multiculturalism. With Muslims now constituting a central feature of these accounts,
Straws comments illustrate how the accommodation of some Muslim difference is
not conceived as a logical expansion of earlier settlements.

This may also be a specific reaction to the face veil which, more so than the headscarf
(though perhaps not in France), cannot not stand outside broader transnational
currents of Islamic radicalism and fundamentalism. This reading is complicated by the
veils heightened political adoption by its wearers - as Lewis (2007: 433) has
described: challenges to accepted UK veiling regimes by some young women
revivalists have tested the sartorial limits of multiculturalism. Or as Khibany and
Williamson (2008: 69) put it: the veil is an increasingly political image of both
difference and defiancea stubborn refusal to accept our culture or to embrace
modernity, it is animage of menace. One high profile example that has been
framed in these terms is the case of school girl Shabina Begum who took her school to
court (and lost) when they refused to allow her to wear a jilbab. In this case Begum
sought permission to wear a complete head and body covering more commonly worn
in Saudi Arabia, which is now an Islamic style finding favour with some more self-
consciously Islamic (or revivalist) young women in Britain (Dwyer, 2008).

More materially, throughout a period of the expansion of liberal-civic measures in
school curricula and naturalisation processes, in the ways described above, the
Government has established transnational strategies such as the Working Group on
Forced Marriage which has seen the creation of the Forced Marriage Unit (FMU), as
well as the introduction of the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007. Less
exceptional cases of gender disadvantage too have been a priority, and are illustrated
by the present concerns with multiple discrimination (simultaneously experienced by
women on different grounds) and intersectionality. It is to these issues we now turn.


127
Enabling citizenship through anti-discrimination
Migrant communities and post-migrant British born generations have been
recognised as ethnic and racial minorities requiring state support and differential
treatment. This includes how, under the remit of several Race-Relations Acts, the
state has sought to integrate minorities into the labour market and other key arenas of
British society through an approach that promotes equal access as an example of
equality of opportunity. Indeed, it is now over thirty years since the introduction of a
third Race Relations Act (1976) cemented a state sponsorship of Race Equality by
consolidating earlier, weaker legislative instruments (RRA 1965 & 1968). Alongside
its broad remit spanning public and private institutions; recognition of indirect
discrimination and the 2000 and 2003 imposition of a statutory public duties to
promote good race-relations, it also created the Commission for Racial Equality
(CRE) to assist individual complainants and monitor the implementation of the Act
(see Dhami, Squires and Modood, 2006: 19-25). This is an example, according to
J oppke (1999: 642), of a citizenship that has amounted to a precarious balance
between citizenship universalism and racial group particularism [that] stops short of
giving special group rights to immigrants.166

The original legal approach to anti-discrimination was the statutory tort of unlawful
discrimination (created by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Race Relations Act
1976). This technique grafted an important collective value (non-discrimination on
the grounds of sex and race) on to the existing private law structure. Yet although
private law and individual rights were chosen as the preferred paradigm, there was
also recognition in the White Papers that preceded the SDA 1975 and RRA 1976 that
discrimination law serves important collective interests. Subsequent developments,
especially through European developments, have meant that this public function of
discrimination law has become more explicit. Most importantly, UK discrimination
law has to accommodate the provisions of the ECHR, e.g. the equality provision in
Art 14 or the right to privacy in Article 8. This has created a body of constitutional
discrimination law which is now incorporated into domestic law through the Human
Rights Act (1998).

These developments have led to what is sometimes described as the
constitutionalising of discrimination law. In other words the incorporation of the
ECHR through the HRA has proven to be catalyst in shaping recent changes to anti-
discrimination measures. This is perhaps most evident in the decision to name the
new commission entrusted with the task of monitoring the implementation and
practice of all previous anti-discrimination legislation, as well as the two most recent
EC Directives, as an Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). A political
risk symbolised by the new commission concerns a potential dilution in the emphasis,
for example, upon traditions of race-equality. It is worth quoting MEP Claude Moraes
on this point:


166
It is important to bear in mind that the Race Relations Act does not allow positive
discrimination or affirmative action. This means that an employer, for example, cannot try to
change the balance of the workforce by selecting someone because they are from a particular
racial group. This would be discrimination on racial grounds, and therefore unlawful (see
Karim, 2004/5). What in the US is called affirmative action goes well beyond what is lawful
in Britain.
128
[B]ecause of the nature of the political struggle which created equalities legislation and
because those political struggles were at different stages, what a single equalities
commission then does is dilute areas that were very strong you are no longer talking
about any minority because you are putting gender, disability, age in fact I would
suggest that today you are talking about the majority of the British population when
you are talking about who is covered by the single Equalities Commission. The people
excluded are the minority that would be white male heterosexuals, if you are young of
course, not old, which is a tiny group, or a small group.

Of course such complaints need to balanced with the potential benefits heralded in a
new focus upon both intersectionality or multiple-discrimination, and a commitment
to mainstreaming a variety of non-discrimination strands to address, for example,
gender and racial, or disability and age, discrimination simultaneously. To this end the
government consultation document Towards Equality and Diversity (2002) stated that
a single statutory equality commission would offer integrated guidance and support to
individuals and businesses and help ensure a coherent approach to equality issues
across the board. It insisted, moreover, that a single point of contact for individuals
would provide information, advice and guidance across the full breadth of their
equality rights reflecting their real life experience; that this commission would act
as a single point of advice to employers and service providers covering all
discrimination grounds and discrimination on multiple grounds; and support
partnership with other organisations providing advice.

Fitting the enforcement of these strands together could perhaps deepen the public
policy understanding of equality and non-discrimination, so that by drawing upon
examples of best practice from each commission, an amalgamated body might craft
a better method of implementing and monitoring both the old and newly formulated
anti-discrimination protections that have emerged from Article 13

The complaint that nevertheless remains is that while such a move might assist the
principled operation of human rights legislation in promoting, for example, the right
to religious freedom, it may be less sensitive to promoting specific anti-discrimination
measures. For example, while the former might protect the right to practise religion in
accordance with religious beliefs, as is exemplified by provisions including Article 9
of the ECHR and the Human Rights Act (1998), the latter approach might be
concerned with how discrimination against religious minorities picks out individuals
on the basis of discernible characteristics, and attributes to them an alleged group
tendency, or emphasizes those features that are used to stigmatize or that reflect
pejorative or negative assumptions based on the individuals real or perceived
membership of that group (Meer, 2008). While a human rights approach allows for
difference, an egalitarian approach is pro-active in challenging the processes by which
difference leads to forms of exclusion and unfavourable treatment. Moreover, an
equal citizenship approach requires enabling the civic and political participation of
minorities, including in identifying and challenging the processes of exclusion.

Enabling citizenship through recognition
An early formulation of such an equal citizenship was spelled out in a inquiry
into the education of Britains ethnic minority children. Entitled Education for All,
the Swann (1985: 36) characterised multiculturalism in Britain as enabling

129
[A]ll ethnic groups, both minority and majority, to participate in fully shaping
societywhilst also allowing, and where necessary assisting the ethnic minority
communities in maintaining their distinct ethnic identities within a framework of
commonly accepted values.

Yet this limited multiculturalism explicitly precluded such things as state support of
linguistic pluralism (in terms of mother tongue teaching) or the expansion of
religious schools, seeking instead to make each matters of private concern. It has
taken Muslim minorities decades of engagement to begin to expand such
multiculturalist approaches in a way that also takes their particular needs into account,
specifically by contesting its secular and narrowly racial focus. This was perhaps
symbolised by the way in which the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) developed and
emerged as the main interlocutor in State-Muslim engagement, and how it achieved
some success in establishing a Muslim voice in the corridors of power (Modood,
2009). The creation of a religion question on the national Census (Aspinall, 2000),
achieving state funding for the first Muslim schools (Meer, 2009), and more broadly
having socio-economic policies targeted at severely deprived Muslim groups (Policy
Innovation Unit, 2001; Abrams and Houston, 2006) are illustrative of these successes.
While important in projecting a symbolic meaning, these reformulations remain
comparatively modest when compared with the race-equality components of British
multiculturalism. This is partially because it remains the case that both classical
liberals and some multiculturalists remain opposed to such expansions of
multiculturalists; insisting that black and Asian (and woman and gay) are ascribed,
un-chosen identities while being a Muslim is about chosen beliefs (and that Muslims
therefore need or ought to have less legal protection and promotion than the other
kinds of identities). This was perfectly illustrated in the debates over the introduction
of incitement to religious hatred legislation where commentators routinely took the
view that

[W]ith race relations, the intention is to protect individuals, not ideas, from attack. The
difficulty here is that (broadly speaking) race defines a human group, rather than an
idea, so racial attacks are almost by their very nature hateful towards individuals and
therefore easily criminalised. Religion, however, is essentially an idea, not a group.
167

Each attempt to introduce a new offence of incitement to religious hatred was based
upon existing legislation concerned with incitement to racial hatred found in Part 111
of the Public Order Act 1986. It also looked to legislation previously adopted in
Northern Ireland in the Public Order (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 Part 111 that has
outlawed incitement to religious hatred for some years. Faced with much opposition,
however, the government introduced weak legislation applying only to threatening
words or behaviour, not threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour. In
addition, and while the original proposals would have applied to situations in which
the defendant did not actually intend to stir up religious hatred, the changes meant that
the new offence would only apply if the prosecution could establish premeditation.

Such examples illustrate the contemporary tensions between the promotion of ethno-
religious and ethno-racial minority identities. The latter, already protected by Race
Relations legislation (unlike the former), are also promoted through such things as
Black History month and the inclusion of positive images of black figures in

167
Matthew Parris, Mockery, calumny and scorn: these are the weapons to fight zealots, The
Times, 11 December 2004.
130
national education programs. As Dan Lyndon, co-ordinator of the Black History for
Schools network, member of Black and Asian School-Teachers Association (BASA),
and also current head of history at Compton High School in Fulham, London,
describes:

[F]or example, when they do Black History month, Geography also do stuff about Africa and
the Art department are pretty good at looking at different cultures coming into Art. Science
are very good at that, theyve got a Black woman who runs the Science department. Shes
very positive about giving scientific role models and all of those kind of things. Also English
read Caribbean literature, some African literature so I think we do engage with it (Lydon,
Interview).

With diverging success such initiatives are also sought by ethno-religious groups.
The Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is a good example of a comparable success,
sought by the Board of Deputies of British J ews and introduced by the present
government, and which was conceived as means of commemorating and educating a
broader public on the events and legacy of the Holocaust. It has also been the subject
of controversy, however, as it was boycotted by the MCB for not commemorating
wider incidents of genocide including the ethnic cleansing that took place in Bosnia
and the elsewhere
168
.

Localism
The MCB is also relevant in another regard which has to do with its local and
community roots, in a way that is illustrative of a localism in matters of
representation. It genesis lies in the UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs
(UKACIA) which developed during the Rushdie Affair as the most effective means of
raising mainstream Muslim voices.
169
The MCBs stated aims include the promotion
of consensus and unity on Muslim affairs in the UK, giving voice to issues of
common concern, addressing discrimination and disadvantage faced by Muslims in
Britain, encouraging a more enlightened appreciation of Islam and Muslims in the
wider society, and working for the common good.
170
It is an expanding umbrella
organisation of presently over 450 local, regional and national organisations, which
elects its General Secretary from a central committee.
171
This taps into a strong local
tradition of community activism that has both developed as a consequence of, and
demanded engagement from, national government.

168
The MCB has now lifted this boycott.
169
See Modood (2009b: 492) for a discussion of the development of the MCB.
170
See www.mcb.org.uk.
171
The MCB has faced considerable public criticism from both government and civil society
bodies (particularly of the centre-right) for allegedly failing to reject extremism clearly and
decisively. Indeed the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, anticipated by many to be
elected Prime Minister in the next general election around 2010, has likened the MCB to the
far-right British National Party (BNP) (Cameron, 2007). Allied to these complaints has been
the issue of how representative of British Muslims the organisation actually is a question
that has plagued it since the early days but which has had a more damaging impact upon its
credibility when allied to handful of other complaints. One outcome of this political critique
has been the extension to a plethora of other, though much less representative, Muslim
organisations (such as the Sufi Muslim Council (SMC) and the Al-Khoie Foundation) of the
invitation to represent British Muslims in matters of consultation and stake-holders
131

More specifically, alongside a state centred and national focus, there is also a tradition
of what we might characterise as municipal drift where discourses and policies have
been pursued though local councils and municipal authorities, making up a patchwork
of British multicultural public policies (Singh, 2005: 170). One of the best examples
of the local diffusion of multiculturalism was captured by the programmes of anti-
racist education (Tronya, 1987; Mullard, 1985) and multicultural education (Swann
Committee, 1985) that were enacted at the Local Education Authority (LEA) level.

LEAs are responsible for education within the jurisdiction of county councils and
metropolitan boroughs, and this includes responsibility for all state schools with the
exception of those that apply and are afforded voluntary aided status (and can
therefore opt out) under the terms of the 1944 Education Act. In many multi-ethnic
urban areas LEAs have actively encouraged anti-racist and multicultural initiatives in
the face of and at the cost of some vociferous opposition (Hewer, 2001), and this
has in turn informed the national picture. Indeed, it was through the debates at the
local level that one of the leading public policy documents on multiculturalism came
from an inquiry into multicultural education (Swann Commission, 1985).

Indeed, from very early on, since the commencement of the era of race relations in the
early 1960s, in order to diffuse emotive political conflict, matters surrounding race
and integration were devolved to a local level. This was particularly illustrated by the
introduction of Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 which afforded local
authorities additional funds to support the presence of significant numbers of
minorities requiring language and other access assistance. It was also illustrated by
the examples of municipal anti-racism, especially the innovations of the Greater
London Council (GLC) and the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), both of
which followed and thrived during a periods of Thatherite centralisation. While
developments such as the introduction and imposition of a centralised National
Curriculum for schools is unlikely to be reversed anytime soon, there is some
resumption of localism through a variety of agencies, of which the creation of the
Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), and the
recommendation put forward in Commission of Community Cohesion and Integration
(CCCI), are the most relevant to our discussion (and which is returned to below).

Religion, Secularism, Toleration and Equality
Such engagement also includes a variety of matters that can also draw upon
the opportunities provided by Britains multi-faith history. This is because religious
minority engagement with the state proceeds in a context that is characterized by an
internal religious plurality which has been supplemented by the migration of different
religious groups over the last two centuries (Filby, 2006). To be sure, and in spite of
maintaining a protestant Established Church of England, the superior status of the
dominant Anglican Church has consistently been challenged by other Christian
denominations, which in due course have come to enjoy some of the benefits initially
associated with establishment (the identification of the Church of England with the
British state). This includes initially allowing the Catholic Church to set up schools
alongside the state and then, in the 1944 Education Act, to opt into the state sector and
receive similar provisions to those enjoyed by members of the established Church; a
132
provision which was soon extended to other religious groups. Indeed, one of the most
prominent examples of religious minority-state engagement across both
multiculturalist and religious pluralist traditions is to be found in the mobilisations for
faith schools (Meer, 2009).

This is an issue that really cuts across the development of anti-discrimination and
multiculturalism, and it is worth noting that anti-racism has often been stridently
secularist and implicitly, if not explicitly, ambivalent or opposed to faith based
schooling, and that the multiculturalism of the Swann Commission expressly ruled out
religious schools. These discursive dismissals and policy oversights are problematic
when we recognise that there are currently over 4,700 state funded Church of England
schools; over 2100 Catholic; 35 J ewish; 28 Methodist schools, as well as a Hindu,
Sikh, and a Seventh Day Adventist School.

In this area Muslim groups achieved a watershed in 1998 when, after eighteen years
of a Conservative administration, a New Labour government delivered on a promise
in its election manifesto and co-opted two Muslim schools, Islamia School (in Brent,
London) and Al-Furqan School (in Birmingham), into the state sector by awarding
each Voluntary Aided (VA) status. This status prescribed an allocation of public
money to cover teacher salaries and the running costs of the school. It arrived
fourteen years and five Secretaries of State after the first naive approach (Hewitt,
1998: 22), when Muslim parents and educators had only begun to get to grips with the
convoluted application process to achieve state funding, and were dealing with a
Conservative government that was hostile to the idea of state funded Muslim schools.
Eleven years and another five Secretaries of State later the current number of state
funded Muslim faith schools has risen to eight. In addition to those above this figure
includes Al-Hijrah (a secondary school in Birmingham), Feversham College (a
secondary school in Bradford), Gatton Primary School (in Wandsworth, South
London), Tauheedul Islam Girls High School (Blackburn, Lancashire) and The
Avenue School (another primary school in Brent, London).

Of all newer minorities that have mobilised for faith schools, Muslims have perhaps
been the most vocal and according to Favell (1998: 38), ever since the Satanic Verses
affair one of the hottest issues thrown up by multiculturalism in Britain has been the
growing significance of political and social issues involving Muslims. To be sure,
Rushdies book caused anger among British Muslims who felt that as citizens they
[were no less] entitled to equality of treatment and respect for their customs and
religion (Anwar, 1992: 9) than either the Christian majority denominations or other
religious minorities. The experience has nevertheless undoubtedly helped establish
Muslim sensibilities as legitimate and worthy of consideration in mainstream media
accounts in Britain. Allied to this recognition has been a cumulative, though not
uncontested (Meer and Modood, 2009) acceptance of the empirical reality of
Islamophobia (Field, 2007; Heath and Roberts, 2008; Uberoi and Saggar, 2009)
characterised as an anti-Muslim prejudice [that] has grown so considerably and so
rapidly in recent years that a new item in the vocabulary is needed (CBMI, 1997: 4,
see also CBMI, 2004).

For example, during the Danish Cartoon Affair virtually all British papers adopted a
line of, on the one hand, accepting a legal right to print, and on the other hand,
applying the freedom of speech argument to a real world setting. In refusing to re-
133
print the cartoons, newspaper editorials and columnists invoked rationales of
journalistic responsibility, restraint, and toleration. For example, the main liberal-
conservative the Times, detailed its anguish in deciding not to reprint the images. It
instead made the cartoons available via a web-link and argued that its decision
balanced the right to reprint against not wanting to cause gratuitous offence; not least
to those it characterised as moderate Muslims. Perhaps most significantly, however,
it endorsed the right of Muslims to protest against the cartoons and drew parallels to
recent historical experiences of religious minorities. Elsewhere the libertarian
broadsheet Independent made its case for not publishing on the grounds of its right to
exercise restraint by contrasting itself positively with European counterparts in
general, and France Soir in particular. Moreover, the view that newspapers should
not print material their readers find offensive unless they have sound journalistic
reasons is both implicitly and explicitly set out in these editorials, and this sentiment
was shared by the right-wing middle-class tabloid, The Daily Mail, when it stressed
virtues of responsibility. Indeed, the Society of Editors hailed its members
restrained wisdom in not showing the cartoons, and the National Union of
J ournalists (NUJ ) praised the BBC's impartial and sensible stance in broadcasting
them on television. As Andreas Whittam Smith, co-founder and former editor of The
Independent, told BBC news: this is an issue not of press freedom but of taste and
responsibility (BBC News, 3 February 2006). As such, and rather than import
European rationales wholesale, British editorials made the case for exercising restraint
in not causing gratuitous offence out of respect for Muslims in Britain, and in some
respects, this distinction proceeded upon the past lessons of respecting different
sensitivities vis--vis multiculturalism which suggests that salient Muslim
differences seem to be understood in political as well as religious terms.

Post-multicultural Citizenship?
Where therefore does this leave our account of cotemporary British citizenship?
Two s, separated by a decade, capture the pattern of present developments, and
specifically the boundaries of any shift away from the multiculturalist traditions
elaborated at the beginning. The first, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
(1998: 17), insisted upon respect for the plurality of nations, cultures, ethnic
identities, and religions long established in the UK, but it made no explicit reference
to anti-racism. To some this confirmed that citizenship education represented a
disengagement from traditions of racial equality. Osler and Starkey (2001: 293), for
example, charged the QCA with institutional racism for demanding that minorities
must learn to respect the laws, codes and conventions as much as the majority (QCA,
1998: 17-18). This they take as evidence of a colonial approachthat runs
throughout the and which falls into the trap of treating certain ethnicities as Other
when it discusses cultural diversity (Osler & Starkey, ibid.). Importantly, the now
late sir Bernard Crick repudiated the view that his committee singled out minorities;
insisting:

Were not willing to give the public the view that the major thrust of citizenship was
race relations. We said damn it, its about the whole population including the
majoritypupils should learn, respect and have knowledge of national, regional ethnic
and religious differences. We were simply taking a broader view. We thought thatall
our nations children should receive an education that would help them to become
active citizens: all our nations children (personal communication, J une, 27, 2007).
134

This need not be evidence of an assimilatory retreat from anti-racism or
multiculturalism, however, but something that might be characterised as a re-
balancing of broader discourses of anti-racism and multiculturalism (Meer and
Modood, 2008). Indeed, the entire idea of citizenship education is in itself surely
evidence of this, and may be contrasted with the most recent comment from the
Government sponsored Commission on Integration and Cohesion (COIC) (2007).
This explicitly distinguished the definition of integration from a potentially competing
assimilatory mode:

Very many of the definitions of cohesion and integration offered in the response to the
Commission on Integration and Cohesion (COIC) consultation spontaneously include a
level of concern to distinguish integration from assimilation, stressing the importance
for true cohesion of accepting and celebrating difference. Individual and group
identities should not be endangered by the process of integration, but rather they should
be enriched within both the incoming groups and the host nation. Cohesion implies a
society in which differences of culture, race and faith are recognised and
accommodated within an overall sense of identity, rather than a single identity, based
on a uniform similarity (COIC, Themes, Messages and Challenges, 2007, p. 5 original
emphasis).

This concern with unity through community cohesion, citizenship, common values
and Britishness cannot at present accurately be called a retreat of multiculturalism.
Indeed it was none other than the communitarian Commission on the future of Multi-
Ethnic Britain (CMEB) (2000) that advocated the promotion of a renewed British
identity through a re-thinking of the national story (as the commissions title
implies). Rather, the emergent multiculturalism of the 1990s that was attempting to
accommodate Muslim communities has been simultaneously subjected to a variety of
critiques of which the concern with unity is but one.

Other critiques have included an agenda of universal human rights that are perceived
to have challenged the non-uniformity of multiculturalist provisions and off-set the
ethnic and racial focus of integration measures, even though few are persuaded that
multicultural equality (any more than other forms of social equality) can be derived
from human rights. A focus upon gender equality in particular has increasingly drawn
attention to some forms of abuse of women that are disproportionately found in some
minority communities. Multiculturalists clearly do not support violence, coercion or
the undermining of the legal equality of women, though there will also be a few
limited areas where people will disagree about what constitutes equality. Moreover, in
terms of practical politics, it is clear that some of these problems could be seriously
tackled only through the cooperation of the relevant communities, while others need
to take a multiculturalist sensibility into account to ensure that multiple indices of
multiple discrimination, and not gender or human rights alone, are taken seriously by
the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

It has also been argued that multiculturalism has facilitated population concentration
in settlement patterns which given rise to dualistic and polarising interactions. For
example, while chair of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), Trevor Phillips
(2005) (now chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)) insisted
that Britain was sleepwalking into a US-style hard segregation, in claiming that:
Residentially, some districts are on their way to becoming fully fledged ghettos
black holes into which no one goes without fear and trepidation, and from which no
135
one ever escapes undamaged. Yet in promoting this view Phillips has not gone
unchallenged, and on the balance of evidence has refined his initial certainty.
172

Amongst others the demographers Finney and Simpson (2009) how shown that the
number of mixed neighbourhoods (measured in electoral wards) has actually
increased rather than decreased in recent times. Contrary to Phillips, it could be
argued where there are concentrations of ethnic minorities that this is a result of
population growth, rather than increasing segregation, particularly since Pakistani and
Bangladeshi groups have younger age profiles. Moreover, it is of course common
amongst many experiences of migration that people establish themselves in localities
that allow for the sharing of resources and a general feeling of security, before social
mobility facilitates a move outward (Modood, 2004). The important structural
component that is too frequently absent from this discussion is the change that takes
place around such minorities, and which should not be blamed upon multiculturalism.

In many ways each of these critiques is a reaction against ethno-religious
communitarianism but neither emphasises what is not usually present in some form in
most accounts of multiculturalism. At this stage it is better to see these newly asserted
emphases as part of a re-balancing of multiculturalism rather than its erasure. All of
this suggests that the question currently facing British multiculturalism concerns the
extent to which a recognition of diversity needs to be offset with civic incorporation,
or, more profoundly, to what extent multiculturalism and citizenship can be mutually
constitutive and defined in interdependent terms in a way that is inclusive of Muslims.

Present political orientations to diversity in Britain

This means that the present political orientation of the UK is closer to a
characterisation of Multicultural Citizenship than National Cohesion as elaborated in
the theoretical discussion (see also Appendix IV). For even while the matters of
national unity assume a greater prominence than they have previously, and a
securistation of ethnic relations has emerged over fears of Muslim extremism,
categories of ethnic, racial, and also religious, minorities are being employed by the
state, and minorities are allowed to maintain and develop their cultural specificities.
With host institutions sensitive to this cultural diversity and to the extent that this is
feasible encouraged to modify their procedures and practices accordingly, the UK
continues to bear some resemblance to Modood (1997) and the CMEBs (2000)
Plural State, and rests somewhere in the Ethnic-Diversity quadrant of Koopmans and
Stathams (2005) grid though towards a liberal universalism.

This does not mean that it lacks an impetus for National Cohesion since the emphasis
on a national identity is presently high (though moderated by the rise of
countervailing sub-nationalisms within the UK). But represents something like
Hartman and Gerteis (2005) Interactive Pluralism in that, like France, the UK has

172
In a semi-apology to the researcher, Phillips insisted that while my account of his
presentation here was a little off, that the conclusions I drew were consistent with his
findings." See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5297760.stm


136
recently been promoting Substantive Moral Bonds as the Basis of Cohesion but,
unlike France, conceives the Basis for Cohesion as both Individual and Group
orientated. Hence ethnic minority groups are allowed and stimulated to organise
themselves on an ethnic basis amongst other things for interest in representation.

Further characteristics of the contemporary political orientation of citizenship include:

a high promotion of equality of opportunity in which appropriate data is
systematically and extensively collected and used. Cases are routinely
investigated by employers and other institutions, with many reaching the law
courts and so are widely publicised by the media, as well as by an agency
responsible for policy development and enforcement and which is answerable
to a government department and minister.
a medium emphasis on national identity where political and popular discourse
moderately promulgates the idea of a collective nationhood through concrete
and symbolic means. This is particularly evident in educational policy
pertaining to the school curricula, naturalisation and civic orientation,
requirements which have a moderate sense of nationhood, as well as public
discourse characterising the collective identity in moderately national terms.
The important thing to note is that this national identity can is less prescribed
in the way of a benign or active Leitkultur, and more re-made, dialogical and
incorporating of difference.
there is a second kind of national identity in Britian, that of the minority
nations or devolved regions, that is also moderately emphasised. This means
that while where the very fact of minority or historically autonomous regions
is not accompanies by the political capacity to instil or represent its identity in
migration policy, and civic or other integrationist measures, federal bodies do
devolve power through regional assemblies and furnish them with the capacity
to promote and sustain minority nation identities through such means as
education and regional languages.
a high recognition of difference where minority cultural differences and
particularities are incorporated into and help fashion the public space so that
there is both unity and diversity in public life, and communities and identities
overlap and are interdependent, and develop common features. Examples
include the adoption of headscarves, turbans, and yarmulkes as part of school
or work uniforms, or targeted socio-economic policies that oriented to the
specific obstacles or challenges disproportionately experienced by some
minorities.
the spheres in which rights are afforded are both private and public for while
the British the state protects the rights of individuals, such that individuals relate
to the state as individual citizens, the state also recognises mediating institutions
which are encouraged to be active public players and fora for political
discussion and can even have a formal representative or administrative role to
play in the state. Thus the state recognises that minorities are partly
constituted by the lives of families and communities as well as shaped by the
social order constituted by citizenship and the publics that amplify and qualify,
sustain, critique, and reform citizenship.
one implication is that the British state relates to citizens both horizontally and
vertically such that the state engages and formulates public policy on the
understanding that individuals also belong to and are shaped by communities
137
which are also agents of the public sphere. At same time the state also seeks the
protection of the rights of individuals or the maximization of the choices open to
individuals.
Finally, the present political orientation toward migration related diversity in
Britain includes an a relatively high emphasis on interaction between groups
where notions of segregation or other issues of social division are deemed to
require concerted efforts and emphases upon social interaction at a variety of
levels, and particularly locally. While an inquiry into the emphasis on
interaction needs to take into consideration starting points e.g., there has
historically been little formal emphasis in Britain on social interaction for civil
society may perform this function, there is presently an emphases upon
community cohesion and concern over the more popular complaint that some
minorities self-segregate.

138
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Appendix I - List of Interviewees

1. Tahir Alam, trustee of Al-Hijrah secondary school, director of the teacher
training wing of the Al-Hijrah Trust, and chair of the Muslim Council of
Britain (MCB) education committee.

2. Tony Breslin, chief executive of the Citizenship Foundation.

3. Sir Bernard Crick, chair of the curriculum and qualifications authority report
on Citizenship Education.

4. Andrew Copson, education and public affairs spokesperson, British Humanist
Association (BHA).

5. Samia Earle, bi-lingual education advocate and teacher trainer from the
Community Languages Network.

6. Lee J asper, anti-racist activist and race-equality advisor to the London Mayor.

7. Dan Lyndon, Head of History at Compton Secondary School, director of
Black history for Schools and member of the member of Black and Asian
Studies Association (BASA).

8. Sir Bruce Liddington, Government Schools Commissioner.

9. Idreas Mears, Director of the Association of Muslim Schools (AMS)

10. Lord Professor Bhikhu Parekh, advisor on the commissioner on the Rampton
report and advisor to the Swann Commission.

11. Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society (NSS).

12. Mr. Sandhu, Headteacher of The Guru Nanak Sikh Secondary School in
Hayes, Middlesex.

13. Abdullah Trevathan, Headteacher of Islamia Primary School.

14. Barbara Cohen, Chair of the Discrimination Law Association.

15. Mark Easton, Home Affairs Editor for BBC.

16. Peter Herbert, Society of Black Lawyers.

17. Paul J ohnson, Deputy Editor of the Guardian.

18. Phillip J ohnston, Assistant Editor of the The Daily Telegraph.

19. Razia Karim, Head of legal policy at the Commission for Racial Equality.

150
20. Professor Francesca Klug, Equality and Human Rights Commissioner (EHRC)
and former independent advisor on the Human Rights Act.

21. Michelynn Lafleche, Director of the Runneymede Trust.

22. Arzu Merali, Islamic Human Rights Commission.

23. Claude Morres, Member of the European Parliament.

24. Rosa Prince, former political correspondent at the Daily Mirror.

25. Diane Abbot MP

26. Lord Herman Ouseley

27. Baroness Shireela Flather

28. Baroness Lola Young

29. J onathon Ellis, Policy Director Refugee Council

30. Ashok Viswanathan, Operation Black Vote

31. Raj J ethwa, Labour Party Ethnic Minority Officer

32. Rushanara Ali, Labour Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate

33. David Lammy MP

151




Appendix II - The population of Great Britain by Ethnic group and religion


Appendix II

The population of Great Britain by Ethnic group and region








































152




Appendix III - The population of Great Britain by Ethnic group and region






































153
Appendix IV The contemporary political orientation toward migration
related diversity in Britain


National
Contexts

Political
Orientation



U
K


1. Promotion
of Equality of
Opportunity


High

2. Emphasis
on National
Identity


Medium
(multi-
nationalism)

3. Recognition
of difference


High

4. Seeking
Neutrality


No

5. Sphere of
Rights


Individual
& Group

6. Relationship
to the State


Horizontal
& Vertical


7. Emphasis
on Minority
Nation Identity



Medium

8. Emphasis
on Interaction
between
Groups



High













































154