Labour urged to foster common “British identity”
The government should do more to promote a common “British identity”, Tory leader Michael Howard said today.
Advocating a positive national identity with greater emphasis on shared British traditions was an antidote to the alienation and disenfranchisement felt in Muslim communities, he contended.
The “British dream” of honouring diversity and difference and fostering decency, tolerance and sense of fair play had been “shattered” by the London bombings last month, he said, and as such the government should make every effort to restore a strong sense of shared destiny among Britons.
Writing in the Guardian, Mr Howard, himself the son of immigrant parents, slammed the government for sitting back while British communities effectively disintegrated. He made the case for inculcating British values to create bonds across all communities.
“Rather than cherishing the ties that bind us, we have been focusing on what divides us. Surely it is time to reverse the trend,” he wrote.
“Our democracy, monarchy, rule of law, history – these are the things we need to increase understanding of. And it needs to be a two-way process.”
The former home secretary – criticised by some in his own party for running an election campaign which leant too far to the right – discerned a sense of “complacency” in integrating ethnic communities into wider British society and urged Labour to look across the Atlantic to the example the US was setting in integrating Muslim communities.
He argued the “American dream” of meritocracy and equality helped galvanise different communities and set goals for all to aspire to.
Britain had no such overarching philosophy to unite its citizens, he said.
Mr Howard also called on the government to deport and revoke the UK citizenship of foreign nationals who threatened national security.
