Ahead of the first anniversary of last summer’s riots sparked by the Southport murders, a new report has warned that a “powder keg” of social tensions and political divisions remains unaddressed across the UK.

The report, jointly published by British Future and the Belong Network, concludes that “a ‘doom loop’ of inaction, crisis and piecemeal response has failed to strengthen the foundations of communities across the country.” It ought to be a wake-up call for the political establishment, but it still fails to acknowledge some of the most significant problems which put undue pressure on British social cohesion.

The authors refer to “polarising debates” on immigration and asylum. They also blame a “heated media and online debate” for contributing to a tense atmosphere, and lament the “limited opportunities” for established communities to meet and interact with new arrivals. This seems to suggest that much of the polarisation around immigration and asylum could be solved by sanitising the conversation. The situation would be improved if there were greater opportunities for forms of “civic participation” which could cultivate a “shared sense of belonging” between Britons and foreign newcomers.

But the truth is that, for all the meaningful progress made when it comes to community relations, only fundamental reform of the UK’s lax immigration regime and dysfunctional asylum system will improve social cohesion.

Of course, anti-immigration and anti-asylum views are not necessarily down to a lack of contact between established communities and newcomers. Rather, those views may be down to the behaviour and cultural attitudes of recent arrivals. While the report refers (only once) to the large-scale Leicester disorder of August-September 2022 and frames it as “divides between Hindus and Muslims”, the reality is far more complicated. In the city, for example, there is a trend of established middle-class residents — including first-generation migrants within both the Hindu and Muslim communities — primarily blaming the disorders on “younger”, “anti-social”, and “poorly-integrated” new arrivals from South Asia.

The illegal migration crisis at the English Channel — made up of predominantly young male migrants from countries with vastly different cultural norms — is placing tremendous strain on social cohesion. Even the most carefully-crafted community project or civic integration initiative would struggle to compensate for treating some of the most deprived parts of the country as dumping grounds for the ongoing small-boats emergency.

This is made worse by the emerging connection between common nationalities for asylum claims and those which rank highly when it comes to rates of sexual criminality. Indeed, the audit last month by Baroness Casey on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse highlighted the link between illegal migration and grooming-gang activity. On the subject of sexual criminality, the British Future report mentions the recent violent disorder in Ballymena in Northern Ireland but fails to add that the teenage perpetrators of the “alleged sexual assault on a teenage girl” needed a Romanian interpreter in court to confirm their names and ages.

To put it crudely, the chances of successful integration and cohesion are heavily dependent on the type of migrants and refugees who come to Britain. Questions about their potential to be net economic contributors, their social and cultural values, and their behaviour in general are all of primary concern to the British public. Until politicians embrace this realistic way of thinking, the UK will continue down its current path of growing anti-establishment sentiment and increasing social fragmentation.

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Dr Rakib Ehsan is a researcher specialising in British ethnic minority socio-political attitudes, with a particular focus on the effects of social integration and intergroup relations.

 

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