Ronald Reagan was right about most things. Including immigration.

My political hero's last speech as President:

"This I believe is one of the most important sources of America’s greatness. We lead the world because unique among nations, we draw our people, our strength, from every country and every corner of the world … Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge; always leading the world to the next frontier …"

When did conservatives stop thinking immigration - people moving to get a better life for them and their families - was a good thing? When did we start proclaiming, in that 'no nothing' way, that the nation is full? When did we start mistrusting people because of their face, their dress or their hat? How did we start wanting to deny people to right to religion, to a new home and to a better life?

It's not just America - for all of Reagan's exceptionalism - that is built on immigration. You don't have to look far in Britain to see the contribution from people who weren't born here but contributed to our success - from Brunel, the son of a French immigrant through Joseph Conrad, a Polish political refugee to sporting heroes like Mo Farah. Where then did we get this odd belief that people prepared to risk everything - money, health and life - to get to a better place are somehow going to tear down that new place, the land of their hopes?

Yes immigration needs control but we, if we are to be conservatives, need to believe that the strength of a good community is to welcome the stranger, to open our doors to them and to grant them our hospitality. This is what we mean by decency, civilisation and responsibility.

I read recently Thomas Freidman's report (in his book Thank You for Being Late) on the reasons why so many Africans are risking life and limb to cross the Mediterranean - they're not coming here to destroy us, they're coming here because Europe is their last, only, hope. This is the same reason millions crammed onto boats from Sweden, Italy, Spain and Germany to America - drought, prejudice, opportunity, hope.

What America does that we in Britain do poorly, is celebrate their culture and the symbols of their society. Everywhere you go there are flags flying, some of them enormous, and everywhere - even the most Mexican of rural towns - looks and feels like America. In Britain we embraced a form of multiculturalism that included the new arrivals by pushing aside the culture of home, especially if that home was ordinary, working class England.

Living where I live, I understand some of the fears and concerns - about jobs, about the loss of old familiar things and a sadness about change. But the response to this shouldn't be to push people away but rather to put out the flags, to celebrate Britain in the way most Americans, regardless of heritage, ethnicity or faith, celebrate the USA.

....

Immigrants (even illegal ones) don't commit more crimes...

Of course, you all know this (just as you knew immigrants are more likely to work, pay a higher proportion of earnings in tax, are less likely to be ill and don't receive as much welfare - they also have fewer children so make less use of schools) but the continuing rhetoric about immigration - migrants, refugees, asylum seekers - still talks about such folk as a problem.

Here's the evidence on crime (it's from the US - one of those nasty right wing think tanks, no less - but I don't expect it to be much different elsewhere):

Previous empirical studies of immigrant criminality generally find that immigrants do not increase local crime rates, are less likely to cause crime than their native-born peers, and are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans.5 Illegal immigrant incarceration rates are not well studied; however, recent Cato Institute research based on data from the Texas Department of Public Safety found that, as a percentage of their respective populations, illegal immigrants represented 56 percent fewer criminal convictions than native-born Americans in Texas in 2015.6 The low illegal immigrant incarceration rate is consistent with other research that finds more targeting of immigrants does not reduce the crime rate, which would occur if they were more crime prone than natives.7

The reality is that, almost everywhere, the net benefit from immigration is positive. Our problem is that we're full or that immigrants put massive additional strain on public services but rather that we're really bad at integrating new residents into local communities. Some of this is about racism but it's also a consequence of multiculturalism - in a society where nine out of ten people live in one culture, making a false equivalence for immigrants with a different culture won't work. And when that false equivalence becomes an obsession, the result is resentful behaviour by the majority culture.

Immigration is great but it would be even better if our expectation of immigrants was to be part of our culture not to live what Herman Ouseley called "parallel lives".


....

Immigration is a success. Integration is a disaster.

Immigration is a success. Britain is a richer place with a stronger economy because of immigration. We have kept the wheels from falling off our health and care system, maintained the provision of cheap fruit and vegetables, slaughtered a lot of chickens and built the world's greatest financial sector on the back of immigration.

Immigrants are more likely to be working, less likely to be claiming benefits, contribute more in tax than they take out and bring a bewildering variety of new experiences to our great nation. Immigration is not the cause of NHS crises, the lack of school places or the shortage of housing - short-term policy-making and a daft planning system are far more to blame for all this. And compared to similarly poor communities, immigrants commit less crime.

So why is immigration such a problem? How did migrants and refugees arriving in the UK cause such an outcry and, in part, contribute to the decision to leave the EU? Are the British incorrigibly racist? Is it the result of the drip drip of nasty bigotry from dubious newspapers? Or is there some other reason such as lousy public policy?

Let's begin with a couple of myths. Firstly, "it was the media that did it".

The referendum was won on a drumbeat of anti-foreigner sentiment. It’s the same tune being played by demagogues in every corner of the globe. It’s the same tune that was played in the 1930s. It’s the same old beat that rises in volume when people are afraid. In the UK, it’s echoed by a rabidly right-wing press and unchallenged by a flaccid establishment media. Mixed by a band of unscrupulous liars and political zealots, it has become a tsunami of bile that has downed and drowned a once great nation.

Now I don't want to get sucked into the vortex of the Brexit debate but the gist here - from LSE economist John Van Reenan - is that the driving force for Britain's 'anti-foreigner sentiment' was that 'rabidly right-wing press'. This is pretty much received wisdom amongst the intelligentsia but is just baldly stated, no evidence is presented to substantiate the argument that the British people - and the English working classes in particular - have been led by their ignorant noses by a corrupt and Fascist press working hand in glove with those 'unscrupulous liars and political zealots'.

This just isn't true. Not that the press is innocent or perfect, it's a long way from that, but that Van Reenan has cause and effect in the wrong order. The Sun, Daily Mail and Express are commercial enterprises - they exist to make money for those who own them. This means they deliver what they think the public wants, they are like the advertisers they depend on for income - mirrors of society not the creators of society's mores or values.

The second myth is that the problem comes from the values of immigrants - most specifically that these are in some way not compatible with nebulous and vague 'British values'. We talk about honesty, decency, respect for the law, family and so forth as if these ideas only exist as values in the UK, that somehow immigrants - Muslims in particular - don't share these essentially fundamental views about behaviour. Now, while I'm happy for core values to be part of what we teach children and young people, I don't see that you can isolate a particular set of values and say they are in some way exclusive to Britain.

To suggest that, for example, Islam doesn't contain these values is to misunderstand that faith entirely. For sure different emphases are evident - more stress on justice than on rights for example - but these are nuances within those values not a different set of values. It's true, however, that these higher order values are a damn sight easier to elevate when we are economically successful and secure. And it is here, at least in part that the problem with immigration starts. Just as there is a tendency (not always without reason) for immigrants to see their status as a factor in their poverty, there's also a feeling among the poor communities where migrants arrive that these new arrivals contribute to the poverty of those already there. The lump of labour idea may be false but it is emotionally appealing.

So if it isn't media manipulation or differences in values and only partly economics, what is the reason for the rise in what Van Reenan calls 'anti-foreigner sentiment'? It seems to me that the problem is one of culture combined with a terrible failure of public policy. In economic terms immigration is brilliant and, for us successful folk with good jobs and good incomes, something of a boon but in cultural terms immigration over the past thirty years has been a disaster. We have left established communities across Britain - and particularly in England - with the feeling that, at best, their culture is something to be sneered at and, at worst, that it's based on bigoted, racist, Little Englander attitudes that have no place in the modern world.

In simple terms the adoption in the 1980s of a policy based on multiculturalism led to a complete failure of integration and sowed the seeds of today's 'anti-foreigner sentiment'. And once the feeling that the great and good considered immigrant cultures to be superior had established, it was a short step to concerns about immigrants taking jobs, stealing our women and generally ruining everything that's good about England. Public policy seemed to say that bangra was more important than brass bands, that Christmas should be turned into 'Season's Greetings', and the last night of the proms was a slightly sleazy exercise in jingoism. Strategies to 'celebrate diversity' featured every kind of imported culture and none of the home grown stuff. Integration failed because public policy deemed it unnecessary.

Nobody is suggesting here that English culture - and specifically English working-class culture - is somehow superior to cultures from elsewhere, merely that it ours and it deserves more prominence as the culture of the people who already live here. We tend to think that "when in Rome" refers to abiding by local laws but, while this is true, it goes a lot further - it's about respecting the mores, values and culture of the people you've come to live amongst. Multiculturalism, for all that it was well-meant, resulted in some immigrant groups feeling that this no longer applied.

None of this is to suggest that racism and xenophobia doesn't exist. Rather it is to say that multiculturalism is a failed policy that has contributed more to our current attitude to immigration than the media, populist politicians or misunderstandings about values. To go back to where we started, in economic terms immigration is a success, The problem is that in cultural terms we've allowed it to be a disaster. And unless we begin to give a greater prominence to indigenous culture and especially the culture of those some sneeringly refer to as 'the left behind', we will continue to face these problems.

Immigration is a success. We are all richer for people coming here and contributing to Britain's economy. We should direct our efforts to integration rather than pretending that closing the borders will solve the problem. Back in June I listened to some people express their concerns about immigration. Except, as I pointed out, their concerns weren't about immigrants but about people who were born here, for whom Bradford is just as much home. This makes it all our problem and not one solved by immigration control. It's multiculturalism that has failed us not immigration.

....

Social capital and the problem with immigration - some thoughts

****

Immigration is a problem. OK, you can call it a challenge, a significant policy issue or some other 'slightly-dodging-the-issue' form of words but the truth is that people – voters – are bothered about immigration. We know this because they tell us so in polling and because, if any of us have any ears, we hear it every day. Whether it’s a casual racist remark in a queue to go through security at Leeds Bradford Airport or the comments that trail behind crime reports, stories about ‘multiculturalism’ and descriptions of events at mosques.

The problem is that, whatever people say, immigration really isn’t an economic problem. There really isn’t much – or indeed any – substantial research evidence showing that immigration has a negative impact on levels of employment, economic growth or other measures of economic performance. So when Jonathan Portes reports this he is right:

“The research found evidence of a positive and significant association between increases in employment of migrant workers and labour productivity. It found that recruiting from outside the UK had allowed employers to fill skilled and specialist roles and enabled some organisations to expand. Employers reported that migrants' skills are often complementary to, rather than substituting for, those of UK born employees.”

However, this really isn’t the problem (or challenge or significant policy issue) at all nor is this simply a case of people being fed misleading information by politicians and the media. A positive economic impact simply isn’t sufficient for people to accept the social changes that immigration implies. Yet much of what we might call ‘immigration-positive’ research and comment is dominated by economic considerations, arguments over statistics and accusations that opposition to immigration is essentially racist.

If we are to understand immigration and, more importantly, develop policies that respond to the genuine concerns of very many people, then we need to get a much better grip on the sociology of immigration. We need to get a better idea of how immigration affects existing communities, how those communities react to immigration and how we manage migration so as to give a greater chance of that community reaction being positive rather than negative. By focusing on the economics of migration we have missed completely the real driver behind those community concerns that some politicians exploit.

Indeed it is the need to reduce negative social impact that should drive immigration policies and controls rather than the prevailing preference for points-based systems based on a more-or-less arbitrary decision as to whether the ‘skills’ of the immigrant are ‘needed’. The evidence, both from polling and from qualitative studies, shows consistently that worries about immigration relate inversely to people’s exposure to immigrants. I would add that my personal view is that Britain’s current anti-immigrant feeling is substantially driven by the migration from EU accession countries being to parts of the UK that have had limited prior experience of immigration.

None of this gets us any closer to a basis for setting policy - assuming we’re going to plonk for somewhere on the continuum from totally closed borders to totally open borders. Regardless of the economic case for immigration, the potential social negatives (the cost of which may not be wholly contained in an economic model of migration) require some degree of control. And that will mean that some people will not be allowed to migrate into the UK.

And there is a good argument for striking a balance in terms of cultural and ethnic heterogeneity. I know we like to talk about how many different languages are spoken in our communities (this isn’t new – I remember the Principle of Bedford FE College saying just this in 1983) but the breakdown in social capital implicit in that heterogeneity damages both the immigrant andreceiving communities:

“People in ethnically fragmented communities have lower levels of interpersonal trust; lower levels of civic, social, and charitable engagement; less efficient provision of public goods; more sluggish economic growth; and lower levels of happiness and general satisfaction. It seems that the more diversity we experience, the lower our quality of life is.”

The risk we run with open borders is that they meet a short-term economic need but in doing so provide the seeds for more sluggish development in the communities where those ‘needed’ immigrants settle. Indeed, we should recognise that some degree of homogeneity is essential if a community is to develop the institutions, connections and structures essential to building social capital. Put more bluntly, the people within a neighbourhood have to share more than the fact of living in that neighbourhood if it is to become community rather than merely a place.

The unanswered question here is how we determine the point at which we set our migration policy. This has to be where the economic benefits of immigration exceed any negative impact on educational attainment, health or crime. Not just because those negatives carry a cost that isn’t necessarily picked up by the employers of immigrant labour (the prime beneficiaries of the economic benefit) but because poorer schools, health and community safety are reflections of a dysfunctional neighbourhood, of the breakdown in the social capital needed for the long-term.

Finally, there has to be some connection between the expectations of the current demos and the actions of government. In a democracy this should be a statement of the obvious but I fear it is not so – too often the response from public officialdom to concerns about immigration is to say ‘there, there - don’t worry’ or else to suggest that the person expressing concerns is simply a bigot. A further type of response is to flood the individual with (essentially meaningless) statistics accompanied with the implication that they are some kind of idiot.

We need to have immigration controls for the very simple reason that the public – the demos – demands that we control the arrival of culturally-distinct people into the neighbourhoods where they live. This can’t be dismissed as racism, bigotry or prejudice (although all those things may be present on occasion) but rather should be seen as articulating the collapse of social capital in many neighbours that large scale immigration brings about. People are not idiots but are reflecting concerns about the loss of community in their words and choices. And government too often fails to pick up those concerns in defining policies (locally and nationally).

I believe that immigration enhances our nations bringing new ideas, attitudes, food, drink, music and dance to pour into the English cultural melting-pot. We are a vastly better society for having welcomed generations of migrants to our shores. And I don’t want to live in a place where we push people away, where we don’t offer sanctuary and where there’s a preference for a sort of sclerotic monocultural numbness. But if we want migration to work for everyone, we’ve got to manage it, to try and mitigate how it can damage social capital and to direct our attentions to integrating all the wonderful, hard-working people who have come to make their lives in our great country.

...

Culture and adoption....

****

Much excitement over the case of what seems to be blatant political bias in a child protection case in Rotherham.  And there is an oddity in all this around culture and the manner in which we treat its significance during child protection cases. Indeed, it does seem that this is the central reason for the decision that Rotherham took in that they:

"...were severely criticised by the courts in terms of not meeting their cultural and ethnic needs."

And because UKIP has been critical of inward migration from East Europe, the council took the children away from the UKIP supporting foster parents. The rest - emergency placement, crass comments about UKIP's policies and so forth - is just spin (albeit bad spin).

We should also note that the parliamentary by-election in Rotherham provides great cover for the Labour politician who leads on Children & Families - under the daft 'purdah' rules council press during elections doesn't allow for politicians to be quoted or featured.

The interesting bit in all this, however, relates to what we understand by the term 'multi-cultural' or 'multiculturalism'. It does seem that the default social work interpretation is for 'cultural and ethnic needs' to be met through preference for a placement in the same culture. This seems to me more akin to apartheid than 'multiculturalism'. Surely in a multicultural society placements should be blind to the culture of the foster parent but attuned to the need for children to 'access' their birth culture.

It is this that worries me and, indeed, the manner in which the courts have pontificated on 'cultural and ethnic needs' without asking what that might mean in practice. With the result that we trip into the left-wing mind set of the social worker - UKIP are 'extreme right wing' ergo UKIP are racist. And the result of this is that some kids lives are messed about, a good couple (in the true meaning of that term) are upset and po-faced council folk litter the airwaves with obfuscatory explanations for their crass decisions.

The first question we should be asking in child protection is around safety not culture or ethnicity. And the second question we should ask in about stability but culture or ethnicity. Only once the child is in a safer and more stable place should we be considering culture and ethnicity. It appears that this is not the case - culture and ethnicity are made paramount and children are suffering for this reason.

Finally an observation. Would it not have been refreshing if the Council Director had said something like:

We got this wrong and can only apologise for the upset caused. Of course we shouldn't make fostering decisions on the basis of potential foster parents' political opinions. We will be speaking to the social workers responsible to ensure that this doesn't happen again and I will be personally visiting the couple concerned to express our sincere apologies.

Not going to happen though is it!

....

Cullingworth & a thought on multiculturalism

***

Friday night, Cullingworth Conservative Club and it's quite busy. There are a few blokes who've chosen to watch the rugby here rather than at home as well as the usual Friday night collection. Some people are playing dominoes in the corner, others are playing snooker and the rest are sitting or standing to talk and drink.

All very typical of that English culture which presents such a barrier to those from different cultures we might say. But let me invite you to take a little closer look - and to discover why the separate development theory of multiculturalism was wrong.

Stood, pint in hand, with the rugby watchers is Manu - newsagent, Parish Councillor, avid Bradford City fan. Across the lounge sits another middle-aged Asian lady with her friend - her white, bottle-blonde friend. Occasional side conversations are held between her and others passing by - some older, some younger. Friendly exchanges about shared experiences in village, mutual acquaintances and other such matters of moment.

Among the domino players is Pete - Chinese takeaway owner and former ping-pong player. Pete's also on the club committee and, while his accent's a bit impenetrable after a few lager & blackcurrants, he's as much part of the Club and the village as anyone else.

I'm pretty sure that, if I put my head round the corner past the one-armed bandit, there'll be a selection of the Brown clan - mostly third or fourth generation in the village and varying in colour from dark brown to a good sun tan. And sitting with them will be friends and neighbours, girlfriends and boyfriends - also native to the village but with a paler hue.

And there will be others less noticeable among the crowd. People whose parents arrived after the war from Eastern Europe, for example. Beyond the Club, there's a Muslim lady who's our GP, there's 'Smiler' who owns the general store and many others who - like me - aren't from the village. Yet we seem to get along alright. There aren't all that many fights - and these won't usually result from racism.

Such nonsense is spoken of 'multiculturalism'. As if it is either a simple description of reality - in this case the recognition that Cullingworth is 'multicultural' - or else a statement intended to (apologies for the jargon) 'problematise' this circumstance. In truth - because we're pretty decent folk most of the time - we simply get on with life and with living alongside people of different cultural heritage. And those people do become our friends, they do get involved in the life of the community - not in some desperate attempt to integrate but because they want to and because we welcome them doing so.

Is all that so hard?

.....

Bradford - liberty, culture and the significance of place

I live in a city which many – and especially Guardian-reading sorts – are wont to call “multicultural”. By this, in their “we’re not racists but we’ll point out there’s a lot a black folk” way, such people are drawing attention to Bradford’s substantial Muslim population.

Now I like my city – for all its faults (and they’re plenty) – it’s a great place that has been pretty good to me and where I’ve made some good friends and fine enemies of assorted races, genders and sexual preferences. But we’re not “multicultural”. No Sir! Before we discuss why this is so, however, let’s take a look at what our fine prime minister is on about:

"Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism," the Prime Minister said.

While a "passively tolerant" society allows its citizens to do what they like... a genuinely liberal country "believes in certain values and actively promotes them.

Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Democracy. The rule of law. Equal rights, regardless of race, sex or sexuality.

"It says to its citizens: This is what defines us as a society. To belong here is to believe these things.

"Each of us in our own countries must be unambiguous and hard-nosed about this defence of our liberty."

Now it’s hard to take issue with these assertions – to argue that we shouldn’t be assertive in defence of liberty is to acquiesce quietly in the triumph of autocracy. But these values of free speech, free enterprise and property rights – the things that made me a Conservative – are not “British” any more than they are “French”, “American” or “Greek”. If we hold these liberties as crucial to civility – and we must – then the cry should be that they are universal values rather than values exclusive to one or other nation. The job at hand – and it’s not really a hard job – is to persuade Muslims to recognise that these values are their values too. That freedom, justice and independence of spirit are their values and that this is shared with their non-Muslim neighbours.

This brings us back to Bradford – where many of us have Muslim neighbours. Back in 2001 we had some riots – a great deal of damage was done in and around Manningham, the majority Muslim inner suburb of the City (sadly too much of the damage was directed at businesses owned by non-Muslims) and huge damage was done to the image of the city. Now for me – having lived in South London in 1981 when we experienced a different set of riots – the Bradford riots brought about an epiphany.

The complaints, concerns and anger expressed by the rioters were largely indistinguishable from those we heard after Brixton. Bad, often racist policing, lack of jobs, boredom and the drugs trade were all factors – what was needed was a spark which, in Brixton’s case was an arrest and in Bradford’s the arrival of a dozen NF idiots in a City Centre bar.

And we got ‘multiculturalism’ from Brixton and its bastard child ‘community cohesion’ from Bradford. Truth is that Bradford’s street culture is dominated by two working-class groups – young Asians from Manningham, West Bowling and Leeds Road, and white kids from Holme Wood, Allerton, Buttershaw and Thorpe Edge. Onto this divide – this dualism – we’ve placed a set of right-on presumptions that completely ignore the sense of place rights, ownership and criminality that define the communal split. And this is why waving the flag of liberty, shared values and rights – while welcome and proper – fails to resolve the ‘problem’ (if that is what we choose to call it).

As Conservatives, we should understand the idea of place instinctively – it is what really separates us from classical liberals. Our roots are important, where we come from matters. We may laugh and smile about Kentish Men and Men of Kent, make rude comments about Croydon or call the people from the next village ‘frogboilers’, but underlying this is the view that the place we are now and the place we come from help define who we are – that our soul is made from the soil of our home. As Kipling, the greatest poet of place put it about his ‘place’:

The Weald is good, the Downs are best---
I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West.
Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,
They were once and they are still.
Firle Mount Caburn and Mount Harry
Go back as far as sums 'll carry.
Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring
They have looked on many a thing,
And what those two have missed between 'em
I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em.
Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down
Knew Old England before the Crown.
Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood
Knew Old England before the Flood;
And when you end on the Hampshire side--
Butser's old as Time and Tide.
The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,
You be glad you are Sussex born!

For my Muslim neighbours and friends each passing day roots them more firmly into Bradford – into the place they’re from. And with Bradford comes Yorkshire – a place unparalleled – and England. These friends know this – they know about allegiance, honour and justice. For some the pull of making God’s kingdom on earth may attract them to extremist ideas and violence – just as was so in times past for middle class Germans like Ulrike Meinhoff. But these are not the values of Bradford’s Muslims – or not the values I see from them.

Nation does not start with grand statements of “values” but with pride – pride in village, street, farm and park. Pride in the City and town. Pride in our friends and our neighbours. The things that make us hesitate in what we’re doing for a moment, make us look up, turn to our neighbour and say; “yes this is a good place.”

The best defence against those ‘extremists’, Mr Prime Minister, is for people to turn to them and say, “we don’t need the change you offer, we like things as they are thanks.” So help us make that possible – help us make great places – and the violent extremists will fade like morning mist under a hot sun.

....

Who is Bradford?

I had pondered writing a grand, selfish post about yesterday’s ‘events’ in Bradford. I might have pondered the essential illogicality of attempting to ban a march on grounds of ‘diversity’ or the rather pathetic attempts by Unite Against Fascism to claim that their “we are Bradford” event wasn’t a counter demonstration. It may walk like a duck, quack like a duck and taste good with orange sauce but apparently it’s a ‘peaceful, multicultural celebration’.

However, I thought instead that I’d ask the question ‘who is Bradford?’ After all the UAF and fellow travellers have laid claim to being Bradford and I’m not really so sure that they are – in any meaningful sense – ‘Bradford’. Indeed, away from the City Centre (albeit just a hop, skip and a jump away) a separate ‘peace’ event was help on Infirmary Fields in Manningham.

So who is Bradford? Is it the collection of people – artists, performers, local politicians and assorted (mostly middle-class public sector) people who laid claim to the title? Or is it people across the city who just did what they always do on a Saturday – go to the supermarket, watch the television, maybe take the kids to play cricket, rugby or football? I really don’t know but I guess that the sentiment expressed by “we are Bradford” is best understood through the negative juxtaposition with the EDL – what Bradford isn’t is racist.

Yet – setting aside the very public display of bigotry we saw yesterday – anyone with his ears open would recognise the casual racism is very much part of Bradford. Whether it’s the old man I know who regularly refers to black footballers as “coons” or the young Kashmiri cricketers I hear speaking in racist and disparaging terms about Bengalis. Or the good Asian friend who uses the term ‘jewed’ to describe his loss in a property deal. None of these people would have been anywhere near yesterday’s demonstrations but they are very much part of Bradford.

For what it’s worth, I don’t believe those laying claim to ‘being Bradford’ are any more representative of the City than were the brayingly repulsive EDL thugs. And I do not find UAF to be an especially appealing group with its focus on direct action, confrontation and “the streets”. Plus a divisive ‘if you’re not with us you’re against us’ attitude to those of us who refuse to get involved with organisations run by an extremist, ultra-left, anti-democratic political movement.

So who is Bradford then – assuming we really want an answer to what is a pretty daft question? It’s all of these people – black, white, old young, male female, gay, straight, fascists, the loony left and the grumpy old man party. And some of Bradford is racist – not in a ‘beat you up’ kind of way but in a pre-judging, misunderstanding and ignorant way. We cannot wish away this fact through willy-wagging celebrations of ‘multiculturalism’ – especially when so many of the City’s residents live comfortably within their monocultural bubble. And these people don’t wish to be shoe-horned into some form of faux cultural sharing.

Racism is stupid. But its existence isn’t removed by punishment nor can we just wish it away in some form of middle class multicultural group hug. Nor should it be used as a vehicle for promoting extremist politics – whether of the nasty right or the unpleasant left. The solution – if there is one – lies in shared experience not in laws, punishments and the seeking out of new sins.

....