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Is this man the left's Enoch Powell?
By Dominic Casciani
BBC News Online community affairs reporter
Racist? Me?
Not at all says, David Goodhart. But he insists it's about time liberals got their act together over immigration.
If old trainers and corduroy is anything to go by, David Goodhart doesn't look like the most dangerous man on the British left. But there are plenty of people who think he is.
In the February edition of his liberal political magazine, Prospect, David Goodhart argued the British left must get to grip with immigration - or diversity as he described it - and found himself promptly denounced by his own c
ub.
The thrust of his 6,000 word essay is this: The most important totem for the left is the comprehensive welfare state that provides everything from benefits to free education.
The impli
cat
on of ideas from people like [my critics] is that y
ou can't be anti-racist and have reservations about immigration - that's absurd and stuck in the 1960s."
David Goodhart
But if society is increasingly "diverse", then support for the idea that we gain by pooling something for others to share starts to collapse.
Why? Because people are less willing to share with strangers as they do not believe they have the same values as themselves.
What Goodhart didn't reckon on was the Guardian republishing the entire essay in full - and sparking an enormous row.
Chief among the accusers was Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.
He said "nice people do racism too" and described Goodhart and his supporters a
s "liberal Powellites".
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who has spent years bashing the government on immigration issues from the pages of the Independent, said Goodhart didn't know
what
he
was talking
about - and that not one non-white Briton supported his thesis.
Academics, ministers and members of the
public all queued up to criticise David Goodhart - and still do. It makes him angry, he says, because he is not a racist.
'Irrational outbursts'
"Immigration is an area where you can say entirely common-sensical things and be met with irrational, paranoid outbursts from otherwise sensible people," he says now.
Trevor Phillips: "Nice people do racism too"
"If anything, white people should have taken it personally because I was raising questions about their willingness to share once diversity reaches a certain level."
Goodhart argues that the left faces a "progressive dilemma" of supporting diversity
while ignoring the "self-evident truth" that it thins the bonds of society.
"Most people who are affluent choose to become more separate and that can be a good
thing.
"But then it
makes people feel less likely to accept mutual obligations [towards others in society they don't know].
"To say there is a tension between society becoming more different and a society cont
inuing to share, does not strike me as controversial."
Critics say this is a smokescreen for a nostalgia which feels hostile to anything that isn't Anglo Saxon in nature. In other words, white British don't complain about Americans, Aussies or Kiwis arriving by the planeload - but do if the arrivals are Asian Muslims.
Furthermore, Professor Sir Bernard Crick, home secretary David Blunkett's adviser on citizenship, suggested Goodhart's thesis completely forgot about the diverse identities within the British Isles prior to mass immigration.
But Good
hart says signs of break points are all around us because of how poorly governments have managed immigration and change.
"Communities require continuity, we ne
ed strong b
onds of aff
inity that go beyond the f
amily, into the community and then to the nation.
"It's a sense of knowing that people are like us, that they are playing by the same rules, what's good and what's bad, the place of religion in society and so on."
S
o what does that mean in practical terms? Is it objectionable for a mosque to seek permission for a Friday call to prayer?
Goodhart ducks the issue. The real question to ask, he says, is what is being done to reassure people about the future.
Multiculturalism dead?
Which is where Trevor Phillips comes in again. The CRE chief recently declared we should dump "multiculturalism" in favour of instilling "Britishness" in all our people.
ON DAVID BLUNKETT
If people believe borders are
not under control, they close themselves off - and that's why you get things like white fright
David Goodhart
Does David Goodhart think the M-wo
rd debate start
ed by Trevor Ph
illips a belated nod towards the
Prospect essay?
"He is politically realistic and usually very sensible. He has never gone for the wider multiculturalism debate before. But by doing so he brings some rigour into the debate. Multiculturalism has come to be an anti-integrationalist ethic."
And the left should al
so praise David Blunkett, he adds.
"When David Blunkett first mentioned the business about speaking English at home, there was such an outcry. Anyone like him was seen as some kind of authoritarian nationalist. But it's only since David Blunkett we have seen an end to the laissez faire approach.
"If it's too late [to win the argument] it's not David Blunkett's fault. There's been decades of change and no one has said anything.
"If
you can show that you control your borders, you control who becomes 'us'. "And if people know this, they will be generous. If people be
lieve borders are n
ot under control, t
hey close themselves off - and that'
s why you get things like white fright."
"We have to force down some of the prejudices of people and the media - but we have to also force down the prejudices of some liberals."
"The implication of ideas from people like Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is that you can't be anti-racist and have reservations about immigration. That's absurd an
d stuck in the 1960s."
Is this man the left's Enoch Powell?
By Dominic Casciani
BBC News Online community affairs reporter
Racist? Me?
Not at all says, David Goodhart. But he insists it's about time liberals got their act together over immigration.
If old trainers and corduroy is anything to go by, David Goodhart doesn't look like the most dangerous man on the British left. But there are plenty of people who think he is.
In the February edition of his liberal political magazine, Prospect, David Goodhart argued the British left must get to grip with immigration - or diversity as he described it - and found himself promptly denounced by his own c
ub.
The thrust of his 6,000 word essay is this: The most important totem for the left is the comprehensive welfare state that provides everything from benefits to free education.
The impli
cat
on of ideas from people like [my critics] is that y
ou can't be anti-racist and have reservations about immigration - that's absurd and stuck in the 1960s."
David Goodhart
But if society is increasingly "diverse", then support for the idea that we gain by pooling something for others to share starts to collapse.
Why? Because people are less willing to share with strangers as they do not believe they have the same values as themselves.
What Goodhart didn't reckon on was the Guardian republishing the entire essay in full - and sparking an enormous row.
Chief among the accusers was Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.
He said "nice people do racism too" and described Goodhart and his supporters a
s "liberal Powellites".
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who has spent years bashing the government on immigration issues from the pages of the Independent, said Goodhart didn't know
what
he
was talking
about - and that not one non-white Briton supported his thesis.
Academics, ministers and members of the
public all queued up to criticise David Goodhart - and still do. It makes him angry, he says, because he is not a racist.
'Irrational outbursts'
"Immigration is an area where you can say entirely common-sensical things and be met with irrational, paranoid outbursts from otherwise sensible people," he says now.
Trevor Phillips: "Nice people do racism too"
"If anything, white people should have taken it personally because I was raising questions about their willingness to share once diversity reaches a certain level."
Goodhart argues that the left faces a "progressive dilemma" of supporting diversity
while ignoring the "self-evident truth" that it thins the bonds of society.
"Most people who are affluent choose to become more separate and that can be a good
thing.
"But then it
makes people feel less likely to accept mutual obligations [towards others in society they don't know].
"To say there is a tension between society becoming more different and a society cont
inuing to share, does not strike me as controversial."
Critics say this is a smokescreen for a nostalgia which feels hostile to anything that isn't Anglo Saxon in nature. In other words, white British don't complain about Americans, Aussies or Kiwis arriving by the planeload - but do if the arrivals are Asian Muslims.
Furthermore, Professor Sir Bernard Crick, home secretary David Blunkett's adviser on citizenship, suggested Goodhart's thesis completely forgot about the diverse identities within the British Isles prior to mass immigration.
But Good
hart says signs of break points are all around us because of how poorly governments have managed immigration and change.
"Communities require continuity, we ne
ed strong b
onds of aff
inity that go beyond the f
amily, into the community and then to the nation.
"It's a sense of knowing that people are like us, that they are playing by the same rules, what's good and what's bad, the place of religion in society and so on."
S
o what does that mean in practical terms? Is it objectionable for a mosque to seek permission for a Friday call to prayer?
Goodhart ducks the issue. The real question to ask, he says, is what is being done to reassure people about the future.
Multiculturalism dead?
Which is where Trevor Phillips comes in again. The CRE chief recently declared we should dump "multiculturalism" in favour of instilling "Britishness" in all our people.
ON DAVID BLUNKETT
If people believe borders are
not under control, they close themselves off - and that's why you get things like white fright
David Goodhart
Does David Goodhart think the M-wo
rd debate start
ed by Trevor Ph
illips a belated nod towards the
Prospect essay?
"He is politically realistic and usually very sensible. He has never gone for the wider multiculturalism debate before. But by doing so he brings some rigour into the debate. Multiculturalism has come to be an anti-integrationalist ethic."
And the left should al
so praise David Blunkett, he adds.
"When David Blunkett first mentioned the business about speaking English at home, there was such an outcry. Anyone like him was seen as some kind of authoritarian nationalist. But it's only since David Blunkett we have seen an end to the laissez faire approach.
"If it's too late [to win the argument] it's not David Blunkett's fault. There's been decades of change and no one has said anything.
"If
you can show that you control your borders, you control who becomes 'us'. "And if people know this, they will be generous. If people be
lieve borders are n
ot under control, t
hey close themselves off - and that'
s why you get things like white fright."
"We have to force down some of the prejudices of people and the media - but we have to also force down the prejudices of some liberals."
"The implication of ideas from people like Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is that you can't be anti-racist and have reservations about immigration. That's absurd an
d stuck in the 1960s."