Article - Rebuilding a Broken Britain: Re-assessing Our Approach to Integration

For too long, integration has been treated as a cultural challenge rather than one that is fundamentally institutional. This has subsequently led to cohesion policy that tends towards the ‘neutral’ assimilation of migrant communities into a rigid cultural framework. On a practical level, such an approach to integration creates an exclusionary model that glosses over structural inequalities. The harmful consequences of this model become particularly visible when examining the burdens it puts on immigrant-origin populations, especially younger generations born and raised in the UK.

The Criterion’s latest paper makes the case that the challenges faced by second- and third- generation youth in regards to their limited civic and economic participation are explained through the structural inhibitions of the assimilationist integration model itself. This is contrary to a popular opinion that these challenges are a product of individual failures to culturally integrate into British society. Whilst appearing neutral, this assimilationist expectation is conditioned upon the erasure of one’s cultural, religious, and historical identity to be seen as fully belonging in British society.

The UK’s policy on social cohesion has fallen short in treatment of diversity as a phenomena needing to be ‘managed’ - as a problem to be solved. The Government’s new strategy on social cohesion, ‘Protecting What Matters’ highlights exactly this: the integration of marginalised communities is approached from a national security lens rather than genuine social cohesion. It is about time that we begin to view diversity and difference as something that is a priori and intrinsic to modern British society rather than something that threatens it.

As our white paper makes highlights, post-war migration to Britain was historically viewed and framed as a temporary solution to labour shortage. European states, including Britain itself, recruited migrant workers without considering them - or the very possibility of them - as permanent members of society. It was due to this classification of migrants as temporary citizens that British institutions saw no need to create the appropriate infrastructures and procedures to accommodate for their full integration. Failures in whole-society integration, consequently, were explained through cultural deficiencies rather than institutional design. Alas, our failures of the past - the lack of self-accountability and institutional support given to migrant communities - have inevitably had severe consequences for social cohesion that modern Britain is failing to adequately resolve. 

Does this mean that our past decisions have sealed our fate - or can we still fix what is arguably a socially broken society? Fortunately, there are ways to move forward and clean up decades’ of blunders we have made in our social cohesion strategy. 

The solution is multipronged. First, we must unlearn the assimilationist and exclusionary view of civic belonging: civic belonging does not require the erosion of cultural or religious difference. As our paper makes clear, multiculturalism understood as a civic idea explicitly rejects zero-sum models of identity. As such, democratic citizenship can indeed accommodate for religious and cultural differences without threatening political unity. Contrary to popular belief, then, integration becomes compatible with difference so long as institutions are designed to recognise it rather than suppress it.

This brings us to our second point: we must shift the burden of responsibility from individuals to institutions when it comes to integration. Integration outcomes result from institutional access, recognition, and power-sharing - not primarily from individual attitudes or practices. Our paper notes that schools, labour markets, housing systems, policing practices, and political institutions are the primary sites at which integration is produced or blocked. If we approach our strategy to social cohesion in this manner, integration failure becomes diagnosable in structural terms rather than cultural terms - the latter unfairly over-burdening the individual.

To rebuild a more genuine strategy for integration and social cohesion, we diagnose four non-negotiable principles in our white paper analysis. This includes (i) an institution-led approach; (ii) recognising second- and third-generation immigrant youth as present political actors; (iii) treating plural identities as intrinsic to democracy; and (iv) delivering integration through devolution with democratic inclusion.

This captures only the start of rebuilding a broken Britain. We should not let our historical failures define our future. It is about time we hold our institutions accountable and take away unnecessary burdens from migrant communities who have been criticized and marginalised for far too long in polarising debates around social cohesion.

You can explore all the points discussed here in our white paper, “Beyond Assimilation: Integration as a Framework for Understanding Second- and Third- Generation Immigrant Youth”. We have also translated our thorough analysis into more practical language in our policy memo, which will be published later this week. 

Watch this space for future updates on our work around social cohesion!