Last month, prime minister David Cameron told an audience at a security conference in Munich that British multiculturalism had failed.
Despite its sinister undertones, few would disagree – building communities along narrow ethnic and cultural lines might create quaint tourist attractions like ‘Little Italy’ or ‘China Town’, but it does little to help social cohesion.
Mr Cameron was right to call for more integration, but he did so in a way that suggested immigrant communities are quite content to remain on the margins of society and live like second-class citizens.
This is not only a slap in the face for the thousands of immigrants who work long exhausting hours for less than minimum wage, it also completely contradicts the Government’s plans to cut funding for its English language courses (ESOL).
Under the new proposals, only those on ‘active’ benefits like Jobseeker’s Allowance would be eligible for free classes – a benefit that few immigrants and refugees are able to claim.
With ESOL courses in Hackney costing around £1,000 a year – and more than twice that for students outside the EU – it is likely to prevent many from enrolling and gaining the skills they need.
If immigrants are unable to afford English lessons, then it will become even harder for them to integrate, creating an underclass of foreign migrants permanently excluded from mainstream society.
Campaigners claim the cuts are a deliberate attack on immigrants, and the timing of Mr Cameron’s multiculturalism speech certainly gives credence to that argument (having coincided with an EDL hate rally in Luton).
But far more likely the new proposals are down to ministerial incompetence.
Cutting funding for English language classes will not make any difference to the number of foreign migrants coming to the UK, it will simply make their lives here more difficult.
Despite scare-mongering in the Daily Express (‘a migrant a minute lands in the UK’), few immigrants come here to sponge off the state – most come here to work and start a better life.
We should be proud so many people want to live in this country.
Instead of vilifying immigrants and refugees, we should be admiring their courage. It takes guts to start a new life in a different country – particularly if you can’t speak the language.
But without the support of ESOL, what hope will they have?
