Author Archives: Meral Ece

In the run up to the next general election, Gordon Brown will undoubtedly use one of his favourite themes: Britishness. He will do this as a smokescreen to disguise his own concerns and insecurities that as a Scot he will not receive sufficient support from Middle England. So he will roll out a pseudo debate that will ensure that those of us who are not from a White Anglo Saxon background, will be forced to prove our Britishness. Similar to the constant call for the majority of moderate, law abiding Muslims to constantly condemn terrorism, and demonstrate how we all embrace and celebrate Christmas.

I think its time we as Liberal Democrats, the party that has enshrined in our constitution our belief that we stand for equality, community, and non-conformity, had a serious debate about what we mean by this and how we are developing our policies and beliefs to respond to this debate.

Britain is a multicultural country: this statement was for decades a cause for celebration. Multiculturalism gained popularity in the 1960s. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on London in July 2005, many commentators, including Trevor Philips, then the Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, called for it to be scrapped. We were told that it was a ‘failed experiment.’ Was it compatible to be from another culture and be British? Questions and articles continue to question this, as to how young British people from ethnic minority communities (with the spotlight more recently on people of Muslim background) were not integrating into British society, despite being British born.