Restrictive conditions have made it harder for those legally resident to commit to British society
Since the introduction of the concept by then-Labour home secretary Roy Jenkins in the mid-1960s, integration has never been a priority for UK governments. The anti-racist movement and black communities have been suspicious of the term, seeing it as too close to assimilation.
Integration has had little traction on the right either, where there has been distrust for any accommodation with migrants and minorities. Labour started talking about integration under Blair, but usually as a footnote to cohesion or in relation to refugees.
The Coalition government launched an integration strategy in 2012, but it mainly argued that national government needed to leave it to local governments.
In a time when net migration remains high and has transformed the demographic profile of every region of the UK, when we see persistent gaps in health or employment outcomes for some ethnic groups, when concerns about de facto segregation continue, and when politicians talk about particular minorities ‘quietly condoning’ non-British values – is it time to put integration back on the policy agenda?
The 2015 edition of MIPEX, the Migrant Integration Policy Index, is published today. It measures policy commitment to integration in 38 developed countries.
The timing of this might help us re-frame the integration debate in the UK. The last edition of the index was published in 2010, in the final months of the Brown government, so the new edition offers a timely assessment of the changes made in the Cameron/Clegg half-decade.
The headline is that the UK has fallen from the top 10 to mid-table 15. We have dropped points in areas where we perform strongly, such as education and anti-discrimination, because of austerity-driven cuts.
While there are schools across the country being confronted for the first time with children who don’t speak English at home, the funding which supports them to do this (the EMAG grant) is no longer ring-fenced.
While the gap between mainstream and minority employment is bigger than ever, the requirements to enforce equality law are being loosened and seen as excess red tape.
We have lost points too for the indicators relating to routes to settlement and to citizenship, as restrictive conditions brought in to help meet the net migration target have made it harder for those legally resident to commit to British society.
Most dramatically, we have fallen to the very bottom of the table for family migration, meaning we are the hardest place in the developed world for separated families to reunite; we have the most restrictive definitions and stringent requirements, long delays and high costs.
Separated non-European families are now less likely to reunite in the UK than on average in Western Europe, with numbers falling by 20 per cent after the UK imposed one of the highest income requirements for family reunion in the world, one which 50 per cent of working people in the UK could not afford.
The MIPEX index does not measure integration itself. It measures how favourable a country’s policies are to the level playing field that would make integration possible.
This approach has limits, and a resetting of the integration debate would need to look at other measures too: how social integration and a shared sense of belonging can be promoted, for instance.
But the results of the new index show just how far integration has fallen down the policy agenda in the drive to reduce migration and cut costs. Can we afford to let it keep slipping?
Ben Gidley is a senior researcher at COMPAS. Follow him on Twitter
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36 Responses to “It’s time to put integration back on the agenda”
stevep
My view isn`t weak at all, it`s perfectly valid and more relevant today than ever.
Britain is a growing country, like it or not. The gene pool of the UK of the last two millennia will change dramatically as increasing numbers of people come and go and intermingle with each other.
One hundred or so years ago it was a major event if a man married a woman from a couple of villages away. Nowadays no-one bats an eyelid if a man from Glasgow or Exeter marries a woman who`s family came here from Antigua or Argentina.
The world moves on, usually in the direction dictated by the wealthy and powerful. Let`s concentrate on real issues, not perceived ones.
gunnerbear
You can be a practising Muslim or a believer in a Liberal Democracy where women have rights and homosexuals can exist without being stoned. You can’t be both.
gunnerbear
Yep…..just as some on the Left would blame this on us as well….more ‘joyous exampes’ of the Blues and Reds belief in immigration… http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/587856/Fury-7-7-memorial-London-invaded-homeless-gang-use-victim-name-plaque-dinner-table
gunnerbear
Eastern Europeans aren’t in the main the sort though that are going to try and cut your head off or blow up your car or train.
gunnerbear
“Express outrage at poor Somali or Libyan migrants seeking to escape repressive regimes,” Who could have stayed in Italy, Germany, Spain or France but instead want to sponge off us. “…hero worship the latest multi-millionaire Argentinian, Portuguese or Brazilian football player gracing these shores with his presence.” Who pays stacks in taxes and generates huge amounts in their locality by their spending not to mention the huge revenue they create for their employers.