Multicultural

United Kingdom

Multicultural policies were adopted by local administrations from the 1970s and 1980s onwards. In 1997, the newly elected Labour government committed to a multiculturalist approach at a national level, but after 2001, there was something of a backlash, led by centre-left commentators such as David Goodhart and Trevor Phillips. The Government then embraced a policy of community cohesion instead. In 2011, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron said in a speech that "state multiculturalism has failed". Critics argue that analyses which view society as 'too diverse' for social democracy and cohesion have "performative" effects regarding legitimate racism towards those classed as immigrants. Others, however, like author Ed West, criticize the notion that the United Kingdom is or should be a multicultural society in the first place and that the project of diversity is misguided.