Kemi Badenoch think BME communities shouldn't have their own neighbourhoods but be made to move to other areas

I think we do need a serious conversation about integration. It's not long ago there were lots of articles about 'white flights.

Perhaps if we had not massively reduced social housing building in Tory governments since 1979, then there might be less of an issue.

Mmn. I've lived in Luton and in Bradford, there is isolation and separatism, there is conflict and bad feeling, women in particular tend to suffer, and it doesn't all work well. There's a conversation to be had here, and while it needs to be sensitive and thoughtful, it shouldn't be something too taboo to talk about.

Whatever the rights and wrongs, I can see lots of practical problems- reducing social housing might be possible in a country where the social housing system is healthy and meets demand but would you really want to reduce supply and increase demand in our system - the one that is already failing the tens of thousands on waiting lists?
How would it fit with the fact that social housing is usually given on life-long tenancies- would they be abolished for all or just certain ethnicities?
Would private landlords be compelled to not rent to people of certain ethnicities? How would they feel about that and the effect it might have on the amount of rent they can get?
If limiting the resale market for privately owned homes reduces their value would you need to compensate the owners? How would it square with the tradition of an 'Englishman's home is is his castle'? The MN threads alone would be something else- 'AIBU for being angry that we lost our forever home after the council banned us from selling to Mr and Mrs Patel and our chain collapsed'.

What's the sex/gender angle op?

So you risk isolating a whole generation of people, whilst their kids might get on fine. Carrot vs stick approach maybe. But I think the UK could be a bit firmer on integration type activities.

As an immigrant in another country myself, i think it makes sense to avoid ghettoes and to encourage integration and language skills. A lot of this comes down to cold hard cash though. Having lived in a town where no translation was even possible with the town hall etc, even when they can actually SPEAK the language I know how hard it can be. Language classes are free and available though. Integration is not an easy topic and it is always easier to mix with people that speak the same language as you. It's human nature.

Simon Reeve filmed an episode of one of his series (was it the Scandinavian one?) On this subject, it was interesting, quite a balanced view.
Desperately sad for people who were ousted from their communities, but Denmark was trying to avoid the kind of situations that had happened in other Scandi countries. Danish authorities were keen that all immigrants should learn the language of their adoptive country and learn of its customs, equality between sexes etc.
Having grown up in a very diverse town, I was aware of women who spoke no English, had to take their husbands to the doctors to translate, I'm not that comfortable with that, it lends itself to women being at risk of domestic abuse.
But I'm not convinced the Conservatives have a light enough touch to achieve anything of benefit and will probably end up inflaming the situation.

Lmfao you guys are woefully late to this discussion. And you is not this board but Brits.

Long past that parallel societies are addressed, endless tolerance isn't a good thing.

I saw that, the ghetto situation in malmo is stark and it doesn’t serve any community to be isolated and segregated. My father in law was a met police officer and there were areas he dreaded going, predominantly those communities that had brought tensions from their home villages in Africa, especially Somalis and Eritreans. In his time on the beat he would regularly see machetes on the streets that weren’t there 20 years ago.

there’s a lot to be said for proper integration, and providing training, jobs, cultural lessons if needed, for some immigrants to this country. Leaving them in poor communities where they feel crime is the only option doesn’t work, and then increases right wing sentiment, even Sweden has now had enough.

The reaction to it on that programme seemed mostly negative. Also, if people are to be moved out of those areas to mix things up surely someone from a different area would have to be moved into it. Assuming people liked living where they were that's a lot of unhappy people.

It would appear Kemi would like to see quite a lot of social change without having any responsibility for making it happen

Speaking as a white mum to a mixed ethnicity child, living in a an area which has a mix of ethnicities works for us. But personally I'd draw the line at forcing people to move because of their ethnicity.
Occasionally I see posts on the black mn board asking for recommendations about places to live or go on holiday based on worries about fitting in or racism. I think that's beyond sad, no one should feel unsafe on holiday because of their skin colour and people should be able to go where they want.

Fortunately we've never had serious problems but we do still get some stares away from cities

There was a feature on this in Denmark on the Simon Reeve documentary 'Scandinavia' a few weeks ago. I wonder if she was watching!

And what do you think about this? Or were you just hoping to start a fight?