Multiculturalism has failed, says Angela Merkel. Has it failed in Britain?

[mycounty]

"The Approach to build a multicultural society and live side by side has failed, utterly failed". Says Ms. Merkel. Has it failed in Britain? Particularly when we remember that all of the 7/7 bombers were British born? It appears the bombers had no allegiance to this country.
I think it has failed, just as it has in Germany.

I don't think it has failed in this country ..not where I live anyway

I dont think we have true multiculturalism so I dont think we can say either way.

Why has she said it has failed in Germany?

Yes, in some respects.

Amongst highly educated, highly skilled immigrants, multiculturalism works. They have integrated successfully into our community, speak English, and accept the basic tenets of the British social contract. Nevertheless, they have brought the very best of their culture (Indonesian gamelan, Indian dance, Hong Kong fashion etc) and cuisine along with them. They make Britain a better place. I want as many of these immigrants as we can get - and that is why the coalition cap on highly skilled migrants is stupid.

Low-skilled immigrants who have displaced low-skilled native Brits are worse than useless. Often they do not speak English, have extremely illiberal social values, and make no effort to change themselves - or even worse, their children - in line with the norms of our society. They are frequently willing to sponge off the state instead of working (in common with some of our native brethren). They make Britain a worse place. We don't need such immigrants, and Labour made a catastrophic mistake letting so many in.

It hasn't failed, it just takes time. Each generation becomes more tolerant and more educated about other cultures. Eventually, peace will reign

I agree with her. It can work, but only if immigrants are willing to integrate, quite often they aren't. Plus Labour flooded the country with too many immigrants in a short space of time creating massive social problems. We will be dealing with the fall out of this for years.

Angela Merkel link

here

I think genrelaly multiculturalism has generally worked in britain adopting new foods and cultures etc. However, in some areas, there are more problems than others.

There are plenty of low skilled, socially lazy Brits - its not a problem the immigrants introduced.

Riven Yes, low-skilled immigrants pick it - I know.

Native low-skilled workers turn their noses up at such work because the benefits system enables them to do so. That is a failure of the welfare state.

From the perspective of the low-skilled immigrant, their actions are completely rational. Who wouldn't want to come to Britain, when the alternative was grinding poverty in Albania or wherever? The fault is with the politicians who allowed it to happen.

I do accept that there are particular issues with seasonal work though.

Yes, there are plenty of low skilled lazy British people, the answer to that problem however is to not import another million low skilled lazy foreigners.

Simple economics.

pchick Of course there are Brits who are a drain on society.

Making the situation worse by importing millions of low-skilled people from abroad who are an even bigger drain on society - large numbers of whom don't even speak English - doesn't seem like a rational response to that problem to me, though.

What is multiculturalism?

Is it mixing and integrating between cultures or cultures living side by side?

I think a big problem is that the "native" population in this country don't seem to have a strong identity or heritage which they can refer to as making them English. So other cultures who do can seem overbearing.

I'm not sure if there has been a failure as such because I'm not sure what the aim or final position is supposed to look like.

I want hundreds of thousands of foreign architects, bankers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, professors and businesspeople to come to Britain - from any country in the world.

I don't want a single immigrant who comes here to have access to benefits, to free healthcare, or any other functions of the State until they have contributed a very large amount to the Exchequer first. They should have compulsory insurance to cover any emergencies which might arise.

I also don't want low-skilled EU migrants. The migrants which Britain sends to other parts of the EU are invariable high-skilled - the language requirements alone act as a crude but effective filter on that count. Whereas many of the EU migrants who come to Britain are low-skilled - partly because of our generous welfare State, and partly because English is a universal language.

Riven Plenty of low-skilled migrants who haven't got jobs have managed to wangle British citizenship in the last 10 years.

I myself come from an immigrant background, and know of many.

Riven Well, often those same highly skilled immigrants manage to do more for their home country by emigrating. The higher salaries over here mean that they send more home than they would have earned had they stayed.

This contact between the two countries at the senior professional level often results in trade deals that benefit both.

'I also don't want low-skilled EU migrants.'

There's a bit of a disconnect here. My cleaning lady (in Belgium) is Polish. She cleans because her husband decided to move them here as the situation in Poland wasn't good. She has a degree in sports science and prior to Schengen was douanier (customs officer) in Poland. Schengen meant open borders, her job went, they moved to Brussels.

One could argue she is low skilled because she cleans, but perhaps these low skilled workers are very highly skilled, but their skills are not needed any more and they cannot get the jobs to utilize them so they do what pays. I admire her for cleaning; she works damn hard.

scaryteacher Good for her - she seems like she has the spirit and work ethic to go far. I hope she doesn't stay as a cleaner for long, even though it might be mildly annoying for you to replace someone who provides such a good service.

Of course, you have hit on one of the big problems. Immigrants, even low-skilled immigrants, are often highly motivated - a motivation which is lacking in a certain proportion of the native population.

I really don't mind these highly motivated, pull-themselves-up-by-their-own-bootstraps low-skilled immigrants - but identifying them amongst the huge numbers is difficult.

I think a widespread system of work permits might help - with no automatic long-term right of residency.

A cap on immigration is not a solution as we already have fairly strict rules on entry (with the exceptions of student visas, which is being changed). EU migrants are a bigger issue in my experience as there is no control in place to look at how skilled they are, what they can add to economy etc.

Only way to stop this is to stop being part of EU which is clearly not going to happen.

From the forum's resident BNP member: "Yes, there are plenty of low skilled lazy British people, the answer to that problem however is to not import another million low skilled lazy foreigners.

Simple economics."

Um, by definition the people being imported are not actually lazy. They are working.

Quattrocentre Are you absolutely sure that every immigrant who came here during the Labour years got a job?

I know of several, personally, who have not - and many of them now have British passports.

Leaving aside the issue of current immigration policy, I think that although Britain has possibly the most successful model of multiculturalism in the world, we are not a fully multicultural society.

Multiculturalism still exists mainly in cities- rural communities are experiencing immigration for the first time with the influx of eastern European workers, and have no established Asian or African Caribbean communities, which, when seen in light of the fact that the first wave of immigrants from those countries was over 50 years ago, seems bizarre to me and indicative of a Britain's failure to be a completely multicultural country.

Benjamin Zephaniah has some interesting comments on this.

TethHearseEnd I think Canada is better than Britain, but you are right that Britain is better than the rest of Europe.

Hadn't considered Canada, you may be right.