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

[IwantToRetire]

The UK should move to “active integration” along the lines of Denmark’s so-called “ghetto laws”, Kemi Badenoch has suggested.

Under Danish law, social housing areas with high levels of deprivation and a “non-Western” population above 50% are declared “parallel societies”.

Such a declaration can trigger requirements to reduce the amount of social housing in an area, including through evicting residents and demolishing or turning their homes into private housing, and restrictions on who can move there.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/society-policy-exchange-european-court-of-justice-conservative-b2775215.html

On the Simon Reeve programme he spoke to immigrant young people who felt they were ghettoised and not having the opportunities that the natives had - but their mother seemed only to speak their original language which seems to prove the point about integration - there was bitterness at NOT living amongst the native residents.

Indeed. A host of social ills flowed from that vicious and stupid decision. Tories gonna Tory though.

What a massively disingenuous thread title.

There are very good reasons to be concerned about the creation of ethnic ghettos of the kind described in the article. Friends of mine, who moved here as refugees, found themselves in such a community when they first arrived. There were massive issues with the young boys getting caught up into gang activity. You see this problem so much in these kinds of scenarios.

Their solution was to move to an entirely differernt city with very few people from their ethnic background. Obviously that's a personal choice, but where we are talking about social housing, it absolutely makes sense for it to be administered in a way that is meant to minimise the development of communities like the one my friends initially moved to.

KB is certainly not the first person to have discussed this. Trevor Phillips has made quite similar observations about the long term social problems around communities not integrating.

@IwantToRetire do you know that you've put this in the "sex and gender" part of the feminist board? I suspect you meant to put it in the chat section.

I don't really see the relevance of the sex of any politician that is or isn't in favour of this.

My mum watched this Simon Reeves programme but she couldn't tell me whether any of them actually owned their homes. I'm guessing they didn't. I'm also going to guess that in Denmark, the government own social housing rather than farming it out to private landlords. So if the government is your landlord, you're kind of stuck I suppose.

A PP mentioned the example ofa situation where somebody was not allowed to sell to Mr. Patel. (My late father actually lost out on the house that he wanted because the owner didn't want to sell to a man of colour. He found this out because he kind of pushed the estate agent for an answer when his offer was refused and the house was still on the market). I would be surprised if anyone was actually putting in rules about who you could sell to?

Basically, I asked my mum for the clarification, which she couldn't give - she is of an age so was just kind of watching it vacantly - but I don't know enough about Denmark to know whether they would interfere with the private housing market.

So there's two questions here, one being about the ethics of it if it's all owned by the government - and then a totally separate one if it's not.

I used to live in a part of London where a combined social housing block, with some private owners, was demolished. The owners said that they were not given a fair price for their property. The renters were moved outside of London. I think this happens a lot, but they didn't get much attention in the press.

More needs to be done to open up the 'ethnic' communities, because there are many women and children (young girls mostly) who are not getting the protection they deserve under our laws, because they might live here but the living somewhere else in their homes.

I don't know whether the Danish plan will work, but a proper conversation needs to be had, without it being dismissed as 'bigoted, far right, racists', blah de blah as it usually is.

Looking at this from a feminist point of view - doesn't that kind of forced "integration" isolate women even more? A woman has less in common with the woman next door and over the road and the women she sees in the corner shop and at the school gate. Maybe she doesn't even have a language in common with them.

I'd expect it to take a couple of generations to integrate and if that doesn't happen then there are reasons and those reasons will vary for different communities. Some communiites are druggie hells while others thrive. This idea might work out for some areas but assuming it's fine to split populations up from the start is a one-size-fits-all that risks isolating the most vulnerable women.

@RobinHeartella The feminist point is that such communities tend to be more misogynistic than the uk and that is perpetuated by not being more exposed to different views. Badenoch does not have the answer but it's not an easy problem to address. Teaching in schools about what good relationships look like might be a start.

Yes, the Danes certainly believe in the importance and value of Danish culture...and there is an expectation that people should integrate into it.

People have always tended to look at the Scandinavian countries as models of enlightenment and progressive culture.......but that shared, consensus culture disintegrates if it ends up hosting multi cultures, especially if they fail to integrate or if parallel societies start to operate alongside the host.

There was one Sudnaese mother ( on Simon Reeve programme) who said that the younger generation of Danish born immigrants had a rebellious attitude towards Danish society and many were involved in drug dealing and gangs. Much to the disapproval of her daughter. The mother thought the children should realise that even though they were Danish born, they were still an immigrant community.

@TheOtherRaven I lived in Sparkhill in Birmingham for a year when training as it was so cheap this was the mid 1990’s. Unless you have lived somewhere like that it’s hard to get your head round. Loads of the women just seemed to be indoors most of the time, some of my women neighbours had hardly a word, would just smile, I helped a little lad who had fallen off his scooter one day and his Mum was so grateful but she spoke no English at all.

You phrased and presented it in a way so as to suggest that Kemi Badenoch doesn't think that ethnic minorities should have their "own" communities and should be forced to live wherever they are put. That is not quite what she was suggesting, was it?

Point of fact: compared to other nations, the UK has a very high percentage of social housing. OAccording to this source, the UK is in the top five worldwide:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1535909/social-rental-housing-as-share-of-housing-stock-worldwide-by-country/

There are some questions to be asked about the way social housing is allocated, and whether people on high incomes should be asked to give this tax-payer funded accommodation to those who truly need it. Famously, a trade union leader on 100K lived in a council house and the Labour MP Apsana Begum (on 80K+) also lives in one: https://www.mylondon.news/news/east-london-news/london-mp-apsana-begum-still-21389268

Not sure KB has all the answers but maybe we need to look at this as a society.

One of the things about Denmark is that they collect crime data showing the ethnicity of the offenders and it apparently made sobering reading. This was one of the things which influenced their integration policies.

@Shortshriftandlethal As far as I remember, the Sudanese family were in Sweden, not Denmark. Also, weren't they from Somolia?

There are areas of Birmingham a mile or so from the city centre, (Sparkbrook for example) where it is very, very unusual to see a woman out and about. I don't see them shopping, walking along with children, doing all the things that I see women doing in the area where I live. I don't even see veiled woman; there are a lot of woman where I live who wear niqab or burkas and they're shopping, taking their children to school etc, taking part in everyday life. But in Sparkbrook when I drive through, whatever time of day, I just dont see any women. Lots of men about, especially sitting outside the cafes there, but a woman is so unusual that it is noticable when there is one. Where are they? Its like mensville. It can't be a healthy society. I'm anything but a Badenoch supporter, but she is right when she says that there are communities in Britain that don't match the values of this country. I think that's what Denmark is trying to avoid.

Maybe you are right.....the point remains, though...

Although those figures show the UK being in the top five of the selected countries listed, the UK at 16.4% has less than half the share of its total housing stock in "social rental" compared with number one, the Netherlands at 34.1%.

Norway, New Zealand, the USA and Canada are all bottom of the list with about a quarter of the share of their total housing stock in "social rental" compared with the UK.

I am not sure that it is particularly meaningful to make comparisons across different countries like this without some explanation for the disparities and for their consequences for people on low-incomes.

IMHO it is more useful to consider the impact of the massive reduction of social housing in the UK since 1980.

"There are some questions to be asked about the way social housing is allocated, and whether people on high incomes should be asked to give this tax-payer funded accommodation to those who truly need it."

I agree.

On topic, Kemi Badenoch's ideas for avoiding and reducing ghettoisation by forced "integration" seem a bit unimaginative and vague:

"'We need to do what works for the UK, it's not exactly the same situation, we have a much bigger population (than Denmark), and so many other things that would require adjustments, but that sort of thing, yes.'"

Selective allocation of the current social housing stock as it becomes free could be a way to increase integration without evicting anyone.

However, without additional social housing being made available, it would still push local people on low incomes into the private rented sector, homelessness, emergency accommodation, relocating or staying stuck living with parents as singletons or as two families crammed into one dwelling.

This applies in whichever direction integration is occurring.

People living in social housing are already able to relocate to social housing in another area for work reasons under the Right to Move Regulations 2015 or to agree Mutual Exchanges. However, these moves are initiated by tenants rather than being imposed by Government and local Councils.

A more carrot and less stick approach might be to increase social housing stock plus incentivise use of Mutual Exchanges in some way?

If I can find time I am going to have a listen to what she said:

https://www.youtube.com/live/Sqr_a_E_7Lc?si=ygdUWFapgDkW_eaS

ps. I agree with PPs who are happy to have this issue discussed on FWR due to the many implications for women.

None of this really comments on the actual topic the OP though, as far as I can see, which is about avoiding large concentrations of isolated ethnic groups in public housing.

It's clear she is floating the general idea and that she thinks it would need to be adapted to the conditions in the UK.

I live in Singapore and they have an “ethnic integration policy” - ie quotas when you buy the government subsidised housing

It is described as a way to ensure people actually mix and get to know their neighbours vs “racial enclaves”

The same is applied for PR and citizenship

It’s always interesting to see the noise in UK news when something other countries have long ago decided makes sense and they have done for ages is suggested (similar - ID cards, checking people at the border in and out, healthcare reform, improved schooling etc)

Nobody in power wants to do that. The sand is far too compelling for them.

Some feminists don't want to do it either, yet immigration is a feminist issue. High levels of male immigration from sexist cultures where women have little agency is bad. Bending over backwards to demonstrate that it's actually positive or even neutral is just as illogical as pretending that men can become women.

Ghettos, where these men can socially connect and have the opportunity to abuse women as freely as their cultures and society demand, are therefore also bad. And this shouldn't really be a controversial take.

"Ghettos, where these men can socially connect and have the opportunity to abuse women as freely as their cultures and society demand, are therefore also bad. And this shouldn't really be a controversial take."

I agree with what you've written here @Plasticwaste , but these ghettos already exist (I wrote above about an area of Birmingham). I don't see how we can fix the problem now that so much rented housing is in private hands.

It will take a change of mindset, starting with not all culture's are equal. KB's comments might at least start the conversation around immigration. As potatotomata's post says other countries have done something similar, the UK is way behind the curve on this.

Perhaps a job for academia, a study of all the countries who are ahead of us, they could could come up with a plan that might work for us.

But it all starts with a change of mindset, which is where it'll all come unstuck, because those who have convinced themselves that multi-culturalism is morally right, won't change their minds.

What happened around Jess Phillips election was appalling. We should do something. But what?

The East Midlands is poorly integrated. We have pockets of different cultures, among swathes of white ex mining communities living in deprivation. Sticking individual families in those predominantly white areas would take commitment and support. They would be broadly accepted as individuals, but probably still exposed to significant background racism with the occasional knobhead thrown in. There are chunks of our cities that are very much dominated by one culture or another.

Do those areas seed wider integration? Do their young people grow up and move out, fully integrated? Or do they just expand the area?

I've thought about this some more, about the pull factors I mentioned.

I think certain things would help make integration easier. Some of these things might already exist.

• Subsidised/free English lessons for immigrants, with targeted advertising for women. They have this in the foreign country where my mum lives for poor ecomonic immigrants to learn the local language. Edit to add - the take-up is anecdotally majority women who do the classes.
• Increased community services for mums with young children (which is when isolation is most likely to start) I mean like those free stay and plays in children's centres.

Things like this would gradually and organically increase integration.

Controversially, I also think having a high minimum wage is not good for integration. Because it makes it harder for small businesses to hire people, so more work happens off the books, within isolated communities (men helping out at their cousin's garage/corner shop etc).

Racism is why these ghettos exist, because people have bad experiences and feel everywhere is going to be like that so they stay within a community where they feel safe. Sometimes their young children grow up and move out but they are never fully integrated as they still carry with them the legacy of believing that racism accounts for every problem in their life. IME they dont move far enough away as they still want the security of the community. As the generations go on that may diminish - but not while everyone still falls over backwards supporting the idea that anything bad that happens is fuelled by racism. We have a generation that has been trained into believing nothing is ever their fault, there is always someone they can blame.

We still need to work on more equality of opportunity, especially for young people as that enables the moving out. There is also still too much racism in parts of society as the Met Police case has shown. But we also need to reduce the over emphasis on racism, recognising that that actually fuels racism.

It's a very tricky balance to get right. Kemi can race these issues as she is not white, most people are too scared to do so.

I don't know how you could even do this. Our crappy street is ex council and now a mix of housing association, private rental and owned homes. The Asian (mostly Indian I think) families all own their homes (have extensions) so no one has the right to move them anywhere. The women don't speak English well though which I find incredibly sad, we say hello in passing and that's it. Their daughters wear jeans and some wear a loose headscarf so they are much more westernised than their mums.

Social housing isn't 'tax payer funded accommodation'. It's not for profit. Tenants are only charged the amount of rent it costs to fund the repairs and management of the stock, but it's not funded by the taxpayer the costs are covered by the rent. If tenants get a housing element of UC that's taxpayer funded, but it would still be whether tenants live in social housing or privately rented housing, the payment just goes to the local council instead of a private landlord.

Under the old Housing Benefit system council tenants paying rent were actually funding the housing benefit of those who didn't, so actually rent paying council tenants were covering all social housing rents, not the 'the tax payer' in general. I don't know if that's different under UC now.

I agree that well paid people living in social housing are morally on dodgy ground, as they could free it up for others who have no alternative options which they could afford if they chose. But they're not living off the tax payer.