THE Prime Minister’s integration czar has demanded an end to politically
correct “hand-wringing” over multiculturalism.
Louise Casey, who is working on a major review of integration between
communities, said in a speech on Monday political correctness was the enemy
of equality.
Speaking out against forced marriage and gender inequality in ethnic minority
communities, Miss Casey claimed Brits are now so PC we have forgotten about
equality.
People too embarrassed to tackle abuse within the Muslim community should take
their share of the blame for the problem, she argued.
She suggested more time had been spent “Tippexing out the word ‘Pakistani’ on
children’s files in Rotherham” than talking about the sexual abuse that went
on there.
Here we bring you extracts of her speech, launching a new immigration unit
at the think tank Policy Exchange.
WE need to talk about the elephant in the room. We need to talk about
equality.
I am not happy that women growing up in this country are not treated as equals
by ANYBODY.
They can be a Muslim imam, they can be a bloke they just met on the bus — I
don’t really care. I am a woman in the 21st century and I am equal to any
man. That is the message we need to have.
And if there is a particular religion or party that isn’t prepared to sign up
to that, why does that trump what we fought so hard for here in this country
— to make sure every woman has a vote?
For me, this isn’t a Muslim issue. This is an equality issue.
I spent an hour yesterday with one of the leading experts on forced marriages.
These are happening and it is appalling.
Yet we let some of it happen because we are so politically correct in wanting
our multicultural Britain that we forgot to talk about equality.
We forgot to talk about women’s rights.
We forgot to talk about the fact girls should not, from the age of eight, be
promised to somebody else. I don’t care if it is only five girls. That is
five too many.
This is not just about particular communities needing to integrate. It is
about people on the other side who have been hand-wringing and I will come
at that with some force in our review.
I am not going to ignore the fact there are evil people — paedophiles,
internet groomers, IS — who go for our children.
We need to talk about that.
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Just saying the Government’s Prevent is a busted brand is not enough. We need
to be more sophisticated and have an honest debate about how we do it.
I have not met anybody yet who wants their children to kill us here or go off
and kill over there.
So let’s find a way to get that sorted and stop these things. Our social,
economic and justice agenda should be about equality, regardless of who you
are. It’s all right to say it’s NOT OK to treat your
girls badly.
It doesn’t matter who you are. It’s simply not OK in 21st century Britain and
it’s OK for a white woman to say that.
We need to abandon the orthodox principles of integration and come afresh at
the issue.
I am very interested in looking at the issue of resilience. I look at children
growing up who do not have enough resilience to all sorts of things — to
paedophiles, to nasty groomers, let alone IS.
So we should be looking at the issue of personal resilience and we should be
looking afresh at educational attainment.
It doesn’t matter who you are. You should have the same rights to opportunity.
I think some second-generation families feel their parents put up with it —
living in terrible housing, shutting up, feeling so grateful to be here —
that they would put up with anything.
Well, the next generation aren’t quite so prepared to put up with it.
That is a good thing and I think that changes the debate.
The building blocks, surely, are around integration and resilience.
They are education, employment and opportunity.
— Louise Casey is the Government’s integration czar and director-general of
its Troubled Families unit.
Teller of ‘hard truths’
MINISTERS turn to Louise Casey to say the unsayable.
Her CV includes a stint with homelessness charity Shelter before Tony Blair
named her his anti-social behaviour czar.
In 2010 she became the first Victims’ Commissioner, where she compared
community service to “a holiday camp” for violent offenders. She chairs the
Government’s Troubled Families unit and led a probe into social services in
Rotherham, where Asian-dominated sex gangs abused as many as 1,600 children.
A Whitehall source said the outspoken Miss Casey could deliver “hard truths”
to the Muslim community that ministers could not.