Mass immigration to Britain has changed it beyond recognition and turned communities into ghettos, reveals damning report

WHOLE towns have changed “out of all recognition" and sunk into ghettos because of a failure by governments to handle mass immigration, a bombshell Downing Street report reveals today.

Instead, segregation along religious and race lines has spiralled, worsening the pulls of extremism.

In an extraordinary and damning indictment, Dame Louise Casey heaps blame on leaders across the board for not being “robust” enough to tackle the crisis.

For 15 years too many politicians and religious bosses failed to act, either “worrying about being labelled racist” or “hoping it might change”, the senior civil servant insists.

The shocking verdict comes in Dame Louise's long awaited, year-long report on integration – seen in full by The Sun.

It was commissioned by David Cameron in July 2015, but delayed for months amid fears it will embarrass ministers.

Writing for The Sun today to mark the Casey Review’s publication, Dame Louise also insists far too little has been done to support under pressure schools, hospitals and housing in areas hit by new arrivals.

And much more effort should have been made to help integrate the influx, as well as foreign-born Brits already here.

Insisting the time has come for “a bold integration plan”, Dame Louise also calls for the government to instil a far deeper sense of British values.

Respecting and upholding our long standing traditions of tolerance, democracy and respect should be far better enforced - starting with a new system of oaths for all public officials as well as new immigrants.

The PM should lead a push to define and spread "a common sense of what it is to be British and what our common values, rights and responsibilities are".

Dame Louise - who also runs the Troubled Families programme – also writes: “It isn’t racist to say that the pace of change from immigration in recent years has been too much for some communities, such as Barking in East London or Boston in Lincolnshire.

“People are understandably uncomfortable when the character and make up of a town change out of all recognition in five or 10 years.

"What I say in my report today is that, whatever the level of immigration now or in the future, we need to do better at helping people adapt to life in the UK when they arrive and helping all of us who are already here to get to know each other better".

Among a long series of recommendations that Dame Louise makes to ministers to tackle the integration is also to enforce an “expectation” for everyone living in the UK to speak good English – as The Sun revealed on Friday.

Her exhaustive 198 page report – which saw her team interview more than 800 people nationwide – also shines a light on the miserable plight of women in some Asian Muslim communities.

Louise Casey: It is not racist to say change is too much

Officials have ignored women for too long who are forced to suffer “coercive control, violence and criminal acts of abuse, often enacted in the name of cultural or religious values”, she insists.

Too many public institutions have “ignored or even condoned regressive, divisive and harmful cultural and religious practices, for fear of being branded racist or Islamophobic”, the Casey Review itself finds.

As well as failing the vulnerable victims in the communities, “more often it has played straight into the hands of extremists”, it adds.

Stark new racial divides are also unearthed.

In some areas of Blackburn, Birmingham, Burnley and Bradford, as much as 85% of the population is Muslim.

In the 10 years between 2001 and 2011, the number of Muslims in Britain almost doubled, going up by 72% - or 1.2 million – to a total of 2.8 million.

And in 2015, a total of 511 schools across 43 different local authority areas nationwide had 50% or more pupils from Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic backgrounds – the two heritages which see the most segregation.

Some enclaves are so locked out of mainstream interaction that warped views develop, such as the belief that the UK is an Islamic state and 75% of UK is Muslim.

The correct figure is 4.8%.

Ghettos are also growing among other ethnic groups, the Casey Review found.

More than 6,000 people of Roma or Eastern European descent now live largely in just one single council ward in Sheffield.

At the same time as damning leaders’ response to the pace of change, Dame Louise insists she isn’t “anti-immigration” and says Britain has benefited hugely from it, as well as the diversity it has brought.

She also calls for “more of a spirit of unity, compassion and kindness that brings people together under our common British values of tolerance, democracy, equality and respect.”

The report will come as a personal embarrassment to PM Theresa May, who was in charge of immigration policy as Home Secretary for six years.