Politics

New Labour’s greatest U-turn of all is its sudden attack on multiculturalism

21 October 2006

It has been embarrassing to watch ministers pile in behind him. Peter Hain declared British Airways to be ‘loopy’ for suspending a female employee who wore the cross. Phil Woolas, the race relations minister, called for the dismissal of the Dewsbury teaching assistant who refused to remove her veil when teaching at a Church of England school. John Prescott declared himself pro-veil and Gordon Brown vaguely declared himself pro-Straw. On Tuesday Tony Blair solemnly proclaimed the veil a ‘mark of separation’.

Yet all this has been the political equivalent of shouting at the television. There is no policy at stake here, nor any question of banning the niqab in Britain. So it is next to irrelevant what ministers think of it. Instead, the veil debate is serving as a catharsis for Labour, allowing ministers to renounce the pro-diversity agenda which the party relentlessly pursued for decades. They do not have quite the right vocabulary, and certainly not a coherent strategy. But Labour has realised its error and is now back-pedalling. The party which fathered multiculturalism suddenly wants to pose as its executioner.

This is natural Conservative territory, which is partly why David Cameron is so wary. Tough rhetoric about Muslim practices is potentially toxic to his project to transform the Tory party’s image, and his first instinct was to say nothing. He has instead let David Davis do the talking, and last weekend approved a Sunday Telegraph article in which the shadow home secretary warned that Muslims risk ‘apartheid’ unless they integrate more. While it had the desired effect, catching up with Labour, the subject itself remains deeply uncomfortable territory for Tory modernisers. Oliver Letwin spoke from the heart when he warned that telling people how to dress would be a ‘dangerous doctrine’.

Having been warned relentlessly since Mr Cameron became leader to say nothing off-message, Tory MPs are reluctantly keeping quiet about an issue which has been of great significance to many of them for years. ‘I admit this has come at a bad time for us, because we’re still trying to show that we have changed,’ one Cameroon told me. ‘Labour will take first-mover advantage on this, and we will have to let them. Most of us would like to be saying what Straw is saying, but it doesn’t fit the overall narrative, and loyal people who want him [Cameron] to do well are relaxed about it.’