Cameron launches war on multiculturalism

British Prime Minister David Cameron launches a devastating attack today on 30 years of multiculturalism in Britain, warning it is fostering extremist ideology and directly contributing to home-grown Islamic terrorism.

Signalling a radical departure from the strategies of previous governments, Mr Cameron says that Britain must adopt a policy of "muscular liberalism" to enforce the values of equality, law and freedom of speech across all parts of society.

He warns Muslim groups that if they fail to endorse women's rights or promote integration, they will lose all government funding. All immigrants to Britain must speak English and schools will be expected to teach the country's common culture.

The new policy will be outlined today in a speech to an international security conference in Munich and will form the basis of the Government's new anti-terrorism strategy to be published later this year.

But his remarks have already infuriated Muslim groups, as they come on the day of what is expected to be the largest demonstration so far of anti-Muslim sentiment being planned by the English Defence League. They accused Mr Cameron of placing an unfair onus on minority communities to integrate, while failing to emphasise how the wider community can help immigrants feel more welcome in Britain. They suggested his speech was part of a concerted attack on multiculturalism from centre-right European governments and pointed out he was making it in Germany - where Chancellor Angela Merkel recently made a similar attack.

In his speech, Mr Cameron rejects suggestions that a change in Western foreign policy could stop the Islamic terrorist threat and says Britain needs to tackle the home-grown causes of extremist ideology. "We have failed to provide a vision of society [to young Muslims] to which they feel they want to belong," he will say. "We have even tolerated segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values. All this leaves some young Muslims feeling rootless. And the search for something to belong to and believe in can lead them to extremist ideology."

Mr Cameron blames a doctrine of "state multiculturalism" which encourages different cultures to live separate lives. This, he says, has led to the "failure of some to confront the horrors of forced marriage". But he adds it is also the root cause of radicalisation which can lead to terrorism.

"As evidence emerges about the backgrounds of those convicted of terrorist offences, it is clear that many of them were initially influenced by what some have called 'non-violent extremists' and then took those radical beliefs to the next level by embracing violence. This is an indictment of our approach to these issues in the past. And if we are to defeat this threat, I believe it's time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past.

"Instead of ignoring this extremist ideology, we - as governments and societies - have got to confront it. Instead of encouraging people to live apart, we need a clear sense of shared national identity, open to everyone."

Mr Cameron goes on to suggest a radically new government approach which Downing Street said would form the basis of a review of the "Prevent Strategy", launched under Labour in 2007. "We need to think much harder about who it's in the public interest to work with," he will say. "Some organisations that seek to present themselves as a gateway to the Muslim community are showered with public money despite doing little to combat extremism. This is like turning to a right-wing fascist party to fight a violent white supremacist movement."

He adds, that in future, only organisations which believe in universal human rights - particularly for women - and promote integration will be supported with public money. "Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism," he will say.

But Muslim groups said Mr Cameron's approach was simplistic and would not succeed in tackling extremism. "Communities are not static entities and there are those who see being British as their identity and there are those who do not feel that it is an overriding part of their identity," said Fiyaz Mughal, founder of interfaith group Faith Matters. "Finger-pointing at communities and then cutting social investment into projects is a sure-fire way of causing greater resentment. It blames some communities while his Government slashes social investment."

Inayat Bunglawala, chairman of Muslims4UK, described the speech as "deeply patronising". He said: "The overwhelming majority of UK Muslims are proud to be British and are appalled by the antics of a tiny group of extremists."

In its latest annual survey of immigration attitudes, the German Marshall Fund found that 23 per cent of Britons believed immigration was the country's largest problem. In Canada and the US, where the number of foreign-born people is considerably higher, the figure is closer to 10 per cent.

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