Head of CRE argues that nature of segregation has changed, while Sukhvinder Stubbs argues that integration is euphemism for problems of poor minorities, at the Fabian Britishness conference.

Speakers: Richard Brooks, Ted Cantle, David Edgar, Ed Miliband, Trevor Phillips, Sukhvinder Stubbs,

'Our citizenship shouldn't be just a passport', argued Trevor Phillips at the Fabian Britishness conference as a panellists argued that the riots in France and the bombings last year in London are linked to a new 'hyper-diversity' where the nature of segregation is changing.

'Implicit understandings about what it means to be British no longer exist. We can't any longer continue to assume that people will come to understand what Britain is and British manners are', said Phillips, chief executive of the Commission for Racial Equality, arguing that 'as long as citizenship tests are applied universally to new immigrants, it is perfectly acceptable to ask people to make the smallest gesture'.. Indeed, he went further, and suggested that a citizenship test 'be made compulsory for everybody at the age of 18'.

Phillips argued for 'the value of Britishness is that it offers a transcendent identity which stops people having to choose between those who share their religion or people who look like them. It gives them a way of fitting in that isn't dependent on their religion, or how long they've been here.'

Ted Cantle, Associate Director of the Improvement & Development Agency, said that 'the level of segregation at the moment is unsustainable, and will undoubtedly lead to difficulties if left unchecked.

'Residential segregation is compounded by segregation in education, employment, and social and cultural segregation'. This means we need to target resources at those communities, to tackle the 'compound effect of multiple segregation'. But we also know that 'area-based initiatives have contributed to the problem in the past', he said.

He also observed that 'we tend to focus upon the six main ethnic minority groups, but actually we're much more global, with 300 languages now spoken in this country. This means that we have to think about diversity in an entirely different way than we thought about it in the past. We have to make identity more international'.

Comparing the situation in Britain to that in France, the playwright David Edgar remarked that 'it's worth saying that the move from a mono-ethnic to a multi-ethnic society has generally been a success' – though he cautioned against a multiculturalism characterised by 'benign celebration', and warned that a more sophisticated view of Britishness is needed than that of a 'multi-choice, multi-identity' view, typified by 'people sitting in Starbucks choosing what identity we're going to have today'.

Phillips said his argument was against 'a happy-clappy style of multiculturalism, which assumes that if we say enough times that diversity is great then we can overcome the fact that people who come from different backgrounds have different ways of expressing their citizenship.' In his view, 'the events in France and 7/7 have thrown up an entirely new set of questions which for my whole life we've pretended didn't exist: questions about the appropriate role of women; about the way we talk to each other; about how we treat our children; and about what constitutes an acceptable lifestyle'.

Richard Brooks of the Fabian Society observed that the pattern of disadvantage and segregation is 'incredibly complex'. 'We know quite a lot about geographic segregation, but we know less about the habits, mores, culture, beliefs and practices, patterns of the mind' that are distinctive to different groups.' He identified two big problems with this debate. 'First, it is hard to sustain interest in these debates, which tend to be cyclical in intensity. Sadly, interest tends to peak after the kind of tragic event we saw last July.' Second, it is difficult to have the debate because terms such as 'the Muslim community' and 'community leaders' are so disputed. He argued that 'we need to start by putting poverty and life chances at the centre of progressive politics', which means 'improving incomes' and 'improving chances through Public Services'.

Sukhvinder Stubbs, chief executive of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, commented on the new 'hyperdiversity' that we see in contemporary Britain, in which 'old divisions of Black and White have become too black and white'.

'Integration is something rich people worry about when it comes to the poor', she said. 'While we worry about the integration of minority ethnic people living in deprived areas, 'we take for granted places, such as Golders Green, where minority ethnic people live, if they are relatively wealthy and self-sufficient.' In her view, 'Integration is an euphemism for poor black and minority ethnic people and the problems they have.' She warned that policy-makers 'can't lecture about what is acceptable' – or attempt to impose 'top-down' solutions.

Arguing that 'what people have is more important than who they are', Sukhvinder Subbs said that we should focus on 'lack of money and resources, rather than ethnic differences'. What is needed, she said, is a 'synthesis of race and poverty at the local level in the way that resources are allocated' – though she warned that 'we mustn't underestimate the simmering resentment that exists at local level', for example about the way that 'anti-poverty resources are targeted'. Nevertheless, 'if we look after disadvantage, then identity will look after itself', she said.

Trevor Phillips took a different view, arguing that 'of course there is a huge overlap between ethnic minorities and socio-economic disadvantage, but they are not the same thing. We will not solve these problems by making black people rich. We will not change black African attitudes towards homosexuality, by making black people middle-class. We need to stop kidding ourselves that this is just about poverty,' he said.

'Living together or living apart: how much integration do we need?' at the Fabian New Year Conference 2006 with Richard Brooks, Fabian Society, Ted Cantle, IDeA , David Edgar, Playwright, Trevor Phillips, Commission for Racial Equality, Sukhvinder Stubbs, Barrow Cadbury Trust and chaired by Ed Miliband MP. The panel discussion took part at Who do we want to be? The Future of Britishness' on January 14, 2006, at Imperial College London.

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