In the build-up to the 2024 Tory leadership election, Kemi Badenoch declared that ‘not all cultures are equal’. Her argument – that we can be a thriving multi-ethnic nation while expecting everyone to adhere to British cultural values – was met with fury. For some of Badenoch’s critics, the mere suggestion that certain foreign value systems are inferior to those of a western liberal democracy was beyond the pale. All the usual buzzwords were deployed: racist, fascist, far-right. Labour MP Dawn Butler shared a social media post deriding the Tory leader as ‘white supremacy in blackface’.
Now, the Home Office has inadvertently vindicated the very argument for which Badenoch was admonished by her left-wing critics. The department’s newly released guidebook for asylum seekers effectively tells them that, while denying women an education or bodily autonomy may be accepted in the cultural fabric of their home countries, such behaviour is morally and legally unacceptable here.
At the very least, the public now knows – although not because the government chose to tell them – that ministers recognise there is a problem. They understand that many people entering the country illegally come from cultures with medieval moral codes. Where Andy Burnham once again missed the mark on immigration today, however, was in treating this as an understandable or normal position for the country to find itself in.
During a visit to an illegal waste dump in Bradford, the Prime Minister responded to questions about the guidebook, saying: ‘If you break UK law, you will be removed from the country. I’m currently working to ensure that foreign national offenders who can be removed from the prison system are removed from that system. So, it follows that if we’re taking this approach, it’s made explicitly clear what the UK law is and what the societal norms of the UK are and that’s why this approach is being taken now.’
Burnham’s remarks brush over the glaring scandal: that the UK is systematically accommodating men who entered the country illegally and apparently need to be told that it is morally repugnant to rape a woman – or even a child. We cannot easily turn them away, but hey, we can give them a leaflet explaining that men and women are equal. The Prime Minister’s remarks totally dodge the more fundamental question of why people who require such guidance from the Home Office are being looked after here in the first place.
Badenoch, by contrast, said of the guidebook: ‘Anyone needing this leaflet does not belong in Britain. I’ve been warning for a long time that not all cultures are equal. Britain can be proudly multi-ethnic, but we should not be multi-cultural.’ Nigel Farage has also long warned that migrants from cultures with backwards and medieval views about women and Jews are being allowed into Britain too easily – both legally and illegally.
Bizarrely, the response from some Labour MPs has been to point out that British men can be rapists too. Former Home Office minister Jess Phillips cited her experience of working with Polish victims of sexual violence who were unaware of the different protections and expectations surrounding abuse in Britain. Again, these arguments sorely miss the point. Of course, there are British-born rapists, sexists and abusers. Such men exist across the world. That only raises the question of why politicians believe communities have any appetite to import more of them – and even pay for the privilege.
I know there are Labour MPs who are aghast at this entire situation and who have long campaigned behind the scenes to bring the farce to an end. Burnham’s comments today suggest that, once again, the message has still not quite landed.
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