Fear and HOPE 2024 | Multiculturalism and community resilience

24 09 24

What is multiculturalism? 

Multiculturalism can be understood in two ways: 

  1. The demographic reality of a society in which numerous ethnic and cultural groups exist;
  2. A state’s capacity to manage cultural plurality and achieve cultural coexistence.

In political and popular discourse, the term multiculturalism therefore both evokes demographic changes as well as the political, legal and cultural debates over how to respond to and accommodate them. 

Government responsibility rests with the latter, which encompasses a broad spectrum of initiatives aimed at achieving collective recognition, respect and valuing of different groups of people, who all have the same rights, responsibilities and laws. As discussed previously, managing cultural plurality within the UK has been approached through the idea of a shared national identity of Britishness; cultural difference is recognised and valued so long as there is a minimum common ground of shared values and responsibilities that allow for successful coexistence. 

Assimilation, integration and cohesion: What’s the difference? 

Assimilation: Assimilation requires newcomers into a society to conform to the host country’s pre-existing identity. Immigrants adopt the culture of a host country and reject their own heritage and culture. This approach has been widely critiqued for the colonial power dynamics associated with the resulting loss of culture and history, and the negative psychological effects it can also have on immigrants.

Integration: Integration involves newcomers adopting certain aspects of the host country’s culture, whilst preserving elements of their own. The overarching aim is to maintain aspects of individual cultural identities, but also create common cultural values and customs. Whilst the preservation of immigrant culture is often applauded as an improvement on the assimilation approach, integration has been critiqued for conceptualising cultural coexistence as a ‘one-way street’. Crucially, it puts an onus on newcomers to adapt to the host country’s culture and overlooks the role that the host country should also play in welcoming them.

Cohesion: Cohesion defines cultural coexistence as a ‘two-way street’, with responsibilities placed on both immigrants and those already in the host country. Like integration, it allows for immigrants to maintain their cultural identity, whilst adopting certain values and customs that create a shared identity. However, it identifies cultural coexistence as a collaborative process, one where host communities also have responsibilities to respond to, adapt to and accommodate newcomers to create an environment that is welcoming, tolerant and not only upholds but celebrates cultural difference.

Public attitudes

Over the last few decades there has been notable progress in attitudes towards diversity, reflective of improvements in race relations more broadly. Whilst this trend is due to a combination of intersecting factors, it is likely largely driven by two long-term social trends: generational shifts in tolerant attitudes and rising education levels.

However, in recent years there has been a discernable dampening of attitudes towards multiculturalism. Today, over half of the country believes that multiculturalism is not working, and just under half believe that multiculturalism has undermined British culture. 

Analysis of our polling shows people who are older, white and have below degree level qualifications are more likely to be opposed to multiculturalism, as does having right-leaning political views, being Christian or non-religious. Interestingly, despite the general trend that women lean towards more liberal attitudes, gender does not have a significant influence on attitudes towards multiculturalism.

A battle for British identity 

British identity in a state of flux 

British identity used to be an ethno-religious characterisation reflective of pre-WWII war demographics – white and Christian. But the post-war collapse of the British empire, and the migration that followed this, saw the reality of what Britain and Britons look like change drastically. The political and cultural construction of Britishness was made fragile by this process, prompting the pursuit of a new British identity that would unite the increasingly diverse population. 

There have been various high points where inclusive British identities and narratives of belonging have been spotlighted. The 2012 Olympics and the Diamond and Platinum Jubilees of Queen Elizabeth II are both examples of when a broad range of groups have all been invited to celebrate and participate in Britishness. 

However, the broader success of these moments in creating an inclusive British identity have been limited by a narrow and shallow conceptualising of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism has been largely understood through the lens of integration and assimilation, and primarily in terms of racial rather than cultural difference. 

Former Prime Ministers David Cameron and Theresa May in particular constructed national identity in terms of a shared and cohesive set of ‘British’ values. The pursuit of a multicultural Britain under the ex-Conservative Government has been carefully and purposefully constructed as arguably nothing more than a multi-racial monoculture, racially inclusive but culturally exclusive – they don’t have to look like us but they have to act like us. 

This has allowed cultural racism to replace biological racism as justification for negative attitudes towards ethnic minority communities. Those who oppose the demographic changes occuring in Britain have a loophole to articulate this racism through narratives of ‘Britishness’ – the ‘crisis’ of multiculturalism has become an acceptable means to oppose the realities of a demographically diverse Britain. 

Key trigger events have been exploited by divisive actors to highlight the ‘dangers’ of multiculturalism and ‘failures’ of integration and assimilation to make a wider case for excluding certain groups from not just British identity but British soil. The grooming gang scandals in Rotherham and Oldham were ‘proof’ that Islam ‘promotes’ paedophilia, the 2017 Islamist terror attacks ‘confirmed’ that ‘violent’ Muslims were not loyal to Britain, and the attack of a 31-year-old woman and her two children in Clapham by Afghan asylum seeker Abdul Azedi in February 2024 fed into ‘Stop the boats’ discourse about immigrants as a danger to women. 

Many minority communities have pushed back against this framing. Crucially, their exclusion from British identity is not just a conceptual question of imagined communities but has real tangible and violent repercussions as related to the privileges and protections afforded by ‘Britishness’. Riots broke out across the country in 2011 following the shooting of Mark Duggan by the Metropolitan Police in Tottenham. Nine years later, protesters took to the streets despite lockdown restrictions for Black Lives Matter in the UK, highlighting the active racism that remains woven into the structures that create Britain and the automatic exclusion of minority communities from ‘Britishness’ that this upholds. 

Who is British today?

When asked what the most important characteristics are to be regarded as British, the most common answers from polling respondents were: contributing to British society e.g. through tax or work (63%) and embracing and being proud of British customs and way of life (49%). 

This is reflective of the socio-cultural and political construction of British identity in the post-war period. The contribution of commonwealth workers to rebuilding the nation was front and centre of this. Despite the mistreatments of these workers later exposed by the Windrush scandal, this framing of Britishness has seeped into public consciousness and remains today. Similarly, as explored elsewhere in this report, the framing of multiculturalism as a shared culture of customs and values has become the most recent way in which Britishness has been positioned.

Whilst these narratives were created to make British identity more inclusive, they are also being used as evidence that multiculturalism is failing. Indeed, scrounger narratives about immigrants and ethnic minorities are front and centre of many anti-multiculturalism narratives, particularly the perception that certain minority communities have more children to claim more benefits. Similarly, discussions about (in)compatible values have recently been on the front pages in response to the pro-Palestine demonstrations and, and the ‘sectarian’ Muslim vote that has been painted as being contradictory to the interests of the British vote. 

Perceptions of British identity are attuned to wider perceptions of multiculturalism. Those opposed to multiculturalism are more likely to subscribe to immutable ethnocentric markers of British identity, and much less likely to adopt the socio-cultural interpretations developed under the banner of multiculturalism. For example, 54% of those opposed to multiculturalism think being born in Britain is one of the top three most important factors that make someone British, compared to 45% of those who are in favour of it. This also aligns with how this group views their own identity; they are more likely to believe that ethno-national characteristics are the most significant influences on their identity.

This is unsurprising. For many, opposition to multiculturalism is rooted in exclusive perceptions of white British racial and Christian religious identity being diluted by the increasingly diverse reality of a demographically changing country and the incorporation of what are perceived as inferior cultures. It is clear that many in this group are resistant to attempts to reframe Britishness as an socio-cultural identity, instead of just an ethno-religious one.

Impact on cohesion 

This growing opposition to multiculturalism is notably impacting cohesion. Six in ten note an increasing amount of tension between different groups living in Britain (61%), in line with the post-Brexit peak in 2016 (62%). Today, half see race and ethnicity (54%) and religion (48%) as the biggest causes of division in the UK, with 63% believing that relationships between different ethnic groups have gotten worse over the last 10 years.

Local experiences 

Interestingly, there is notable dissonance in perceptions of national versus local community and identity. Whilst 61% think tensions between different groups are getting worse nationally, 62% of respondents agree that their local community is peaceful and friendly. Interestingly, despite attitudes towards multiculturalism and perceptions of cohesion worsening over time, appetite for strong local relationships has remained consistent. Today, 41% want to get to know their neighbours better.

However, there seems to be a disconnect between appetite, opportunity and take up for strengthening local social connections. Participation at the local level in community spaces is low – only 27% volunteer in their local community and 39% visit a local community hub more than once a month.


It is therefore no surprise that contact between different religious groups has considerably reduced, with the percentage of those never coming into contact with other groups doubling since 2011. These shared community spaces and opportunities for participation in local community life are crucial for forming connections outside of your immediate circle and strengthening the creation of a local identity that includes multiple demographics. However, the cutting back of local funding for ‘non-essential’ services as well as increased individualisation of society more broadly has resulted in the reduced existence and use of such spaces and opportunities.

Intergroup contact theory, first introduced in the 1950s, suggests that positive interactions between people from different groups can reduce prejudice and promote more harmonious relations. However, it is too simplistic to employ this approach to say that reduced contact has been the cause of enhanced hostility towards different minority groups, and multiculturalism more broadly. Our polling finds that level of contact does not correlate with hostility of attitudes. Respondents were twice as likely to never come into contact with Jews and Sikhs than Muslims, but three times less likely to believe these religious groups create problems in the UK compared to Muslims.

This supports the decoupling analysis discussed elsewhere in this report, and adds important nuance to discussions about multiculturalism. Opposition to multiculturalism is not simply opposition to the ‘Other’; for many it is driven by anti-Muslim sentiment in particular, irrespective of levels of contact.

Multiculturalism has “failed”

These dampening public attitudes towards multiculturalism come as little surprise when assessing the wider political landscape within which they have formed. Multiculturalism has been under attack by the right for many years now, with widespread efforts to pitch it as having failed. This anti-multiculturalism agenda is no longer confined to the fringes, and is now increasingly a mainstream, and therefore normalised, narrative.

But what does failure actually mean? It is largely referring to the second definition of multiculturalism given above, arguing that the state has failed to ‘manage’ cultural plurality and that cultural coexistence has not been achieved. 

This is a recurrent framing whereby ethnic minority groups within Britain are accused of failing or refusing to assimilate or integrate into British values and way of life. Crucially, rather than offering practical recommendations for how a more unified national identity could be constructed, this is often accompanied by inflammatory and alarmist calls about the supposed threat that this presents to wider society. Worryingly, this framing is increasingly used by ‘mainstream’ politicians:  

  • • In 2011, David Cameron used his first speech as Prime Minister to critique multiculturalism for creating communities that behave in ways that “run counter to our values”. Whilst he correctly identified that building a stronger sense of national and local identity holds “the key to achieving true cohesion”, he went on to blame “passive tolerance” for multiculturalism as a cause of terrorism in the UK. Many commentators at the time were disappointed that he so intimately connected issues of national identity, multiculturalism and cohesion along with Islamist extremism.
  • •More recently, just weeks before Hamas’s attack in Israel and Israel’s disproportionately brutal response in Gaza, Suella Braverman echoed Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech to criticise the “misguided dogma of multiculturalism” as “toxic”, for Europe. She claimed that many who enter the UK do not “sign up for British values” and are “undermining the stability and threatening the security of society”. Given her then role as Home Secretary, it is no surprise that the wider political response to pro-Palestine demonstrations was so hostile. 
  • • Similarly, around the 2024 General Election, Muslims voting for independent candidates running on pro-Gaza platforms were accused by Labour candidate Jonathan Ashworth as engaging in “sectarian politics” and voting against the interests of the country. 
  • • In his election campaign speech in Blackpool, Nigel Farage spoke of “young men” in “Blackburn… Burnley… Leeds… [and Bradford]” who were “allowed… to come in too fast” and have been “impossible to integrate”. Whilst not referring to Muslims directly, his reference to them “loath[ing] Judeo-Christian Values” that are the “fundaments [sic] upon which our country was built” makes it clear to whom he was speaking about. 
  • • As part of his campaign for Conservative Party leadership, Robert Jenrick has claimed that Britain is “under threat” from mass immigration. He argues that “non-integrating multiculturalism” has resulted in the “dismantling of our national culture” and “weakened English identity” which has “put the very idea of England at risk”. 

Stripped back, opposition to multiculturalism is a reaction to the demographic changes occurring in Britain. For some, this is simply a reaction to destabilisation they feel about the rapid changes occurring around them. However, for others, this is rooted in the perception that Britishness, and therefore Britain, should be exclusively white and/or Christian. 

  1. 1. Controlling participation in public life 

For some, the story of multiculturalism failing is used to advocate for curbing (perfectly legal) activities of groups that they view as unsatisfactory, by portraying it as antithetical to British values. The aim of this framing is not necessarily opposing the demographic realities of multiculturalism or calling for an exclusively white, Christian Britain, rather pushing for an ‘assimilation’ approach to cohesion that controls how these groups can participate in public life; multiculturalism is tolerable so long as those of different cultures behave in a certain way. For this group, Britishness isn’t explicitly about how people look but how they act, but how they act is largely prescribed by the socio-cultural and political norms dictated by whiteness and Eurocentricity. 

Many hostile reactions to the pro-Palestine protests have used this framing and as a result we saw counter-terrorism laws being tightened in order to restrict protest activity. The marches supposedly being an “affront to British values” and encouraging “extremist ideologies” saw Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, introduce a new, stricter definition of extremism in March 2024. Although this definition is non-statutory and applied only to the Government and civil service, many have viewed this to be an attempt to specifically clamp down on Palestinian solidarity and Muslim ‘mob rule’, as well as an opportunity to press forward with the recommendations from the Shawcross report. The Shawcross report itself is already criticised for its overt anti-Muslim framing and attempts to restrict Muslim participation in public and political life. 

  1. 2. Controlling immigration 

For others, the failure narrative ties heavily to wider discussions around curbing immigration. The aim here is to spread panic about the supposed risks and threats of multiculturalism, the cultural incompatibility between different groups and the resulting failures to culturally coexist in order to heavily restrict, or even completely stop, the number of non-white or non-Christian people coming to the UK.

This is not to say that everyone wanting to restrict immigration is doing so for these reasons. This particular anti-multiculturalism framing often gets muddled in with other concerns about the scale of migration into the country and the pressure this places on public services. But a distinction between the two is crucial; the key difference is that this group leans heavily into racist tropes around criminality and fundamental cultural incompatibility in order to push their anti-immigration agenda.

We saw this in 2017 after the Westminster Bridge terror attack, where Nigel Farage claimed: “Frankly, if you open your door to uncontrolled immigration from Middle Eastern countries, you are inviting in terrorism”. Similarly, following the acid attack on a woman and her daughter in Clapham, London in February 2024 by refugee Abdul Ezedi, rather than focusing on the need to address violence against women and girls, many on the right chose to focus on his ethnicity and immigration status in order to demonise refugees and push for stricter immigration measures as a matter of safety. Commentators were quick to link acid attacks to Islamic culture supposedly ‘imported’ by immigrants.

Worryingly, this overlaps with Great Replacement Theory narratives. The Great Replacement Theory is the white nationalist, far-right conspiracy theory that ‘native’ white Brits are being deliberately replaced by non-white people through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans. Once confined to the fringes of the far right, this thinking has now infiltrated mainstream spaces. Ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman, for example, used her speech at the American Enterprise Institute to warn that: “if cultural change is too rapid and too big, then what was already there is diluted. Eventually, it will disappear”. 

  1. 3. Instigating violence 

For a small but active minority, the claim that multiculturalism is failing is used to justify calls for physical violence. They do not only believe that inherent cultural incompatibility means that coexistence will never occur, but that it is dragging us into some sort of civil war and that they have a duty to defend their country. This was a central narrative driving the far-right riots in August; in Hartlepool, for example, a police car was set on fire and an Asian man was punched in the face as crowds of young men chanted “we want our country back”.

What Southport and the far-right riots tells us about multiculturalism

The nationwide riots following the murder of three young girls in Southport exemplifies just how volatile attitudes towards multiculturalism have become. 

Following the tragic attack, high profile far-right figures were quick to create, amplify and spread rumours about the attacker being a Muslim, ‘illegal’ migrant who had arrived on a small boat a year ago. Tommy Robinson posted a seven minute long video onto X with the caption: “There’s more evidence to suggest Islam is a mental health issue rather than a religion of peace”. In this video he recklessly tells his 800,000 followers: “They’re replacing the British nation with hostile, violent, aggressive migrants … Your children don’t matter to [the Labour government]”. Nigel Farage further stoked the flames by taking to X and asking “whether the truth is being withheld” about the identity and terror-status of the incident, further fuelling speculations that this was an Islamist attack. 

The speed with which misinformation and disinformation was spread and how quickly people were not only willing to believe it, but act on it, is deeply concerning. The riots that followed have exposed the sheer volume of people across the UK who not only hold racist, anti-migrant and anti-Muslim views, but are also willing to engage in violence given the opportunity. Even after the police released the identity of the attacker with the explicit aim to “remove some of the misreporting” around it, misinformation continued to spread, and riots continued to be organised. 

People went beyond legitimate forms of legal protest and freedom expression to incite violence and even encourage acts of terror. We witnessed senseless violence targeting Muslims, migrants and ethnic minority communities more broadly. This included mosques being vandalised, people being pulled out of cars and attacked, and hotels for people seeking asylum in Tamworth and Rotherham being set alight with people still inside. Across the country, chants of “we want our country back” accompanied acts of violence.  

What should have been a period of mourning for the country to come together became hijacked by those pushing the narrative that the political programme of multiculturalism has failed, and the reality of multiculturalism in the UK is a threat to white British children, as well as the idea of a white Britain as a whole. 

The sheer volatility around multiculturalism has never been more apparent, as has the dangerous efficiency of far-right antagonism around it. Whilst the violence from this particular event has dissipated, it leaves the question of what the next trigger event will be that sparks the next bout of violence that further divides communities, and whether communities will be prepared to deal with it.

Why is multiculturalism important for resilience? 

Community resilience is crucial for sustainable and thriving communities, as it allows for the adaptation and growth of a community during and after periods of hardship that would otherwise make them vulnerable to far-right agitation. Here, we look at how attitudes towards multiculturalism affect the three main characteristics of resilience.

Social connectedness

As we have shown, attitudes towards multiculturalism influence perceptions of Britishness which, in its most basic form, determines who people feel are part of their national community. When people are opposed to multiculturalism, this national community becomes increasingly exclusive as Muslims, migrants and ethnic minority communities are excluded from Britishness. 

Crucially it is not just an absence of connectedness that has resulted from this, but a direct hostility to the groups mentioned above, rooted in a perception of them as not just external but a threat to the national community. As discussed, we saw this narrative play out in the far-right riots in August 2024; the country should have come together and collectively mourned, but low levels of social connectedness meant many were drawn into responding with Islamophobia, racism and violence. 

The inflammatory rhetoric pushed by far-right actors was so successful at instigating violence because of the fact that attitudes towards multiculturalism and social connections were already so fractured and tense. Without a common identity or perceptions of a shared community, divisive actors are easily able to manipulate trigger points to further spread division during times of strain or crisis. 

Resource availability

Public attitudes towards multiculturalism do not necessarily impact resource availability or distribution, but they do impact perceptions of it. Deserving versus undeserving tropes are frequently deployed when discussing who should benefit from Britishness and receive financial support from the state. As explored previously, immigrant scrounger narratives play a large role in anti-multiculturalism. 

This impacts resilience as it gives ammunition for scapegoating in times of financial strain, particularly where it overlaps with anti-migrant narratives. Narratives of scarcity are able to be constructed in a way that places blame on non-white communities, pitting them against each other. 

There is an urgent need to reframe conversations around resource availability, away from depictions of competition for finite resources and towards one that is solidarity-based. However, this must also come alongside genuine material change to people’s finances and economic security. 

Agency and empowerment

Opposition to multiculturalism is a product of anger at a rapidly changing world and feeling helpless and excluded from setting the direction of travel.

This is not to excuse or explain away the racism that often underlies this. But it is important to note that commonly used anti-multiculturalism slogans also denote perceptions of powerlessness and desire to have agency: “we need to take back control”, “enough is enough”. 

Multiculturalism is therefore another item on the list of issues that many Britions feel they have no agency over, whether that be migration, cost of living or democracy more widely. They feel as though multiculturalism is happening to them, rather than something they are participating in. 

These feelings of powerlessness hugely lower resilience to far-right agitation, as they are easily exploited into an anti-politics agenda that positions the far right as “defenders” against multiculturalism.

What’s next for multiculturalism? 

Despite the poor attitudes towards multiculturalism and cohesion, there remains a sizable appetite for interventions that address this. 72% of respondents want to see the Government improve cohesion between different communities.

The Government cannot be a neutral actor in this issue. They have to be on the front foot, actively reframing conversations on multiculturalism and pursuing cohesive communities. Being ‘neutral’ is simply ignoring the problem and leaving a vacuum for far-right narratives to fill. 

However, the solutions most popular for improving relations only further highlight the extent to which narratives of multiculturalism have been successfully co-opted by the far right. 

The most popular solution people wanted to see to improve cohesion was tighter controls on immigration (31%). This not only shows how intimately tied together narratives on migration and multiculturalism are, but crucially also how multiculturalism and cohesion are still largely viewed through an integration lens and blamed on newcomers’ failure to adapt rather than the hostility of those already there. Unsurprisingly, Reform voters are twice as likely to support this as a measure to improve cohesion (62%). 

The second most popular cohesion intervention was being tough on those who stir up tensions between communities (25%). We’ve seen this particular approach play out in the post-riots landscape, with long sentences for those involved in the disorder. Whilst it is important that criminal offences are punished appropriately, wider rehabilitative and reeducation initiatives must go alongside this. A ‘law and order’ approach only works as a sticking plaster for a chronic wound. 

The next most popular interventions were initiatives that bring communities together (21%) and better funded public services for all (21%). Although a smaller response, this does demonstrate support for resilience based interventions that approach multiculturalism and cohesion from a more holistic angle. Tensions around multiculturalism must be reframed as a shortcoming of resilience, rather than assimilation or integration. This will boost support for more holistic solutions that address structural conditions and give responsibilities to host communities, rather than simply interventions in immigrant communities. 

Ultimately, there is an urgent need for a new story of multiculturalism – one that celebrates and promotes cultural plurality, rather than seeking to contain or control it. 

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT

Our latest report identifies the drivers of fear and hope and the triggers that push people from one to the other. This year, we look at 2024 as a pivotal point for the UK, with the General Election in July and riots in August. We look back at the archive of Fear and HOPE reports since 2011, seeing how public attitudes have changed under 14 years of Conservative governments. Download the full report today.

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