Amid the salt and spray of Brighton, Labour has much to think about, not least the party’s need to reconnect with erstwhile supporters. Some of that is nuts and bolts: the economy, for example. But some of it runs deeper.
Last week, in a wide-ranging speech, Labour sage Jon Cruddas spoke of the need to consider how would-be Labour voters really feel about what is happening around them. “Since 2005, voters who are socially conservative are the most likely to have deserted Labour,” he said. “They value home, family and their country. They feel their cultural identity is under threat. They want a sense of belonging and national renewal. Tradition, rules and social order are important to them. Labour no longer represents their lives.”
There is a nod there to the idea that diversity, or, more specifically, multiculturalism, has caused uncertainty by degrading the common threads that once held tight-knit communities together. How to achieve cohesion when the constituent parts are so different?
Writing in the Times last week, the Tory peer Daniel Finklestein also touched on this area. “I think most of us agree that people shouldn’t have to believe the same things, worship the same god or dress like each other,” he said. “Isn’t the great British principle that if someone wants to keep themselves to themselves, they are welcome to do so?” But there are limits, he said. “I think we do want everyone to be willing to accept the same basic laws, a common attachment to western democracy and a shared responsibility for the nation’s security.”
I won’t take issue with any of that. But the devil is in the detail. Yes, it is about laws, democracy and mutual security. But just as crucial is what happens day to day: do we have common experiences? Do we work in the same places? Do we learn in the same places? Do we watch the same television, giving us shared things to talk about? Do we speak the same language in the public sphere?
These interactions are the really tricky bit. It’s all too easy to speak another language among others who speak it, easy to form separate clusters in schools and in the workplace. Easy, with technology, to only consume culturally specific media. Easy and permissible in a free society but not without consequence for integration. But these micro opt-outs impose their cost on cohesion.
