| 9 mins read
In unveiling the government’s white paper on immigration, Keir Starmer warned that Britain risks becoming an “island of strangers.” Much has been made of this statement, not least the fact that it runs uncomfortably close to Enoch Powell’s warning decades earlier that the English were becoming “strangers in their own country.” The statement appears designed to win back voters drifting toward Reform UK. But, in attempting to outflank Reform on immigration, Labour also risks alienating its progressive base, who are deeply uneasy with what they see as reactive, punitive change.
This issue was explored in our conversation, organised in conjunction with the Orwell Foundation, between Tariq Modood, founding director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship and a leading thinker on multiculturalism, Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, and Nicola Kelly, journalist and author of Anywhere But Here: How Britain's Broken Asylum System Fails Us All, chaired by the Orwell Foundation’s deputy director, Liz Wallace.
The importance of belonging
Central to this conversation was the question: whose responsibility is it to ensure a sense of belonging in Britain today? The importance of belonging is underlined by recent polling data by More In Common. In fact, 44% of Britons say they feel like strangers, and half say they feel disconnected from the society around them, and the research also shows that Asian Britons are the ethnic group most likely to feel like strangers (47%), slightly more than white Britons (44%). One core concern raised time and time again seems to be that our society’s structures no longer work for us, nor accurately express who we are. What we know Britain can be no longer resonates with what Britain is. There are two issues here, one is identity based and the other is structural, but they seem to be mutually reinforcing.
Indeed, financial insecurity is one of the strongest predictors of the strength of this disconnection. Two-thirds of those who say they struggle to make ends meet also say they feel disconnected from society, compared to just over a third of those who describe themselves as financially comfortable. The figures point to something deeper than cultural unease — a systemic breakdown of fairness and the sense that we look out for one another. According to Ipsos Mori, over 70% of Britons now believe the system is ‘rigged to serve the rich and influential.’ The perception is that we are, in fact, becoming a country of strangers, not because of who lives here, but because of how we live together. An ever-present cost-of-living crisis does nothing to ease these concerns, while cuts, now belatedly reversed, to the winter fuel allowance appear cruel and disrespectful to our citizens. As our speakers suggested, when policy no longer sustains that sense of a common good, our shared sense of identity breaks down. The suggestion seems to be that the government is, in part, responsible for ensuring belonging—and is often failing.
Unifying narratives
However, there is reason to be optimistic. Both Tariq Modood and Sunder Katwala argued for a revitalised identity grounded in shared belonging and powerful, unifying narratives—of who we were, who we are, and where we are going. Katwala stressed that citizenship should offer people a place in the national story, a chance to say: “This is my history, my story of belonging, let me share it with you”. Moreover, Modood’s multicultural nationalism insists that cohesion and belonging must be built through the collective effort of recognition, participation, and a commitment to pluralism; insisting that people do not shed their identities to belong, but and add them to what already exists.
Such a project for a remaking of national belonging connects with something deeper—the idea that, beyond government, we all have a role to play in stitching this society back together. Fully 73% of people say it is our duty as citizens to encourage interaction and integration between different communities. This is evidence of potential power of a ‘two-sided integration’— the dialogue between our majority and minority cultures in the interests of remaking the national story—in practice. It resonates with people; they just want some way to channel it. Even as trust declines and frustrations grow, the desire for that common ground has not yet disappeared.
Our speakers were keen to stress that this ‘optimistic’ position represents a path forward. By telling an integrated story of our past, present and future, we can connect individual and community contributions across time. If they are right, the success of those reforms may hinge on the stories we choose to tell, and what we decide Britain is, or can be. However, this is not an easy task. Indeed, Katwala says it also means ‘putting the kettle on’ and sitting down with those that we may disagree with, to find some way to mutually and respectfully engage.
Finding a balance
The Labour government could show people it is serious about immigration control in a way that is distinct from Reform and is, broadly speaking, ‘fair’. According to British Future, most people are ‘balancers’, willing to compromise. They are likely to accept an expansion of visas for care workers if it clear that this will mean stronger public services, and tend to support the expansion of legal routes for asylum seekers if it can demonstrably cut down the 4% of migrants coming to Britain in so-called ‘small boats’.
But, as Nicola Kelly indicated, we also need to have a frank and honest conversation about the other 96% of immigration. This needs to go beyond the divisive rhetoric to find a balance between the identity anxieties of some Britons, whilst reflecting those, and many other, Britons same desires for strong public services, not to mention many new arrivals desires for citizenship. Indeed, our speakers agreed that citizenship should be a priority, and questioned the Immigration White Paper’s suggestion of increasing the residency requirement to 10 years. Decades of structural decline have also torn at the fabric of our nation.
Nicola Kelly underlined how badly our policies are failing to meet that desire for belonging, decency and commonality. For one, she lays bare the human cost of the current immigration and asylum system—one that locks thousands of people out of work, housing, stability, even as vital public services strain under workforce shortages, likely only to be made worse by Labour’s White Paper. In the NHS and social care especially, the very people who are demonised by politicians could be central to the solution, if only they were allowed to participate. There is something both hopeful and damning in that. Hopeful, because it suggests that people want to contribute. Damning, because our current system treats that potential as a threat.
In a sense, we lack not only a clear sense of who we are, but we are also devoid of policy which makes Britain feel fairer, supports our public services, and which dignifies those that come to this country in search of a new life. Each of our speakers know that belonging is not something that happens overnight. It has to be built—through housing, education, associational infrastructure, political leadership, and our national stories. Britons are deeply disillusioned with the system, but they are not apathetic. They want a society that works better, is fairer, and brings people together. And there may be some policies we can draw from to find this balance. As Nicola Kelly points out, the Ukrainian visa scheme offers the right to work, but not necessarily a path to permanent residency. Is this the basis of an acceptable compromise? And what about those who might wish to become citizens? Fundamental questions still remain, but our speakers suggested that yes, we can all belong—but we must be willing to work for it.
