Mired in guilt over the crimes of the nazis, most Germans have gone along with edicts of multiculturalism. They have not dared even to question whether Flooding their country with immigrants from very different cultures, often with contradictory values, and making little attempt to integrate them into mainstream society was a good idea. now continued migration on a huge scale and a high birth rate among Muslim incomers, mainly from Turkey, have led to a crisis in German society.

The country’s leader, Angela Merkel, has had to break a longstanding taboo by admitting multiculturalism has “utterly failed”. Mrs Merkel has spoken out in defence of a Germany defined by “the Christian image of humanity”.

Almost everything Merkel says about Germany could equally be applied to Britain. in our case it was guilt over empire that was used as the pretext to justify the multicultural experiment.

But all over europe ruling political elites have failed to achieve a happy accommodation between the expectations of indigenous populations and those of Muslim immigrant communities. now race relations are suffering terribly and both groups feel victimised – immigrants largely because they have never been challenged to adapt to new surroundings and native populations because they have been treated as second-class citizens in their own countries.

Radical steps to promote integration of immigrants into a more enlightened way of living are the only way forward and Mrs Merkel is to be congratulated for recognising so. it is time for British political leaders to do the same.

Editorial in Daily Express, 18 October 2010