“It has taken a long time to happen, but at last an authoritative and senior establishment figure has pointed to the elephant in the room. Before the Bishop of Rochester’s article yesterday in The Sunday Telegraph, the debate about immigration focused almost exclusively on who benefits financially. We have tiptoed around its effect on our society and culture. Even the somewhat belated recognition by ministers that newcomers should show a commitment to British values and demonstrate a knowledge of English tends to be couched in economic terms and ones favourable to the immigrants themselves – that they will get a job more easily and their lives will be enhanced if they are more integrated.

“However, few politicians have been willing to do what Michael Nazir-Ali has done, which is to question the impact of a growing Muslim population upon the very fabric of the nation, turning it within half a century into a multi-faith and multicultural land….

“For many years, those who wanted Britain to be recognised as a multicultural society which needed to revise, or even jettison, five centuries of Protestant hegemony held centre stage. Anyone who questioned it had their reputations trashed. The multiculturalists even coined an insult – Islamophobia – to try to close down the debate. Some of them yesterday accused the bishop of ‘scaremongering’. But while multiculturalism began as a facet of Britain’s characteristic toleration of other people’s ways, religions, cuisines, languages and dress, it metamorphosed into a political creed that held that ethnic minority groups should be allowed to do what they like.”

Philip Johnston in the Daily Telegraph, 7 January 2008

See also “No tolerance for no-go areas”, in the Daily Mail, “Muslims call for ‘no-go’ CoE bishop to resign” in the Daily Telegraph and “Muslim anger at bishop’s ‘ghettoes’ attack” in the Independent.

For Inayat Bunglawala’s reply to Nazir-Ali, see Comment is Free, 7 January 2008

For Yusuf Smith’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 6 January 2008

And Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has a piece entitled “No-go areas that are all in the bishop’s mind” in the Independent.