In the build-up to the 2024 Tory leadership election, Kemi Badenoch declared that ‘not all cultures are equal’. Her argument – that we can be a thriving multi-ethnic nation while expecting everyone to adhere to British cultural values – was met with fury. For some of Badenoch’s critics, the mere suggestion that certain foreign value systems are inferior to those of a western liberal democracy was beyond the pale. All the usual buzzwords were deployed: racist, fascist, far-right. Labour MP Dawn Butler shared a social media post deriding the Tory leader as ‘white supremacy in blackface’.
Now, the Home Office has inadvertently vindicated the very argument for which Badenoch was admonished by her left-wing critics. The department’s newly released guidebook for asylum seekers effectively tells them that, while denying women an education or bodily autonomy may be accepted in the cultural fabric of their home countries, such behaviour is morally and legally unacceptable here.
At the very least, the public now knows – although not because the government chose to tell them – that ministers recognise there is a problem. They understand that many people entering the country illegally come from cultures with medieval moral codes. Where Andy Burnham once again missed the mark on immigration today, however, was in treating this as an understandable or normal position for the country to find itself in.
