Multiculturalism is a Must

Let’s kick this off by saying that I don’t agree with the decision by Rotherham Council to remove a group of children from their foster parents, on the grounds that the foster parents in question belonged to UKIP. A person’s political opinions should have little to no bearing on their ability to care for children in need, and if as the reports suggest the couple believed that they were meeting the cultural needs of the children, then all the better.

 

That said, I always feel a shiver run up my spine whenever UKIP is mentioned, because this lingering remnant of Thatcherism is one of the things that scares me the most. Nobody save the hardcore skinheads really takes the BNP and the EDL seriously, but UKIP, made up of dissatisfied eurosceptics and libertarians, gives the British far right a respectable middle class face, one which guarantees them support.

 

UKIP claim not to be racist and that may very well be the case, but their very name – the UK Independence Party – and their insistence on tighter immigration regulations, an immediate withdrawal from the EU and a ending of the UK’s policy of multiculturalism means they do a very good job of a appearing as such. And it’s the last of that policy triad that really worries me.

 

UKIP and their supporters on the Conservative right seem to me to be the type of insular Little Englanders who believe that everything will be okay if we just rely on ourselves and stop associating with Johnny Foreigner. They are stuck with an empire mentality and don’t realize that times have changed.

 

Multiculturalism is a must nowadays. Asia is rapidly becoming the world’s production hub, China is over taking the US as the premier economic super power and India has the world’s most rapidly growing population, set to surpass China by 2025, only 13 years from now. The axis of power in the world is rapidly shifting from the West to the East and we need to get with the times.

 

This is not to say that the West does not have a lot to offer or has become irrelevant, because that is not true. The US President is still acknowledged as the world’s most powerful man and the US still has the world’s biggest military. But military strength is not what matters anymore. We have to move with the times, and recognize the world is changing, lest we get left behind.

 

In UKIP’s dream world, England would be politically and economically self-sufficient, and immigration, while still ongoing would be tightly controlled, keeping the white majority in tact. But in reality, this will not end in UK’s independence, but in the UK’s utter isolation, leaving us alone, in a world that has changed beyond our understanding. A world in which we no longer have a voice or any authority. If the UK wishes to keep its place as a respected elder statesman, than rather than rejecting multiculturalism, we must embrace it.