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'Duty to integrate,' says Blair 'Duty to integrate,' says Blair
(about 4 hours later)
Britain should celebrate its multicultural society while reasserting the "duty" to integrate, Prime Minister Tony Blair is to say. Britain should celebrate its multicultural society while reasserting the "duty" to integrate, Prime Minister Tony Blair says.
He will say that identity and religion can still be preserved and celebrated within an integrated society. He said identity and religion could still be preserved and celebrated within an integrated society.
He will also warn that while tolerance is a key part of Britain, "we must be ready as a country to defend this attitude if it comes under attack". He also warned that "we must be ready as a country to defend this attitude if it comes under attack".
He is to set out "practical and symbolic measures" for integration. The Downing Street speech comes a year after Mr Blair said he never quite knew what people meant by multiculturalism.
"It is not that we need to dispense with multicultural Britain. 'Demonstrate integration'
"On the contrary we should continue celebrating it," he will say in a speech at Downing Street, organised by the Runnymede Trust which promotes multi-cultural Britain. Last year, Commission for Racial Equality chairman Trevor Phillips caused controversy by suggesting that multiculturalism may now be outdated.
The measures he will set out will, he believes, "help demonstrate and underline what is meant by integration in modern Britain," Downing St said. He also warned that Britain could be "sleep-walking" towards US-style ethnic segregation because of a failure to address differences and create common values.
His speech comes more than a year after he said he never quite knew what people meant when they talked about multiculturalism, even when he used the term himself. Mr Blair said: "It is not that we need to dispense with multicultural Britain.
'Implicit balance' "On the contrary, we should continue celebrating it."
On Friday, Mr Blair will explain how he believes the right balance can be struck between integration and diversity. It was important to "demonstrate and underline what is meant by integration in modern Britain," he said.
"The right to be in a multi-cultural society was always implicitly balanced by a duty to integrate, to be part of Britain, to be British and Asian, British and black, British and white," Mr Blair will say. "The right to be in a multi-cultural society was always implicitly balanced by a duty to integrate, to be part of Britain, to be British and Asian, British and black, British and white."
He will emphasize that this is not about rejecting values within a multicultural Britain, nor diluting identity or religion. Mr Blair emphasised this was not about rejecting values within a multicultural Britain, nor diluting identity or religion.
However, he will call for Britain "to re-assert the duty to integrate, to stress what we hold in common and to say: these are the shared boundaries within which we all are obliged to live, precisely in order to preserve our right to our own different faiths, races and creeds." However, he called for Britain "to re-assert the duty to integrate, to stress what we hold in common and to say: these are the shared boundaries within which we all are obliged to live, precisely in order to preserve our right to our own different faiths, races and creeds."