My party should end its war on multiculturalism

'Labour isn't burdened with the legacy of Enoch Powell's 1968 speech, which the
Conservatives have never quite shaken off.' Photograph: Channel Four

Tory attacks on multiculturalism send out a confused message – it's time for the party to drop the word from its rhetoric

Theresa May will reply to the home affairs debate at the Conservative conference today in the wake of the publication of The Future of Conservatism, a collection of essays about the party's future edited by David Davis. The hall will resound to familiar Tory calls for stronger immigration controls and longer prisoner sentences. It wouldn't be at all surprising if they were joined by a denunciation of multiculturalism – one which the new Davis-edited book, seen as it doubtless will be as blue meat for the party faithful, will be expected to echo.

For the best part of 10 years, I represented the largest number of Muslim voters of any Conservative MP. During the last parliament, I was the party's spokesman on integration in the Commons. I worked happily with people on the left who took an uncompromising view of Islamist extremism, agreeing with them that since it saw no distinction between religious and secular law it was incompatible with liberal democracy. So my article for Davis's book could reasonably be expected to excoriate the M-word.

I agree with some on the left and most on the right that integration is a good thing and cultural relativism a bad one. For example, female genital mutilation shouldn't be tolerated in Britain simply because it's a cultural custom in parts of Africa and Asia. But I have come to see that the ultimate modernisation for the Conservative party isn't to back gay marriage or promote more women. It's to end the Tory war on multiculturalism. In saying so, my essay for The Future of Conservatism therefore bucks the stereotype, and is based on a simple truth: that multiculturalism means different things to different people.

To some, it means Mohammad Siddique Khan, the British-born 7/7 suicide bomber, a chilling example of what can happen when integration fails (though, blessedly, a very rare one). To others, it means the Notting Hill carnival or Manchester Pride – or the Bible, that meshing of Jewish, Greek and Roman culture. But it's no great mystery to guess what Tory condemnations of multiculturalism mean to many ethic minority voters. When Conservative lips mouth "multiculturalism", they hear multi-racialism – a verbal assault on people of a different ethnicity.

It is no use for the Tory speaker to claim that this is wrong – even though, as it happens, it is – or insist that this isn't what is meant. For this is what is heard, and it's what's heard that matters. In which case, wouldn't the Conservative party be wise to drop the term altogether? No Tory prime minister has ever aped BNP language by promising "British jobs for British workers", as Gordon Brown did, but Labour isn't burdened with the legacy of Enoch Powell's 1968 speech, which the Conservatives have never quite shaken off. All going on and on about multiculturalism achieves is making it even more difficult to do so.

David Cameron knows this only too well. That is why he has been careful only to knock state multiculturalism. But to do so is to build an unstable halfway house. Discussion of what constitutes state and non-state multiculturalism might make an interesting thesis, but it makes a tangled argument. The concept is designed to face two ways at once. To the Tory faithful, it signals opposition to multiculturalism; to ethnic minority voters, only when the state does it. Neither are stupid and both are unpersuaded.

The core Conservative vote is about a third of the electorate. Resistance to the party's message was greatest at the last election in Scotland, among public sector workers – and members of ethnic minorities. The number of the latter is growing faster than that of the majority community. They doubtless contribute significantly to a striking recent poll finding: that 70% of the population would consider voting Labour but only 58% voting Tory. Yet the Conservative message on lower taxes, faith schools and support for marriage might have been crafted for black churchgoers or Britain's young Muslim population, who are set to share a significant part of the tax burden. The reflexive denunciation of multiculturalism is helping to prevent it being heard.

Paul Goodman at Comment is free

Thanks to Zaahid for the heads-up