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Javid: Immigration failures have made Britain a tinderbox
Failure to tackle the migrant crisis has played a part in Britain becoming a 'tinderbox of division', Sir Sajid Javid has said.
In his first major intervention since standing down from the Commons last month, the former chancellor warned communal life was now 'under threat like never before'.
Sir Sajid and Jon Cruddas, the former Labour MP, will co-chair a new Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion that meets for the first time on Wednesday.
The commission, launched in response to the riots that followed the Southport attacks last summer, will make policy recommendations which aim to strengthen communities.
Sir Sajid told The Telegraph: 'Communal life in Britain is under threat like never before and intervention is urgently needed.
'There have been long-term, chronic issues undermining connections within our communities for several decades now, such as the degradation of local infrastructure from the local pub to churches, the weakening of family units, growing inequality, declining trust in institutions and persistent neglect from policy-makers.
'In more recent years, new threats like the mismanagement of immigration, cost of living pressures and social media driven extremism, have begun to turn this crisis of social disconnection into an acute threat of social division.'
Sir Sajid went on to warn that those issues were now 'converging into something dangerous', adding: 'The country is now sitting on a tinderbox of disconnection and division.'
Net migration reached almost 906,000 people in June 2023, while small boat Channel crossings this year are currently at a record high.
During his tenure as secretary of state for communities, Sir Sajid said in 2016 that too many people in the UK were living 'parallel lives'.
Asked if he still believed this was the case almost a decade on, he replied: 'Yes. I am worried that we are more disconnected as a country than at any other point in our modern history, and that we are far more divided than any of us wants to be...
'As a nation, we have struggled to maintain the connections we once had. There is a pandemic of loneliness that has spread across the country, driving disconnection and that has been put on steroids by social media.'
Sir Sajid added issues of integration had not been dealt with fully by 'successive governments' and said political correctness was partly to blame.
'Certainly that is partly due to political correctness and anxieties around being seen to cause offence,' he said.
'But it's also due to a lack of clear policy options – which this commission intends to address – and because this has been a slow creeping crisis that has not received the focus or attention that it should have done.
'Short-term crises, such as the findings of the grooming gangs inquiry, or the riots last summer and those in recent weeks in Northern Ireland, have all laid bare the fragility of community cohesion in this country today.
'All offer a stark warning of what happens when these questions go unaddressed.'
Striking a more optimistic note about Britain's future, Sir Sajid said Britain had the 'phenomenal attributes' that it needs to rise to its social challenges.
He concluded that the work of the commission will seek to 'build a vision for communities across the nation that all British citizens can buy into.'
Sir Sajid and Mr Cruddas will join 19 commissioners from across the political spectrum, spanning academia, business, civil society, the media and religious groups.
Prominent members include Lord Bilimoria, a cross-bench peer and former president of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), and Dame Sara Khan, the former counter-extremism commissioner.
