All holders of public office will have to swear an oath of allegiance to British values in an attempt to combat extremism. Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, said it was not possible for people to play a “positive role” in public life unless they accepted such basic values as democracy, equality and freedom of speech.
He intervened after a damning report by Dame Louise Casey, the government’s community cohesion tsar, which warned that some Muslim communities were living in extreme isolation from the rest of society and some did not share British values such as tolerance.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Javid says he will enact Casey’s proposal that those in public office make a pledge of allegiance. It will include everyone from elected officials to civil servants and local council workers.
“If we’re going to challenge such attitudes, civic and political leaders have to lead by example,” Javid writes. “We can’t expect new arrivals to embrace British values if those of us who are already here don’t do so ourselves.” He also wants to implement Casey’s demand that every new migrant swear an oath. At present only those who become British citizens do so. That plan is expected to be unveiled in the spring.
The new oath would include “tolerating the views of others, even if you disagree with them”, as well as “believing in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from abuse . . . a belief in equality, democracy and the democratic process” and “respect for the law, even if you think the law is an ass”.
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Javid said his goal was not to create “a government-approved, one-size-fits-all identity” where everyone listens to Last Night of the Proms, but that without common “building blocks of our society, you’ll struggle to play a positive role in British life”.
The Sunday Times also reports today that Christian, Muslim and Jewish schools could be made to include sex and relationship education in their curriculums. Under plans being drawn up by Justine Greening, the education secretary, sex education will be widened to include domestic abuse and the risks of sexting.
Casey’s report included a damning dossier of failures by some councillors to stand up for British values. In one northern town, the council supported and funded the work of two religious representatives, one Muslim and one Christian, who promoted “the belief that Isil [Isis] were not a terrorist organisation”.
A female councillor in the northwest had to stand in a neighbouring town as male councillors in her own “took active steps to block female candidates from being elected”. The report also detailed how “on one visit to a northern town all except one of the Asian councillors had married a wife from Pakistan”.
Javid says generations of politicians have “ducked the issue” of adopting a tough approach to integration “for fear of being called racist”. But he said this approach was “failing those they were supposed to be helping. I will not allow that to continue.”
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The communities and local government department is to plough millions of pounds more a year into helping immigrant women in “ethnic bubbles” to learn English.
Javid, the son of immigrants, translated for his mother when he was growing up as she spoke almost no English, but says he knows many people “who haven’t made such an effort” to integrate, who “speak barely a word of English” and “have met only a handful of people from outside the south Asian Muslim community”.
Casey declined to comment, but a friend said: “She is happy with what they are saying.”
