Kemi Badenoch has suggested she is looking at copying a Danish policy that would see migrants forcibly moved out of inner cities to avoid the build-up of ‘ghettos’. Speaking at the Policy Exchange think tank this afternoon, the Tory leader said the policy is something she’ll be talking about more in future.
Ms Badenoch explained that Britain needs to be more proactive about enforcing assimilation of immigrants, as it’s still relying on a “passive integration” strategy from decades before the era of mass migration. In 2010 Denmark implemented a new law whereby the state can demolish apartment blocks in areas where at least half of the residents are from “non-western” backgrounds. The Social Housing law categorises neighbourhoods on the basis of unemployment, crime, education, income, school attendance and immigrant population.
If more then 50% of the residents meet this criteria, the country’s public housing association is then required to propose a plan to cut social housing to 30% or less within ten years.
The plan involves denying existing residents the right to public housing in those areas, while forcing private landlords in areas with low levels of immigrants to rent to those who have been displaced.
The term ‘ghetto’ was initially used to describe the areas before being rebranded over fears of stigmatisation.
Asked if she’d consider the policy, Ms Badenoch said it’s something she’s “looking at”.
She told Policy Exchange: “I have looked at it and it’s one of the things I’ll be talking about more.
“Until now we’ve had what I call passive integration – people coming to the country in small numbers over a small period of time – and it’s very easy to absorb and asymilate.
“But we’ve had so many people, high numbers, people from lots of different places which is not what immigration used to look like, and I think we need to move from passive to active integration.
“That’s something that’s along the lines of what you are describing in Denmark, we need to do what works for the UK. It’s not exactly the same situation, we have a much bigger population and so many other things that would require adjustments.
“But that sort of thing yes.”
In February this year the European Court of Justice said that Denmark’s ‘ghetto law’ constitutes direct discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin.
The ECJ’s advocate general said that the “division between ‘western’ and ‘non-western’ immigrants and their descendants is based on ethnic origin.”
She considers that, although ‘non-westerners’ are an ethnically diverse group, what unites that group is not a commonality of factors that form ‘ethnicity’ within that group, but rather the perception by the Danish legislature that this group does not possess the characteristics of the other group, the ‘westerners’.”
