The domestic secretary’s speech to the Conservative conference was more likely to wreck social cohesion than strengthen itThe Conservative conference in Manchester this week has had its unpredictable moments. On Tuesday there were three surprises before lunch. At a Guardian fringe event,the chancellor revealed that not only had he been a Dr Dre fan in the NWA days, but it was he who had arranged for the rapper turned businessman to approach and select tea in Downing Street in 2012. Earlier, or Michael Gove,the justice secretary, had silenced Tory activists more accustomed to the hardline rhetoric of his predecessors with a speech almost exclusively approximately the importance of rehabilitation and the opportunity of redemption for prisoners, and influenced by ideas being developed in the US. He was followed by Theresa May,who 13 years ago had warned that many voters thought the Conservatives were the “nasty party”, but who now pledged to clamp down on the rights of asylum seekers, or renewed her commitment to cut net migration to below 100000 in terms so harsh that she was widely condemned even by her allies.
The domestic secretary’s speech was a challenge to almost every claim of a liberal migration policy. To many,it sounded cheap and inflammatory for her to insist as she did that mass migration was incompatible with social cohesion. It certainly suggests that Mrs May is determined to oppose the idea that adaptation to an age of mass migration is a more realistic answer than resisting it. But resistance is also the conclusion of many voters: it is an argument that has to be confronted rather than shouted down.
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Source: theguardian.com