We need a Swedish-style civic duty to stop division being baked into our politics for good
Brexit, immigration, the cost-of-living crisis. All of these are issues which have divided the British public, now we need to find a way to bring people together, Daniel Korski writes.
THE UK is one of history’s most successful multicultural and cohesive societies. A country that has been knitted together from different nations, which over centuries has narrowed the divisions between rich and poor.
But things could be about to change. After years of divisive post-referendum politics, large-scale immigration, a pandemic that affected rich and poor very differently, the death of a unifying monarch and now a recession, a more permanently divided society is now at risk of emerging.
Polls speak to the risk. Those aged 75 and over are much more likely to believe their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well with each other than most of the younger age groups – including those aged between 50 and 64.
The percentage of Britons who agree that people can be trusted in their local neighbourhood has steadily declined from 48 per cent in 2013/2014 to 40 per cent in 2019/2020.
English proficiency is key to social cohesion; if you can’t speak to your neighbours, it’s harder to do things together. But as Lousie Casey’s review for the government found, Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic groups have the lowest levels of English language proficiency – and women in those communities are twice as likely as men to have poor English.
Our country can address its problems with the right mix of policies. We need better education in economically-deprived areas and greater efforts to teach English – especially to those who need it most. We must eliminate discrimination against women and launch new initiatives to help young black men in employment, and young, poor white boys into higher education.
Many initiatives have sprung up to make a difference. Take the 10,000 Black Interns campaign helping young Black students into hard-to-access jobs. I chair the Welcoming Committee for Hong Kongers which seeks to integrate Hong Kongers into the UK. Other citizens-led initiatives are also making a difference, with the sign-ups to NHS Volunteer Responders during the pandemic showing a reservoir of support for civic action.
But something bigger is needed that can cut across the different communities. Here Sweden may have shown the way. The new Swedish government has decided to introduce a “civic duty” alongside the military conscription which already exists. Young people will be required, when they turn 18, to either join the military or perform civic duties. The idea is not only to provide public services, from health to local government, manpower but to instil in younger people a sense of social cohesion. As a friend remarked to me twenty-five years after his military conscription, his time wearing fatigues was the only moment he truly met his generation – rich and poor, thin and fat. The rest of his life, he thought, had been spent in a narrower milieu.
The civic duty is an initiative to touch everyone as they come of age. It cuts against the various trends dividing people across income, race and geography lines. Perhaps better described as “civic service”, it can be part of the answer. The National Citizen Service, which offers civic experiences for 16 and 17-year-olds, provides an excellent foundation to build on.
But a voluntary-only initiative like that one can only achieve so much; mandation should now be considered to reach every Briton on the precipice of adulthood. There will be countless objections, including whether people can really be mandated to join and what to do with those that refuse, and what will be of the many voluntary efforts that exist. But the latter, whatever good they do, haven’t prevented the existential slide in cohesion. All the other objections are largely technocratic and can be solved with political will.
We are sliding towards disunity. Not, as T.S. Elliot wrote, in a bang but in an inexorable whimper. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should act now, in a bold fashion, to reverse the trajectory.