In December 2006 Tony Blair stated, ‘We like our diversity. But how do we react when that “difference” leads to separation and alienation from the values that define what we hold in common? For the first time in a generation there is an unease … [that] … our willingness to welcome difference … is being used against us’ (Blair, 2006b).

Questions of ‘integration’ have been high on the public and political agenda from 2001. Three issues in particular have been at the forefront of debates. The first, often prompted by Labour politicians, has been a debate on ‘common values’ (Geddes, 2003). The second, prompted by a famous essay by David Goodhart, is the seeming division between diversity and solidarity (Goodhart, 2004). The third, following the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks, is the concern over security and its implicit, if not an explicit, focus on Muslims.

This chapter examines the policy concerns that make up the ‘integration’ debate. It explores what integration means, unravels Labour's ‘Janus-faced’ approach to policy, and examines discrete elements of policy, including the subtext of much of integration discourse – Muslims.

‘Integration’ is a complex area in which to record policy changes. Integration policy was one of the two migration policy pillars during the period of immigration settlement between 1948 and 1976. Then, integration policy was aimed at first-generation immigrants, whereas by 1997 it had become associated with ethnic minorities (second, third, and fourth generations). It is perhaps useful to start, therefore, with an interpretation of integration policy – later labelled as ‘multiculturalism’ – from this former period. The best shorthand description remains that of Roy Jenkins, the Labour Home Secretary, who pithily described multiculturalism in 1967 as ‘not a flattening process of assimilation but equal opportunity accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance’. This interpretation is embedded in the concept of the ‘race relations model’ that was enshrined in several laws in the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in the 1976 Race Relations Act.

A number of commentators have suggested that the integration measures adopted by Labour mark a departure from Jenkins’ multiculturalist model (McGhee, 2006, p 119; Robinson and Reeve, 2006).