Andrew Gilligan: Jenrick’s remarks about Handsworth miss a genuine opportunity for the Party

Andrew Gilligan is a writer and former No10 adviser.

Part of me wants to resist the lefty outcry against the leaked remarks by Robert Jenrick that Handsworth, in Birmingham, is “one of the worst integrated places I’ve ever been to. In fact, in the hour and a half I was filming news there, I didn’t see another white face… It’s not about the colour of your skin or your faith, of course it isn’t. But I want people to be living alongside each other, not parallel lives. That’s not the right way we want to live as a country.”

Part of me hates the usual cant buzzwords deployed to attack Jenrick’s “racism,” like the inevitable TUC statement saying how “diverse,” “integrated” and “vibrant” Handsworth is, and the inevitable Church of England bishop praising the place as “wonderful.” Those statements go too far the other way. Handsworth isn’t that wonderful, or that diverse – in the electoral ward of that name, almost two-thirds of the population is South Asian.

As for integration, around one in eight of Handsworth’s people cannot speak English well, or at all. Asked at the last census “how would you describe your national identity,” with boxes to tick for British, English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish and other (you could tick more than one), almost a quarter of Handsworth residents identified themselves as having an exclusively non-UK identity.

Part of me knows that many of the statements condemning Jenrick come from the same Labour politicians and “community leaders” who have for decades practised race or faith-based politics in Birmingham – treating Brummies of colour not as individuals but as members of racial or religious siloes whose votes can be sought and delivered en bloc.

One of the results of this, as journalists from much more integrated London may not realise, is that Birmingham is segregated on a scale unusual for Britain. There are pockets of intense segregation in some northern cities, too, but they are smaller. This system of politics may be about to blow up – or, if you prefer, reach its logical conclusion – at next year’s local elections, when Islamo-populists may form a very substantial bloc, perhaps even the largest bloc, on Britain’s largest council.

Yet all that is why Jenrick was, in fact, wrong to speak in the way he did (I accept his remarks were to a private dinner, not intended for publication). Birmingham needs to be rescued from rotten identity politics. It needs parties who talk to and about its people in terms of their values, not their race.

The pity of it is that vast numbers of those who will have felt insulted by Jenrick’s remarks are, in their values if not their votes, Tories.

They are socially conservative, entrepreneurial, upwardly mobile grafters with strong families. Any sensible right-wing party should be trying to woo them, not make them feel like they’re not wanted. If we’re serious about integration, this is surely one way to achieve it.

Some Tories sort of get this.

Off the back of a big British-Indian vote, Bob Blackman’s Harrow East has the highest Conservative vote share in the country, the only seat where the party topped 50 per cent. I disagree with parts of Blackman’s approach. His endorsement at the last election of the “Hindu manifesto,” with its various sectarian activist demands, felt too close to the kind of siloed, what’s-in-it-for-us identity politics practised in Birmingham Labour. But I don’t think that sort of thing is necessary. I think the appeal should be more to the large numbers of people who reject it, who want to be addressed as British, with the same concerns as anybody else, and the same values as other Tories.

One of the biggest recent developments in US poIitics has been the move of ethnic minority Americans to the right. That’s partly because they resented being viewed by the Democrats as their property, and treated to a special “minority-only” pitch, when actually they cared about the economy, tax and crime.

There’s plenty of scope for that here, too, if the party wanted to try.

You might start in Birmingham.