Living together with a capacity for mutual respect, space for self-expression and a credible sense of personal and collective security has been a modest ambition of societies as they have sought to manage human co-existence. In recent decades in Britain and elsewhere this aspiration has taken on a particular meaning as a centuries-old pattern of cross-border, and inter-continental, migration has taken on a new form. Through processes that we have come to familiarly call ‘globalisation’, the flow of resources, and human beings, across national borders has become extensive and routine. The myth of a homogenous people that has lain behind traditional ideologies of ‘the nation’ has been increasingly exposed by the reality that we are all multi-ethnic societies. This demographic reality produced a political response from the 1960s onwards in many European countries, and elsewhere, that saw the emergence of a growing openness to diversity. The politics of multiculturalism took many different forms as it developed in specific countries (Kymlicka, 2001; Modood et al, 2006), but for a number of decades it seemed that recognition of diversity had become the normative political stance in liberal democracies. So much so that in 2001, Kymlicka spoke optimistically of the ascendancy of multiculturalism and a widespread acceptance of the claims of minorities for recognition and rights (Kymlicka, 2001: 33). Writing in 2010, that claim seems now to have been grossly optimistic. As we shall see below, there has been a European-wide retreat from multiculturalism and a reassertion of narrowly conceived nationalisms. But the reality remains that European countries are demographically multi-ethnic, and Britain in particular has well-established minority ethnic communities of people who are third or fourth generation British, and who are British citizens. Thus, the current political vogue for belittling multiculturalism sits uncomfortably with the ongoing relevance of these foundational aspirations for a viable co-existence among citizens who are distinguished by multiple forms of diversity.

In the contemporary British context this question of how to maintain civility among fellow citizens has been an active and multi-headed issue that has stretched across a number of governmental agendas. We have seen the ‘problematic’ status and behaviour of sections of the majority white working class being addressed through concerns with youth disaffection, urban violence and the failure of many to enter the labour market.