As of last Thursday, multiculturalism was officially declared dead in this country. The funeral took place in Brent Town Hall in the presence of the Prince of Wales and the Home Secretary and was accompanied by the National Anthem and the theme music from Four Weddings and a Funeral. Although the event was not billed in these terms, these were symbolic obsequies as emphatic in their way as the pouring of the ashes of English cricket into that fragile urn in 1882.
English cricket smouldered on, of course, occasionally flaring into a brief revival, but its old unquestioned dominance was gone for good. In the same way, we shall still hear people mouthing the old platitudes about Britain being a multicultural country, but that dogma will no longer be driving the debate.
Instead of ‘celebrating diversity’, the ceremony to welcome new British citizens celebrates in the most flagrant way imaginable the common culture of these islands.
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