Inside the April 2008 issue:
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MANY MIGRANTS FEEL BRITISH – IPPR
By Jill Rutter
Britishness to be meaningful and progressive needs to be fostered
both at grass roots and national levels
In most European countries, policy debates about migrants’ integration have intensified during the last five years, as a result of concerns about the growth of religious extremism. There is also growing interest in ‘Britishness’ among political leaders and the media in the UK – Gordon Brown is among many who have initiated debate about how migrant populations can be encouraged to feel British. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how migrants and refugees themselves feel about integration, and becoming and being British. Research recently undertaken by the Institute for Public Policy Research aimed to redress this gap in knowledge. It showed that most refugees feel British, albeit often alongside other identities.
