The idea that Britain is a multicultural society is now so deeply embedded in our consciousness that the only time we ever really encounter a challenge to it is when groups that we perceive as racist begin to stir up trouble for ‘immigrants’. Of course, our ancestors were all immigrants at some point – we sometimes forget that the question of immigration is about time more than it is about space; about who got here first and what that might plausibly mean. But beyond this, the ideal of toleration that leads to a multicultural society permits different groups of people to live together, but at a vast cost: it requires us to accept a wilful ignorance about who they are. Britain is a multicultural society only in so much as we are willing to tolerate different beliefs – which is to say, that we are willing to ignore differences except when they deviate from certain ideals we hold above this one. Within multicultural Britain, all cultures are far from equal.

The mythos of ‘multiculturalism’ is something that liberally minded individuals – such as myself – tend to take for granted. In the United States, where my wife is from, liberals can become pathological in their defence of it. But if we take up the floorboards of this idea, as Mary Midgley suggests is a philosopher’s task, we’d have fewer reasons to celebrate our ‘tolerance’, since the unacknowledged baggage of a multicultural society is an arrogant faith in our own correctness. It is only because we have faith in rational truths that everyone is obligated to accept that we graciously allow others to have their own beliefs. Beneath the warm mask of compassion that multiculturalism likes to wear is a vast and condescending gulf. We are proud to share Britain with Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists – as long as they accept the rational restraints we put upon them.