Today's blog post is written by Runnymede's director, Dr Rob Berkeley. It was originally posted on Left Foot Forward

Today’s announcement of an integration strategy from Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, marks a dangerous and ill-advised reversion to assimilationist policy, where all differences of ethnicity and heritage are subsumed into a majoritarian ‘mainstream’. Instead of taking the opportunity to further benefit from the diversity of the ethnic and faith backgrounds of its citizens, Pickles seems intent on restoring some notion of Britishness that is frozen in time and fails to take account of the nature of a modern Britain, its citizenry, or its role in the world. While in interviews Pickles points to last year’s Royal Wedding as a unifying moment for the British people, he would do well to also remember this summer’s Olympics, won for a London described as ‘The World in One City’.

His emphasis on ‘British values’ and ‘national unity’ in a series of interviews given to the Daily Mail and Express, suggests that people from minority ethnic backgrounds are somehow a threat to these values or to a unified country. This is despite significant evidence to the contrary and the significant contribution people from minority ethnic backgrounds have made and continue to make to Britain. Pickles seems to be advocating that the government, or perhaps he, or just the white majority, should be the arbiter of these values rather than the citizens of this country in all their ethnic diversity.

Today's blog post is written by Klara Schmitz, research and policy analyst at the Runnymede Trust

In the past few months several developments have reignited concerns about the prevalence of racist murders and the role of the far-right across Europe. 

Firstly, the passing of Holocaust Remembrance Day and the six month mark since attacks in Norway at the hands of far-right sympathiser Anders Breivik, have both renewed calls to tackle right-wing extremism in Europe. 

Secondly, some influential figures have recently highlighted the urgent need to combat racism, both in the UK and across the continent. In the wake of the convictions for the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, mother of the victim Doreen Lawrence has called for the UK government to do more to tackle racism in the UK. In addition, Europe’s human rights commissioner Thomas Hammarberg recently stated in a speech to the Council of Europe that not enough political leaders in Europe are taking a stand against racism and xenophobia in their countries.

Today's blog post was written by Runnymede's deputy director Sarah Isal

Any general election or presidential campaign is interesting for many reasons, not least the fact that this is the time when different parties and candidates lay out their plans, vision and aspirations and put forward their case for being elected. The upcoming French presidential election campaign is particularly important to keep an eye on from the perspective of race equality and immigrants’ rights. 

This is partly because ever since 2002, when Jean Marie Le Pen, then leader of the extreme right party Front National made it into the second round of the election at the expense of socialist Lionel Jospin, French politicians, especially on the right, know all too well that they need to capture his electorate to win the election. In order to do so, they have to make sure that certain themes are central to the campaign, namely immigration, law and order and of course more recently Islam and Muslims.