UK News 12-12-2001 Immigrants `Should Swear Loyalty To UK` who: The Home Office what: Release details of wide-ranging report into race relations where: House of Commons, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Newcomers to Britain should swear or affirm an oath of allegiance to show their `clear primary loyalty` to the nation," says the Telegraph`s Philip Johnston, referring to a Home Office report into last summer`s inner city race riots. "It proposed a statement based on the Canadian citizenship oath requiring immigrants to promise to `be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen`". The report of the inquiry, chaired by Ted Cantle, Nottingham`s former chief executive, "also proposes that church and other faith schools should offer at least 25% of their places to pupils of other faiths and all schools should avoid more than 75% of their pupils from one culture or ethnic group," reports the Guardian, adding the report`s claim that segregation runs so deep that "many communities operate on the basis of a series of parallel lives". But Habib Rahman, head of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said an oath would be "divisive" and undermine a multi-cultural society, notes BBC Online. "This debate will give credence to the racists and all the racial prejudice in this country," he said. Home Office Minister John Denham was quick to play down any plans to make a loyalty oath compulsory: "We have not made a commitment to a formal oath of allegiance, but we do want the debate to take place." David Blunkett welcomed yesterday`s findings, says the Sun. He said: "This is not cultural conformity. There is no contradiction between retaining a distinct cultural identity and identifying with Britain. There is society. We sink or swim together. We are interdependent." [... more]

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