It is hard not to disagree with British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he says that minorities in Britain must conform to the British way of life. In a speech Friday, Blair emphasized that this conformity must be primarily with the concept of tolerance which he believed characterized the British. The British may certainly not be as tolerant as Blair likes to imagine. However, of all the European states, they have been the most open to immigration, whether economic or for asylum. And, over the years, the UK has certainly benefited from successive waves of new arrivals, who have variously brought skills, money or the willingness to undertake menial work that other Britons do not want.

Tolerance, said Blair, meant rejecting extremism. And it was clear that he was aiming his remarks at extremists among British Muslims. Nobody in Britain, not least its Muslims, has yet recovered from the shock of the London suicide bombings a year ago this July. The young men who carried out these wicked attacks were British-born Muslims from good families who seemed to be fully integrated into British society. Yet their minds had been warped by the preaching of bigots and the recruiters of Al-Qaeda. Had they been recently arrived immigrants, full of hatred for Britain and ignorant of its basic tolerance, their actions might have at least been understood. But they were not. They were young Britons who were prepared to launch vicious attacks on their own homeland.

Blair is clearly now equally concerned over extremism among non-Muslim, white Britons. There has long been a tiny but insignificant core of white supremacist neofascists in the UK. Unfortunately these people have been gaining support in local elections. Blair’s message is also aimed at these racists. What the premier has not said however is that his own government’s inept multicultural policies have been in part responsible for the growth of intolerance, The whole concept of multiculturalism is a lazy shorthand for actually ascribing no value at all to any culture. Fatuous “political correctness” meanwhile was dictating that any overt celebration of “Britishness” was racist and the stuff of neofascism. The proof of this absurd and fundamental distortion of common sense values is that had Blair made Friday’s speech before July 2005 bombings, he would have been roundly condemned as a racist both by the liberals and Muslim leaders.

As it was, though one Muslim organization grumbled and called his words “alarming,” the majority of Britons, including Muslims, accepts his analysis. British people can follow whatever religious or cultural paths they wish as long as they accept that, as Britons, they must conform to the standard of mutual tolerance.

The most upsetting sight for British people of all backgrounds is to see and hear somebody preaching hatred, intolerance and ultimately bloody violence against their society. There is a free press and the right to demonstrate for any point of view. And ultimately there is the ballot box. Bigoted, murderous savagery has no place in Britain. Blair was right to say that clearly and unambiguously.