Crackdown on public funding for religious groups

Tony Blair announced a crackdown on public funding for religious and racial groups today as he set out plans to improve community integration.

The Prime Minister warned that taxpayers' cash had been too easily handed out to organisations "tightly bonded around religious, racial or ethnic identities".

In future they would have to prove they aimed to promote community cohesion and integration, he said.

"Very good intentions got the better of us," he said in a lecture at Downing Street.

"We wanted to be hospitable to new groups. We wanted, rightly, to extend a welcome and did so by offering public money to entrench their cultural presence.

"Money was too often freely awarded to groups that were tightly bonded around religious, racial or ethnic identities.

"In the future, we will assess bids from groups of any ethnicity or any religious denomination, also against a test, where appropriate, of promoting community cohesion and integration."

He also ruled out any introduction of Islamic Sharia in the UK and called on mosques that excluded the voice of women to "look again at their practices".

The suicide bombings in London on July 7 last year had thrown the whole concept of a multicultural Britain "into sharp relief", the Prime Minister said.

He insisted it was an idea that should still be celebrated but said it went hand in hand with a "duty" to share "essential values".

"When it comes to our essential values - belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for this country and its shared heritage - then that is where we come together, it is what we hold in common.

"It is what gives us the right to call ourselves British. At that point no distinctive culture or religion supercedes our duty to be part of an integrated United Kingdom."

The Prime Minister said Britain was "better placed than most" to have a sensible debate on the issue.

But it had to be prepared to stand up and fight for the tolerance which was its hallmark, he added.

"We are a nation comfortable with the open world of today," he said.

"London is perhaps the most popular capital city in the world today partly because it is hospitable to so many different nationalities, mixing, working, conversing with each other.

"But we protect this attitude by defending it. Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain.

"So conform to it; or don't come here. We don't want the hate-mongers, whatever their race, religion or creed.

"If you come here lawfully, we welcome you. If you are permitted to stay here permanently, you become an equal member of our community and become one of us.

"Then you, and all of us, who want to, can worship God in our own way, take pride in our different cultures after our own fashion, respect our distinctive histories according to our own traditions; but do so within a shared space of shared values in which we take no less pride and show no less respect.

"The right to be different. The duty to integrate. That is what being British means.

"And neither racists nor extremists should be allowed to destroy it."

Mr Blair praised Tory leader David Cameron, saying it was "not conceivable in my view" that he would seek to exploit immigration to win votes.

"That is both a tribute to him and to the common culture of tolerance we have established in this country today."