This was Mr. Tea's curious formulation, in regard to their ignorant and mistaken nomination of "Muslim leadership" in the UK -- which was, in fact, a Tory mistake to begin with, merely reinforced by the likes of Jack Straw. What was the "New Labour" style of multiculturalism, how does it differ from other "styles", and what are they?
Oh blimey, I was just repeating something I'd read somewhere which seemed to make sense to me given Labour's obsession with giving ethnic minorities representation based primarily on race, original nationality and above all religion. I'll try and find the original article, I'm not sure everything in it could be taken as gospel truth but made some very interesting and probably quite valid points. Like how a couple of decades ago there was at least some degree of solidarity between blacks and Asians in racially mixed towns in the Midlands and Yorkshire in the face of frequent hostility from a large part of the white population (funny how you don't hear so much about the "white community", who have councillors, mayors and MPs rather than "community leaders"). But then the creation of these various councils and groups to represent minority communities changed that by creating competition for resources and representation, and now there are really serious tensions between black and South Asian communities in many areas, to the point of riots and murders. To say nothing of the tensions between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in some areas, a serious upwelling in anti-Semitic feelings (and actions) among Muslims. Also, the official "community leaders" for the local Bengali or Pakistani or West Indian population, whose authority was meant to be largely ceremonial, suddenly had a lot of real political power because ethnic minorities can often be relied on to block vote in council elections depending on which candidate is favoured by their representative imam/pastor/tribal elder or whoever. I mean you only have to look at the utter fucking shambles in the recent elections in Tower Hamlets...
I think these policies were probably introduced with largely noble intentions but they've unintentionally had a divide-and-conquer effect, not by disempowering minorities but by empowering them in a naive and undemocratic way.
The point about there being different 'styles' of multiculturalism was made by comparing the UK to France, where a diametrically opposite approach - "if we can't see racism, then it isn't there" and a ban on all forms of racial profiling - has led to a similar situation: ethnic ghettoization and that tacit, semi-self-conscious "I'm not racist, but..." kind of racism (or at any rate xenophobia) among many middle-class white people who would never dream of actually voting for a far-right party. Having said that, it might be a bit different in France considering le Pen junior recently polled almost a fifth of the popular vote in a general election. And on the other side, ethnic separatism and a lack of integration, along with an undeniable rise in more or less radical strains if Islam(ism), has understandably help fuel white suspicion of certain ethnic groups. Though of course this fact is completely taboo among the more left-wing tendency in the Labour party and the various 'Respect' (lol)/SWP/Stop The War factions who rely so heavily on the support of minority and especially Muslim communities.
Another factor is Labour's support for faith schools, which encourage a de-facto monoculturalism within a notional multiculturalism. Exactly how "multicultural" is a school where all the kids are Catholic, Jewish, Sunni or whatever? I mean, people love to describe London as this great multicultural 'melting pot' city, and it's true that there's less visible friction and separation between different ethnic groups than exists in a lot of other British cities and probably many European cities too. But in reality, what you tend to get is a bunch of white English people who largely keep themselves to themselves, and a bunch of Turkish people who do the same, ditto Bengalis, Poles, West Indians, Somalis, Chinese and so on, all living cheek-by-jowl. Whereas I've noticed in Oxford, for example, it's very common to see interracial couples with kids, much more common than in London.
This is a bit of a brain-dump but I hope it clarifies what I said earlier.
Edit: and as Craner mentions, there's the added complication of parliamentary devolution, power-sharing in NI, regional assemblies, the huge popularity of the SNP (which probably has more support among
English people than any Westminster government would care to admit), leading to a reaction in the form of a specifically English nationalism, increasing suspicion of the EU what with a far bigger influx of East European immigrants that anyone expected, and now a crisis in the euro, bailouts for the failing EU economies. And mad wankers in Cornwall who think they belong to a well-defined Cornish 'race'...
The SNP situation is interesting, as while New Labour was generally in favour of devolution it was absolutely terrified of full Scottish independence as it would have been completely fucked long before the 2010 election without the support of Scottish voters. Although I suppose an independent Scotland would necessarily be far more financially dependent on the EU, which must be a far less attractive option now than it looked ten years ago.