Rapid change can fuel ethnic tension

Traditionally, it's the right who have led opposition to immigration and multi-culturalism. But recently progressive thinkers have taken a subtle tack against the prospect of further migration. It's been argued that by eroding established social bonds, diversity questions the sense of a common identity and mutual support that underpins the welfare state. After all, the welfare state was established by an ethnically near-homogenous Britain, with the different classes brought together through their shared experience of the war.