Neil John O’Brien is simply a British Conservative organization politician who has represented the territory of Harborough, Oadby and Wigston in the home of Commons since 2017. He served as Minister of Basic wellness and Public wellness from 2022 to 2023. He previously advised Treasury Chancellor George Osborne (2012–2016) and Prime Minister Theresa May. Known for his analytical approach to politics, he has late warned against the increasing Balkanization of Britain – a process he believes threatens national cohesion and can lead to a lasting division of society.
In the garnering of publicity essay published on his blog Neil O’Brien warns against the process that he describes as the Balkanization of Britain. He uses this historically marked concept to describe the phenomenon of national cohesion decay under the influence of besides fast and unintegrated demographic changes. This term, derived from the experience of South-East Europe, symbolizes the breakdown of 1 country into a number of smaller, frequently hostile entities, based on ethnic, linguistic and cultural differences. According to O’Brien, a akin mechanics in a milder, social version can be seen in the United Kingdom today.
The parliamentarian points out that in many parts of the country, the number of people surviving in parallel societies is expanding — sharing space with others, but not forming a community with them. This is not just about immigration as a phenomenon, but about the utmost deficiency of integration of fresh residents, which leads to the “We cease to be 1 nation and become a collection of closed worlds.”
As he writes:
"It's not that we have immigrants. The point is that we cease to be 1 society – we become a clump that does not have a common culture, language, and sometimes even a common moral law.”
His diagnosis is of an emergency nature, but without specifics. O’Brien not only identifies the problem, but besides tries to identify its sources: in migration policy of fresh years, in education, in the deficiency of expectations of fresh arrivals and in the increasingly expanded social scenery of modern Britain. He peculiarly emphasizes the problem of increasingly visible social and cultural segregation. In his opinion, it is not only that people disagree in origin or religion, due to the fact that it is simply a phenomenon known and present in Britain for a long time. The problem is that more and more communities do not come into contact with each other, and even make parallel worlds that pass but do not meet.
“Today we have parts of the country where children start school by speaking another languages where they grow up, almost without gathering the British.”
O’Brien cites examples of urban areas where most residents come from 1 cultural group, talk another language and practice a different religion, and contact with wider British society is minimal or even zero. specified a situation creates culturally closed enclaves that not only do not participate in national life, but besides begin to produce their own social standards and principles of collective life. According to O’Brien, the state did not only prevent this phenomenon for years, but even deepened it, avoiding the subject of integration or the requirements for migrants. For example, it points to a school in which the increasing number of establishments has an cultural structure close to monoethnicity, which is contrary to the thought of common education in the spirit of national unity.
“People talk about ‘diversity’, but if it means that children go to schools where there are no peers from another cultures, then there is no diversity – we have segregation.”
O’Brien warns that if there is no decisive change of direction, Britain can find itself in a situation where society will function in cultural bubbles alternatively than as a community with clear values and a coexistence framework. His diagnosis is not based on xenophobia, but on the belief that a common cultural and linguistic space is simply a prerequisite for a unchangeable state.
One of the most crucial and decisive elements of Neil O’Brien’s diagnosis is the criticism of the British migration policy of fresh years. In his opinion, it is the uncontrolled influx of the population, in the absence of adequate integration mechanisms, that is the main origin of the country's progressive Balkanisation. The politician leaves no area for understatement here: Britain, according to him, simply lost control of who and how many people are coming to her.
‘These are not tiny numbers. Over the last 2 years 4 million people have arrived in the country – more than the population of Ireland.”
O’Brien emphasises that specified a scale of migration would be hard to absorb even by countries prepared for mass integration, and the United Kingdom is not specified a country in his opinion. According to him, the state ignored its own limitations and reduced immigration to an economical issue, forgetting that it besides has a social, cultural and political dimension.
“The governments of the various parties talked about the request to reduce migration, but in fact we opened the door to safety and allowed the numbers to get out of control.”
The politician does not deny the fact that Britain needs abroad workers. However, it points out that immigration was besides frequently treated as a fast consequence to marketplace needs, without reasoning about long-term impacts for society. In his opinion, there is simply a deficiency of a realistic integration strategy and subsequent migration waves lead to expanding tensions and fragmentation of the country. O’Brien besides suggests that the deficiency of courage to tell the fact about numbers and their consequences is simply a consequence of political correctness and fear of accusations of racism. Meanwhile, he claims that his warnings are not directed at immigrants, but at the ineffectiveness and inactivity of the state.
“This is not criticism of people who come. This is simply a criticism of a strategy that does not ask questions: how do we want our society to look in 20 years?”
One of the most serious problems that Neil O’Brien believes contribute to the progressive Balkanization of Britain is the deficiency of a common language. In his analysis, the deficiency of cognition of English is not only a communication barrier, but a fundamental threat to national unity and social integration.
“This is simply a systemic problem – not only do we not tell immigrants that they gotta integrate, but we do not even require them to talk the language.”
A politician describes situations where children starting education do not talk English, and schools, alternatively of being a place to build a common identity, become a tool to sustain separation. In any areas, he claims, full social groups grow up and operate in linguistic confinement, meaning they have limited contact with British culture, media, public institutions or even neighbors.
O’Brien emphasizes that language is not only a tool of communication but besides a carrier of values, history, social standards and shared experience. The deficiency of a common language automatically reduces the sense of belonging, affects education and employment, and weakens the sense of work for the common good.
“How can we build a common society erstwhile thousands of people cannot read our newspapers, watch the news, and realize the principles of public life?”
According to O’Brien, the state should not only make it possible to learn English, but besides powerfully require it. Otherwise, it warns, society will be broken up into groups that not only do not realize each other, but besides do not have a common cultural code, which means that they cannot coexist in 1 civilian space.
In addition to the social and cultural implications, Neil O’Brien besides warns against far-reaching political consequences of the Balkans. According to him, the disintegration of society into closed ethnic, spiritual and linguistic groups leads to a deformity of civilian and democratic life — especially at local level. What should be a space of common action and work is increasingly becoming a field of political clientelism and group loyalty.
“We begin to see the formation of closed political “clientisms” – groups that vote solely on the basis of cultural or spiritual loyalty.”
This situation, warns O’Brien, threatens the foundations of British democracy, which is based on universal values, common rules of play and public debate. erstwhile social groups do not only integrate culturally but besides build separate structures of political influence, there is simply a situation where decisions are made not in the interests of the community, but according to the rule of "ours for us".
It besides points to the hazard of expanding extremism (both spiritual and political) erstwhile any communities function outside the mainstream of public life and do not recognise a common strategy of values or institutions. Moreover, in his view, this situation not only perpetuates divisions, but besides creates mechanisms of force within the communities themselves, where loyalty to the group may be more crucial than the individual's right to think or vote alone.
“This not only threatens cohesion but besides freedom – if you enter public life as a typical of an cultural group alternatively than as a citizen, it means something went very wrong.”
Although Neil O’Brien formulates an acute and alarmistic diagnosis, he does not halt at criticism. In the second part of its essay, it proposes concrete lines of change to prevent further Balkans in the UK and reconstruct social cohesion. The central component of this imagination is the change from quantitative to qualitative.
"We request a fresh paradigm: less people come but integrate better. We must require more – not just give.”
O’Brien argues that the British State has been taking besides long on the issue of mechanical migration, treating immigrants only as a complement to labour marketplace shortages. Meanwhile, he stresses that the scale of migration began to have a real impact on the country's social and cultural structure, which the political elite did not want to admit. Therefore, the first step it proposes is to importantly reduce the number of immigrants admitted, especially in the absence of effective integration tools. The second pillar of the improvement would be the establishment of clear requirements for newcomers, especially in English. O’Brien emphasizes that an integrated society will not emergence alone — there must be an integration infrastructure, but besides an anticipation that fresh members of society will make an effort to become part of it.
"We should give integration tools, but besides require that they be used. Anyone who does not want to adapt should not come here.”
O'Brien proposes, among others, the extension and compulsoryness of English courses, support for local integration initiatives, strengthening the function of schools as Community institutions and changing the visa strategy to advance integration alternatively than just numbers. These proposals raised considerable controversy. Critics accuse him of simplifying the problem by putting work on migrants alternatively than taking into account the complexity of global processes. In turn, supporters see in his demands an chance to reconstruct control and rebuild national cohesion.
O'Brien answers unequivocally:
"It's not about closing into the world. The point is not to lose yourself.”
In his analysis, Neil O’Brien does not mention straight to examples from abroad, but his warnings and diagnosis can be easy compared with the experiences of another Western European countries. akin processes, which he calls Balkanization, were and are observed, among others, in France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, where there have besides been problems with cultural segregation, ghettoisation and failed attempts at integration.
For years there has been a policy of alleged "multiculti" in Germany, which assumed the peaceful coexistence of different cultures without strong force on assimilation. Over time, however, especially after the 2015 migration crisis, critical voices began to grow. Chancellor Angela Merkel himself admitted that "multiculturalism has failed – it has completely failed". O’Brien seems to be following the same path, although his speech is more firm: not so much “failed” as it has led to structural divisions.
“We are no exception. another countries have besides tried to ignore these processes. Now they pay a advanced social and political price for it."
Sweden, considered to be a model of tolerance and openness for years, besides faces expanding tensions in immigrant neighbourhoods, advanced organised crime and deficiency of integration. In France, conflicts around laickness and national identity are growing, and immigrant districts are practically out of state control. For O’Brien, these cases are a warning. He believes that Britain should learn from the mistakes of another countries before it is besides late.
“We inactive have a chance. But only if we halt pretending that everything happens alone and at no cost.”
Neil O’Brien, in his analysis of the Balkans of large Britain, asks the reader a question that goes beyond current migration policy or debate on integration. Its text does not concern only statistic or organization disputes, but it strikes the very core of the question about the national identity and future of the British community. According to him, it is no longer the number of people coming, but whether the British inactive have common “we” which includes all of them regardless of their origins — or whether the country breaks down into groups that do not share either language or value or basic loyalty to the state.
“This is not a question of whether we should be open or not. It is simply a question of whether we want to stay a single nation or dissolve in divided worlds.”
For O’Brien, Britain is present at a crossroads of civilization. On the 1 hand, there is simply a model of an open, diverse but increasingly fragmented state. On the another hand, a imagination of a community that requires greater effort from all: immigrants, state institutions and civilian society. The Tory proposes not to return to the past, but to rebuild the political and cultural community on fresh principles that take account of reality, but besides do not quit their aspirations for unity.
His voice forms part of a wider pan-European crisis of assurance in the thought of multiculturalism — not as a fact, but as an ideology that did not presume that diversity without integration could lead to the disintegration of the community. Many of his critics accuse him of redrawing the image, utilizing the rhetoric of fear and ignoring affirmative examples of integration. However, O’Brien responds: it is not about intentions, it is about effects.
"We are not racists erstwhile we talk about boundaries. We're not fanatics erstwhile we talk about a common language. We are realistic if we want our children to live in a single society, not in a ten-way side by side.”
Neil O’Brien’s diagnosis may origin concern, but it makes us reflect: does Britain have another common future or just parallel fates that are increasingly intersecting? This is simply a question that cannot be avoided any longer, regardless of its views.
Rafał Skórniewski
