The UK needs to “start again” on integration, Kemi Badenoch has said amid further violent unrest on Britain’s streets.
The Conservative leadership candidate pledged to end a “culture of silence” on the effects of immigration in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
Her comments followed violent scenes in towns and cities across the country, sparked by false claims circulated on social media about the identity of the suspect in a knife attack that killed three young girls in Southport on Monday.
Ms Badenoch said: “You look at all the tension that we’ve been seeing in the country over the last few days in Southport and Hartlepool, everybody’s quiet.
“They don’t want to upset the cultural establishment that wants to pretend that nothing is going on.
“They should be saying that we need a clearer strategy on integration, which we don’t have at the moment. Instead, we just pretend that everything is fine and it’s a few bad apples, which is sometimes the case.
“But if you want to have a successful multi-racial country, you need to make an effort to do that. You can’t just pretend that there are no tensions.”
She added: “We’ve got to start again. What kind of country do we want to be?
“Is it the Ship of Theseus example that if you keep bringing in lots of people from everywhere, how do we make sure that we are still the Britain that they wanted to come to?”
Violence continued on Friday night, with rioters in Sunderland – some draped in England flags – targeting a mosque and setting a police car on fire.
Speaking about immigration more generally, Ms Badenoch told the Telegraph: “I can’t put my finger in the air and give you a figure, but it clearly needs to come down given that it’s feeding into the housing crisis, education, welfare, prison places and law and order.”
Robert Jenrick, one of Ms Badenoch’s rivals for the Tory leadership, also placed immigration at the heart of his campaign at a launch event on Friday.
The former minister, who has overtaken Ms Badenoch as the bookies’ favourite, said a “cycle of broken promises” on immigration was the primary reason for the Conservatives’ defeat in the general election.
Saying he would hope to revive the Rwanda scheme and was “open to” a cap on immigration of less than 10,000, Mr Jenrick said large areas of the British state were “not working for the British people” and claimed the political system has appeared “either unwilling or unable” to do the “basic duty” to “secure our borders”.
Mr Jenrick is the first of the six leadership contenders to formally launch his campaign.
Along with Ms Badenoch, he faces two former home secretaries – James Cleverly and Dame Priti Patel – former security minister Tom Tugendhat and former work and pensions secretary Mel Stride.
