Integration of immigrants through assimilation into a host nation’s culture failed because people need their cultural identity to remain whole. Immigrants tend to coalese into cultural groupings within host nations for mutual support and therefore form smaller communities, based on shared culture, within the larger cultural community of the host nation.

Multi-culturalism is the acknowledgement and acceptance of different cultures co-existing geographically as enriching the cultures of all as they interact with each other.

It is near impossible to actually define what it is ‘to be British’, for example, without recourse to halfwitted cliches of roast beef on Sundays or bowler hats, so why not also include wearing turbans, hijabs or saris? The nation dish of the UK is a curry after all…

Multi-culturalism is really only a more immediate form of what exists on a slightly bigger scale globally anyway.