The immediate concern of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain was narrow and practical, namely, how to deal with the discrimination and disadvantages to which ethnic minorities are subject in British society. The Commission was, however, led to ask large questions about the nature of British society, the best way to read its history, how to deepen its collective self-understanding so as to make it hospitable to the presence of ethnic minorities, the appropriate language to describe the contemporary state of race relations, the nature of racism, how to balance the demands of social cohesion with those of cultural differences and the limits of permissible diversity.
