{"id":27307,"date":"2025-05-20T15:27:17","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T14:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/?p=27307"},"modified":"2025-05-23T15:46:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T14:46:32","slug":"starmer-says-migrants-should-speak-english-but-all-of-the-uks-languages-are-important-for-integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/education-languages-health\/starmer-says-migrants-should-speak-english-but-all-of-the-uks-languages-are-important-for-integration\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer says migrants should speak English \u2013 but all of the UK\u2019s languages are important for integration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/p\/19ftRA6Qkw\/?\">Keir Starmer said<\/a>: \u201cIf you want to live in the UK, you should speak English\u201d, it laid bare an assumption \u2013 that English is the only language that counts in the UK, <em>says Sarah Cox, Research Fellow at the Open University.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This view not only overlooks the UK\u2019s rich linguistic diversity, but also runs counter to the language policies being developed across the devolved nations.<\/p>\n<p>While the UK government\u2019s latest\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/media\/6821aec3f16c0654b19060ac\/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-white-paper.pdf\">proposals<\/a>\u00a0on immigration treat English proficiency as the main pathway to integration, governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are taking different approaches.<\/p>\n<p>Immigration is a matter controlled by Westminster. But integration, including\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.policywise.org.uk\/sites\/www.policywise.org.uk\/files\/Wise_In_Five_Refugee%20Languages%20-%20final%20ammends_0.pdf\">language education<\/a>, is devolved. That means each UK nation sets its own direction.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/starmer-says-migrants-should-speak-english-but-all-of-the-uks-languages-are-important-for-integration-255286\">Read the full article here on The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Picture credit: iSaw Company on Pexels<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When\u00a0Keir Starmer said: \u201cIf you want to live in the UK, you should speak English\u201d, it laid bare an assumption \u2013 that English is the only language that counts in the UK, says Sarah Cox, Research Fellow at the Open University. This view not only overlooks the UK\u2019s rich linguistic diversity, but also runs counter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":27308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[862,1525,1643,2200],"class_list":["post-27307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-languages-health","category-languages","tag-faculty-of-wels","tag-news-home","tag-ou-news","tag-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27307"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27316,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27307\/revisions\/27316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}