Civitas

Civitas: The Institute for the Study of Civil Society is a London based right-wing think-tank. In a March 2009 presentation Tim Montgomerie and Matthew Elliott described Civitas as part of the infrastructure of the conservative movement in Britain.

Origins and launch

The think tank Civitas is supposedly independent of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), but the presence of an advisory board of IEA stalwarts such as Sir Peter Walters, Lord Ralph Harris of High Cross (Bruges group with Norris McWhirter etc.), Patrick Barbour and Kenneth Minogue suggests some continuity. Director (and ex-Labour councillor) David Green has been at IEA since 1984. It focuses on race, health and welfare reform and promotes the political scientist Charles Murray's ideas on the 'underclass'.

Civitas and neoconservatism

Civitas set up the Centre for Social Cohesion in 2007, with funding of £274,669.The Centre's director is Douglas Murray, author of Neoconservatism: Why we need it.

Civitas on Islam

Anthony Browne highlighted Britain's Muslim community in his November 2002 Civitas pamphlet, Do We Need Mass Immigration?.

As I write this, the UK is heading for war with Iraq, and even moderate Muslim leaders are warning the government of the impact on social relations with Britain’s two million strong Muslim community if Britain does attack another Muslim country (the less moderate leaders are warning that it will bring suicide bombing to Britain). Whatever the merits or demerits of war on Iraq, it is hardly a national strength to have a large minority with such divided loyalties during war.

Civitas published The ‘West’, Islam and Islamism: Is ideological Islam compatible with liberal democracy? by Caroline Cox and John Marks in June 2003. The pamphlet's methodology was based on a distinction between Western societies on the one hand and 'ideological societies' on the other, a category which lumps together fascism, communism and Islamism.

The propaganda battles of the Cold War, as understood through the work of figures such as neoconservative propaganda theorist Roy Godson and through Cox and Marks' own earlier writing, were cited as a precedent for the struggle with Islamism.

it was the long ideological battles of the Cold War and the massive efforts by Marxists to subvert, and thus to subdue, Western societies from within that was most difficult for the citizens of these societies to understand and thus effectively to resist.

Similar tactics were attributed to Islamists by Cox and Marks, but the possibility they might be used by Western societies was not considered.

The tactics used in the current Islamist attack on Western societies resemble those used by Marxists in the last century —deceptions of many kinds together with the drip, feeder and multiplier effects which enhance the overall effectiveness of the committed ideologists even if their numbers are not large.

The 1997 Runnymede Trust report Islamophobia - A Challenge for us all is cited as an example of the 'drip effect.'

Cox and Marks drew a distinction between moderate Muslims and ideological Islamists, but argued that "the distinction depends in practice on moderate Muslims being more forthright in distinguishing themselves from their ideological co-religionists."

Patrick West's September 2005, Civitas book The Poverty of Multiculturalism criticised local councils for funding Islamic Awareness week while refusing to celebrate Christian festivals. This formed part of a wider critique of multiculturalism as cultural relativism.

Cultural relativism, the philosophy that no culture is superior to another, is one of today’s widely accepted doctrines. In the twenty-first century, to assert the superiority of Western civilisation over any other culture elicits accusations of eurocentricism, arrogance or even racism.

Civitas published A Nation of Immigrants? by David Conway in April 2007. The pamphlet argued that current levels of immigration are historically unprecedented and threaten the reproduction of Britain's political culture.

Of late, there has been a growing realisation of the plausibility of some such claim in light of the discovery that all four suicide bombers of 7 July 2005 were British-born, second generation British Muslims who had grown up in Britain in highly segregated enclaves in which normal patterns of acculturation into mainstream British life have apparently become far harder to sustain. It is particularly in light of how quickly and recently many such enclaves have sprung up in Britain, and are continuing to grow apace, that all those who want to see Britain remain the stable, liberal, and tolerant country it has been for so long need to consider carefully how much truth or falsehood is contained in the claim hat Britain is and has always been a nation of immigrants.

In February 2009, Civitas published Music, Chess and Other Sins, a pamphlet on Muslim schools by Denis MacEoin with the assistance of Dominic Whiteman. It argued that some Muslim schools "are threatening the social cohesion of Britain by promoting a fundamentalist version of Islam that encourages children to despise the British society in which they live and to confine themselves to enclaves.".

In May 2009, the think-tank published the pamphlet Disunited Kingdom: How the Government's Community Cohesion Agenda Undermines British Identity and Nationhood , in which David Conway argued that "the main threats to community cohesion in Britain today come from mass immigration and the radicalisation of young British-born Muslims."

On Immigration

Civitas' work on immigration was criticised in 2004 by journalist Faisal Islam:

The Government's estimate of a £2.5 billion gain to the Exchequer from immigration came under fire last week from right-wing think tank Civitas. It managed to calculate a marginally negative figure, lapped up as proof of mass scrounging by Britain's immigrants.

But the figure was a result of subtracting the cost of running the immigration service from the taxes paid by immigrants. But is it right to count the cost of controlling immigration - essentially our political choice - against the workers' tax contribution? Plenty more arbitrary fiscal benefits, such as the fact that almost all immigrants come ready-schooled by their own state, could be added to counter the Civitas figures.

Health Unit

Civitas health unit was set up to 'facilitate informed and impartial debate among key stakeholders, patients, and the grassroots of the medical profession, in order to help build consensus on the future of health care in the UK.' Research aims include:

• bringing fresh thinking to problems facing the NHS through careful analysis and a consideration of what can be learnt from other health systems
• generating evidence-based ideas committed to 'high-quality, universal, safe and integrated health care', provided by clinicians whose first concern is patients.

James Gubb is the Director of the Health Unit at Civitas.

Healthcare Reform Civitas maintains that the quality of care is typically higher in Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs) than the NHS, and ISTCs cause NHS providers to drive performance in a way that would not happen without a competitive threat. The group quotes a survey commissioned by the NHS Partners Network claiming 74% of those polled said the NHS needed 'to change to survive'; and 74% more closely align themselves with the statement 'I don't mind who owns or runs my NHS services so long as the quality is right' than 'Services on the NHS should only be conducted in a hospital or other medical facilities run and owned by the government'.

In a press release headlined 'BMA to shut out independent sector from NHS is misguided', Civitas described itself as:

'...an independent social policy think-tank. It receives no state funding either directly or indirectly and has no links to any political party. Civitas's health policy research seeks to take an objective view of health care in Britain. It aims to offer an improved perspective on how best to deliver equitable and high standards of health care for all.'.

People

• David Green Executive Director
• Robert Whelan Deputy Director
• Stephen Pollard

Academic Advisory Council

• Norman Barry (Chairman) | Brenda Almond (University of Hull) | Barbara Ballis Lal (UCLA) | Peter Collison (University of Newcastle upon Tyne) | Tim Congdon | David Conway (Middlesex University) | Antony Flew | Thomas Griffin | R.M. Hartwell | Dennis O'Keeffe (University of Buckingham) | Robert Pinker (London School of Economics) | Duncan Reekie (University of Witwatersrand) | Peter Saunders | Jim Thornton (University of Nottingham) | James Tooley (University of Newcastle upon Tyne)

Trustees

• The Honourable Justin Shaw (Chairman) | Sir Peter Walters (Deputy Chairman) | Dr Philip Brown (Treasurer) | Patrick Barbour | The Hon. Mrs. Silvia Le Marchant | Professor Kenneth Minogue | Douglas Myers CBE | Lord Vinson of Roddam Dene

Patrons and Founder Patrons

• Philip Brown | Lord Craigmyle | Alan T. Gibbs | Thomas Griffin | Douglas Myers CBE

Contact, Affilliations, Resources, Notes

Contact

10 Storey's Gate, Westminster

Affiliations

• Centre for Social Cohesion – set up by Civitas

Resources

• Laura Brereton and Vilashiny Vasoodaven CIVITAS: Institute for the Study of Civil Society The impact of the NHS market February 2010.
• Civitas and the Media