A Conservative government would tackle the rise of “separatism” in the UK by uniting people “around a common culture and a common identity”, Kemi Badenoch has announced.

In a speech laying out a series of planned commissions focused on integration, the leader of the Opposition said Britain has become “too tolerant of those weaponising identity politics for their own gain”.

She defined separatism as “a way of living that keeps a group apart from the wider society” which leads to sectarianism and “the politics that follows when people are taught to think in blocks”.

Mrs Badenoch claimed separatism was “most visible in some Muslim communities, with extremism its most violent expression,” but said the issue was also emerging elsewhere.

Concerns have been raised about people forcing family members to vote in a certain way in the recent Gorton and Denton by-election, with Nigel Farage claiming it was a victory for “sectarian voting and cheating” after Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer won the seat.

Mrs Badenoch said she did not believe women were “marched into the voting booth to stop them from voting Reform”, but claimed something “much deeper and disturbing” was happening.

She added the by-election featured campaigning “designed to mobilise voters on ethnicity and religion, not domestic priorities”.

“People were voting not based on who would increase their wages or fix their schools, but on who would protect the interests of their identity groups and punish those who they disagree with. This is not healthy and it is not British,” she said.

Mrs Badenoch added her party’s approach would be “bold” and “brave” but strike the “right tone” to avoid fermenting division.

She added: “It is about bringing people together around a common culture and a common identity.

“There is a vacuum of competence on this issue right now and that is why Conservatives have to lead. No-one else will do this properly. We have to.”

Mrs Badenoch said: “British culture exists. We live it. We benefit from it and we have a duty to defend it and pass it on.

“The answer to this is integration, but for integration to work people have to know they are integrating into a culture which is strong and self-confident.

“It does not work if Britain is a mess of competing cultures and it cannot work if we are not brave enough to say who we are and what we expect.”

She said her party would launch a commission to recommend an integration and cohesion plan that “sets out the culture that we want people to assimilate into, what we expect and what we will enforce”.

She added: “But first we must do away with what has failed. Integration being treated as an administrative process has not worked. That era is over.

“We will act on a simple doctrine. We will end identity politics in the state full stop. No racial preferences, protected characteristics will not be used as criteria for hiring, promotion, admissions or procurement.”

Mrs Badenoch promised to establish “universalism”, described as “one set of rules for everyone, enforced fairly”.

Expanding on the concept, she added: “Universalism will run through every aspect of government policy, from education to policing, welfare to immigration.

“We will review every single code of practice to ensure standardisation across public bodies and prevent them from doing their own thing.

“We will replace the promotion of multiculturalism in schools with a national story, one that is inclusive of the many people who have come to Britain, but without the grievance or the guilt which is corroding our cultural confidence.

“We will not teach our children that all cultures are equal. Instead we will teach them why Britain’s civic culture matters.”

She also said her party would “end institutional self-censorship that stops people from doing the right thing”.

Lord Toby Young has been asked to lead a review on this element of the plans.

A commission will be established to assess how to overhaul the Equality Act “so it prioritises meritocracy and strengthens integration”, Mr Badenoch said.

We are proud to announce the launch of the following teaching materials that have been produced by the team at Faith Matters and in partnership with Syeda Ali and Professor Becky Taylor, from the University of East Anglia. We are particularly grateful to Syeda Ali from the University of Cambridge and Professor Becky Taylor from the University of East Anglia in helping Faith Matters to compile these resources for use at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 in schools.

They are, we hope, a valuable teaching resource for teachers when they are looking at issues of social cohesion, citizenship, migration and integration, as well as how the Commonwealth has intersected with British history. These teaching materials tell the story of a community that is fast being forgotten and whose impact on British history over the last 200 years has been significant.

The teaching materials are part of the ‘From East to West’ project that was founded by Fiyaz Mughal – the Founder of Faith Matters and researched by Max Russel. It has been a personal journey for him to document and to collect the stories of those who were expelled and to get the information and pictures into materials that can inform young people about the history of the Ugandan Asians. Mr Mughal is himself, of Ugandan Asian heritage who was expelled from Uganda when he was aged just 15 months, with his family being hosted in refugee military bases such as the RAF base in Stradishall.

We hope that these materials can assist those in Key Stages 3 and 4 in understanding how the impact of the British Empire and its resource needs, drew in people from across the Commonwealth. Many of them were used as cheap labour, inculcated with a sense that they were part of Britain and its Empire, re-settled in Uganda and then forcibly expelled by Idi Amin in 1972. They found themselves at the brunt end of Idi Amin’s anger at Britain, which led to much discussion by the British Government at the time, as to what should be done for the Ugandan Asians.

The sad fact is that Idi Amin was a product of colonialisation. He was brought into the Ugandan army by the Briitish, nurtured and let loose on other Ugandan tribes. He was an enforcer of British rule in Uganda and thereby a by-product of Empire. His impacts were to be felt by the Ugandan Asians who arrived in Britain in August 1972, dressed in clothing that was meant for the heat of East Africa, rather than the cold autumn that was coming in late 1972. These Ugandan Asians, (about 28,000 of them), moved from a land of light, colour and greenery, to the cold, grey and rain of Britain.

This is their story – the story of a displaced people – twice over. Once from India, and then again from Uganda. Yet they have made their home in the United Kingdom, but for many, it has come at a cost of what they lost in terms of their possessions, their memories, their childhoods and their health. This is their story.

Read more: 50 years on, no-one talks about the trauma that affected the Ugandan Asians

Britain has commissioned an independent review into the persecution of Christians to find practical steps to support followers of a religion that it said has been subject to a dramatic rise in violence worldwide.

Some 215 million Christians worldwide faced persecution for their faith last year, it said, with Christian women and children particularly vulnerable and often subject to sexual violence as a result of their beliefs.

Last year, on average, 250 Christians were killed very month because of their faith, it said.

“So often the persecution of Christians is a telling early warning sign of the persecution of every minority,” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Today I have asked the Bishop of Truro to look at how the British government can better respond to the plight of persecuted Christians around the world.

“We can and must do more.”

The review will map Christian persecution in key countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, analyse British support and recommend a comprehensive policy response, the government said.