A Government Minister's suggestion that Britain's ethnic minority communities could be "rebranded" would increase tensions in communities, senior Birmingham officials warned.
Home Office Minister Hazel Blears said representatives of Muslim and other minorities could be asked whether they would prefer to be known by US-style hyphenated terms such as Asian- British, Pakistani-British or Indian-British, rather than simply 'Asians'.
The idea is part of a set of proposals to be floated at meetings she is holding nationwide to discuss how to steer young Muslims away from radicalism. But Birmingham Labour MP Khalid Mahmood ( Perry Barr) described the suggestions as negative and confusing.
"I'm not sure what that would achieve. There have already been so many changes to how we describe people of different ethnic origins," he said.
"But the real substance is that we should not be describing ourselves as whatever ethnic minority our parents are because most people here are British, full stop.
"If you are walking down the street and you see someone who is Asian you can't tell if they are Indian- British, Pakistani-British or Asian-British, so I am not really sure about the thinking behind this.
"The issues we need to deal with are about how we learn to integrate and take the best bits from all our cultures - like the Birmingham Carnival this weekend.
"People just are what they are and we shouldn't need to label them."
The warning was echoed by Councillor Talib Hussain (Lib Dem Sparkbrook), Birmingham City Council's cabinet member for local services and community safety. He said: "It will create more tension in the community and will confuse everybody as to who they are and what they are with their own identity.
"I am concerned about how this would impact on the diverse community, especially in families where you have a father born in another country but who has lived here all his life as a British citizen, but who has children born in this country. Will they be labelled differently even though they are part of the same family?
"If this is trying to address the issue of cohesion, then the Government needs to find a different way of doing it. People need help, support and guidance through education, and should be taught that whether you are British or Asian, regardless of your faith, you need to respect the laws of this country."
Joy Warmington, chief executive of Birmingham Race Action Partnership, said: "The whole issue of how you count and enable ethnicity needs rebranding. The problem is we have forgotten why we started to collect labels in the first place.
"Part of the reason why we did that was to find out if anyone was feeling disadvantaged within society. The original idea of having a label was about understanding, and being able to support people from different backgrounds."
