John Howard has declared he “always had trouble” with the concept of multiculturalism, because immigrants should be expected to “adopt the values and practices” of the country they move to.

The former Liberal prime minister made the comments at the inaugural conference of new right-wing political forum the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) on Wednesday in London.

Critics including the former Labor prime minister Paul Keating have accused Howard and other reactionary conservatives of “outrageously and wilfully misinterpreting” the referendum result in an attempt to return to “the great assimilation project”.

When Pauline Hanson, a former Liberal, was elected to the lower house and formed the reactionary One Nation party, Howard responded by adopting some of her anti-Asian rhetoric including his suggestion that Asian migration should be “slowed down a little, so the capacity of the community to absorb [was] greater”.

The voice was one limb of the Uluru statement from the heart, which also calls for truth-telling and treaty-making, which is founded on the fact sovereignty of Indigenous nations has never been ceded.

Addressing the audience assembled by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and backed by a pro-Brexit hedge fund billionaire and a Dubai-based investment group, Anderson decried the influence of “cultural elites”.

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