5 days ago
Politicians have their heads in the sand about immigration's irreversible damages
A new report published by the Centre for Heterodox Social Science has underscored the reality of significant demographic change in modern Britain. Authored by Matthew Goodwin, the research projects that the white-British ethnic majority will become a minority within the next four decades and could fall as low as a third of the UK's population by the end of the century.
By 2100, the analysis predicts that three in five people will be non-white. Currently standing in the region of seven per cent, the Muslim proportion of the UK's population could increase to eleven percent by 2050 and as high as one-fifth of it by the 22 nd century.
The findings confirm that the UK is undergoing major ethnic and religious transformation. There is no doubt that large-scale inward migration, which in recent times reached unprecedented levels under the last Conservative government's post-Brexit liberalisation of immigration rules, is driving much of this population change.
Along with the size of the inflows, the pattern of migration to the UK has changed in the post-Brexit context. Prominent countries of origin associated with the so-called 'Boriswave' include India, Pakistan, and Nigeria. This brings risks from a social-cohesion perspective. India and Pakistan recently locked horns in a military escalation following the Pahalgam terror attack, which the former blamed the latter over.
While India has witnessed the fiery rise of Hindu fundamentalism under prime minister Narendra Modi, Pakistan is verging on being a failed state riddled with Islamist extremism. Nigeria is also no stranger to ethnic and religious conflict.
But it is the political and cultural dynamics within the UK's 'homegrown' Muslim population which pose the most serious challenges in terms of integration and identity.
Research published by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL) found that seven in ten British Muslims identified with their religious identity first and foremost – with around a quarter identifying most strongly with their British/English national identity.
But younger, largely UK-born British Muslims are more likely to identify as 'Muslim first' than their predominantly foreign-born elders – peaking at 85 per cent for 18-to-24-year-olds.
What we are witnessing in the British Muslim population is the 'integration paradox' – as socially-conservative minorities become more socially integrated over generations, they are more exposed to cultural trends and mainstream political developments which may not be to their liking.
Whether it is the rapid secularisation of the mainstream or the perceived pro-Israelism of the British political establishment, the UK's relatively youthful and increasingly confident Muslim population is becoming more faith-centric in how they view their existence in modern Britain.
Of course, all of this leads us to what is taking place in the white-British ethnic group, which is on a consistently downward trajectory as a proportion of the UK's population. While one cannot underestimate the role of large-scale immigration in demographic change, neither can we overlook that major cultural changes in the mainstream are contributing towards it.
The reality is that certain ethnic and religious groups value marriage and parenthood more than others – to the point that they tend to be more willing to take a hit to their personal freedom and financial comfort for these goals. Marriage and parenthood are ultimately civic acts of self-sacrifice – one could be forgiven for believing that much of the white-British mainstream is simply not culturally or religiously inclined to take this on.
While England's rich traditions of personal freedom and individual liberty are to be admired, the 1960s social revolution and the rise of materialism put these values on steroids. Coupled with the considerable volume of inward migration of highly-religious kinship networks over decades, significant population change was, and is, inevitable.
Britain's demographic future is a declining and de-Christianising white-British population, an ever-growing Muslim population, and becoming a majority-nonwhite society. This is unlikely to be a seamless transition. It could give rise to a resurgent racial consciousness in the white-British ethnic group; two-tier governance and the unholy trinity of 'diversity, equality, and inclusion' will not help matters.
Meanwhile, British Muslim social and political disaffection – especially among its younger and more educated population – means the urge for Muslims to mobilise in line with 'group interests' will only grow.
One thing for certain: significant population changes in modern Britain are testing the UK's traditional reputation of being a successful multi-ethnic, religiously-diverse democracy to the limit. And many of our mainstream politicians have buried their heads in the sand over this.
