by Robert Jenrick MP, Telegraph
Integration is impossible when the host country culture is absent
Contrary to popular myth, the UK’s demographics have remained remarkably stable for most of our island story. Yes, we have experienced waves of migration, for instance the Huguenots in the late 17th century, but we are not, like our American friends, a nation of immigrants.
Stability has served us well. It enabled a high-trust, cohesive society with a unifying national identity. It meant I was brought up in the Black Country by parents who possessed a deep English working-class patriotism.
That sense of national togetherness is now being torn to shreds as unprecedented levels of mass migration transform parts of our country beyond recognition. While the population of rural towns and villages have grown steadily, our large towns and cities have absorbed an astronomical number of immigrants at dizzying speed.
The disorienting rate of change is rarely discussed by our media elite, so the numbers bear repeating. According to ONS census data, in central Bradford 50 per cent of people were born outside of the UK. In central Luton 46 per cent of all residents arrived in the past decade. Between 2001 and 2021 the proportion of the white British population in Dagenham fell by 51 per cent; in Slough by 35 per cent; and in Peterborough by 27 per cent. There is no historical precedent – or democratic mandate – for this.