Here are some snapshots of a society in very rapid transformation. First, by immigration:
Record Level Of British Population Is Foreign-Born
Second, by the higher fertility rates of those immigrants:
The proportion of children born here to foreign mothers has also hit a new high.
Some 24 per cent of the births in England and Wales last year – or 170,834 – were to mothers born outside the country.
Third, by marriage and conversion:
The former Roman Catholic from Warrington, who converted to Islam last year, gave evidence after swearing an oath to Allah and kissing the Koran.
The lady in question was testifying in the trial of her hoteliers:
Prosecutor Anya Horwood told the court Mr Vogelenzang, 53, called the prophet Mohammed a “warlord” and likened him to Saddam Hussein and Hitler.
And his 54-year-old wife told Mrs Tazi her Islamic dress represented “oppression” and was a form of “bondage”, the court heard.
It is not clear to me why the above statements should be against the law, or why one should be required to defend them in court. But, if you look at the deference the state is willing to extend to Islam now and then pitch it ahead a decade or two, after more immigration, more births, more “reversions,” one would not be sanguine about the long-term prospects of ancient English liberties.
Nonetheless, complacency remains the order of the day. Anne Applebaum thinks we underestimate the appeal of “the very mildness of modern Europe” — or, as I call it, the vast gaping nullity of the multiculti state. Responding to an NR column of mine, Oliver Kamm in the Times of London professes to be ”in favour of a vast gaping nullity.”
The problem, as he’ll live to see, is that that’s only a transitional phase.