London is rapidly becoming a separate nation, as different from England as Scotland or Wales are, with indigenous British people now in a minority, in some areas a very small minority indeed, and incidentally with extremes of wealth and poverty not known since Edwardian times.
Then of course there is the decline in Christianity, down by four million, from 72 per cent to 59 per cent; the growth in indifference to religion, with non-believers almost doubling to 14.1 million; and also of Islam, rising so fast that one British resident in 20 is now a Muslim.
The Muslim population is young, and keen on large families, while the Christian population tends to be older and less likely to have children.
This is very much a work in progress, far from complete. A lot of nominal Christians are no longer bothering to pretend to a faith they have never cared much about.
Do not be surprised if, in ten years, the gap between the number of professing Christians and the number of Muslims has grown much smaller.
The secularists, who have so enthusiastically sought to drive Christianity out of British life, may realise with a gulp of apprehension that they have only created a vacancy for Islam – a faith that is not at all troubled by Richard Dawkins.
Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday, 16 December 2012
Hitchens goes on to assert that the increased diversity of the UK is "the result of a deliberate, planned attempt to change this country for ever", an accusation derived from a tendentious account of government immigration policy by former New Labour adviser Andrew Neather. This conspiracy theory is much loved by the anti-migrant, anti-multiculturalist right and proved a source of particular inspiration to Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik.
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