Thread by @docrussjackson

#Thread

As the usual right-wing shit-stirrers - supported by a cabal of divisive, racist, far-right anonymous troll accounts, & dodgy more mainstream right-wing print & broadcast "media personalities" - distort the census data, the FT debunks the myths.

ft.com/content/c466d1…

Godless damaged #neofascist grifter Nigel Farage claimed that “London, Birmingham & Manchester are all now minority-white cities”, & “only 46% [of Britons] now identify as Christian... a massive change in the identity of this country that is taking place through immigration”. 🤥

Unhinged Conservative commentator Douglas Murray, who has previously described London as having “become a foreign country”, echoed Farage in blaming the declining numbers of British Christians on immigration. Others talked of rising segregation & “no-go areas” on social media. 🤪

Almost all of these divisive & misleading claims are untrue, as even a cursory look at the data reveals.

First, there’s the fact that London (54% white) & Manchester (57%) are clearly not minority white at all, & Birmingham (49%) makes it under the wire by a hair’s breadth.

Farage & his fellow broken shit-stirrers must have been looking only at those who identify as both British AND white.

But if identifying as British is the key, why count only white Britons? (I think we all know the answer.)

We have data on the share of people in each region that have a British identity. In London, it’s 78% — & black & mixed-race Londoners are MORE likely to identify as British than the white population!

The dumb & divisive religious claims are even more risible...

The shit-stirrers' bullshit argument here is that “mass immigration” has hastened Christianity’s decline in Britain. Yet that decline has been driven overwhelmingly by white Britons, less than half of whom now say they are Christian, down from 69% in 2011 - a loss of about 7M. 😇

If preserving Christianity is crucial to “saving” Britain, we should examine Britain’s black population: 72% are Christian, half a million MORE than in 2011, & 60% of the NON-British WHITE community are Christian - a million added since the last census!

As for the views of contemporary Christofascists, as far back as 1995, less than a third of Britons thought being Christian was an important part of being British. By 2020, that had fallen to 20%! With cranks pushing Christ knows what twisted version of faith, I'm not surprised.

Finally, we come to the relentless bullshit warnings over “segregation” & “no-go areas”, which again prove unfounded.

While Christianity ranks low on the list of things Britons say one requires to be truly British, speaking the language ranks highest.

Drill down to even the most monoethnic of Britain’s non-white neighbourhoods, & a clear majority speak fluent English in every single one.

Segregation is one of many UK culture war terms terms imported from the US, applied liberally but incorrectly on this side of the Atlantic.

Racial segregation was legally mandated in the US south under Jim Crow, & the policy of denying financial services on racial grounds quietly extended similar practices.

While one in 40 US neighbourhoods are still highly segregated, fewer than one in 1,000 are in Britain.

There is, though, one point @jburnmurdoch concedes: the gobshites are right in implying that they are part of a minority group facing terminal decline: in 2006, only 10% of Britons thought that to be truly British you had to be white. By 2020, that figure had fallen to 3%. 🇬🇧👊

This thread quotes extensively from @jburnmurdoch's excellent article in the FT, linked at the top of the thread, supplemented by screenshots, additional quotes, & candid terminology added by myself for emphasis. 🙏