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.
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. 🙏
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There was outrage when in 2020, the Tory Govt conceded a new bill to amend the UK's Brexit deal would "break international law" in a "specific & limited way".
But what is international law? What is the ICC?
And what were Margaret Thatcher's views on international law?
First, what is 'international law'?
Broadly (it's complicated!) it refers to the body of legal rules, norms, and standards that apply between sovereign states and other entities that are legally recognized as international actors.
The term was coined by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). According to Bentham’s classic definition, international law is a collection of rules governing relations between states. This original definition omits individuals and international organizations.
"Improving the quality of life for people of this country is perhaps the most important duty of Government."
John Prescott has died.
In September 2000, John - then Deputy Prime Minister - gave a speech at the @UKLabour Party Conference, introducing Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela died in December 2013. Writing a tribute in the Daily Mirror, John reflected on his death, writing: “In my office at home I have a picture that is my most treasured possession. It’s of me shaking Nelson Mandela’s hand on stage at the @UKLabour conference in 2000."
At the Rivonia Trial, between 1963 & 1964, Mandela gave a dramatic speech from the dock.
John wrote in 2013 “When I read that, I knew that I wanted to enter politics. He was my inspiration. So when he walked free in 1990, we felt as if one of our own comrades had been freed.”
🧵
Allison Pearson posted then deleted disinformation, falsely accused three people of being "Jew haters", lied about where the photo was taken & what they were doing, then lied about what the Police said to her - and then moaned about being a victim! FFS
The Telegraph's divisive shit-stirrer Pearson falsely claimed she was told by the police who came to her home it was over a “non-crime hate incident”. Her lie was then dutifully amplified by every Reform UK MP & billionaire-owned right-wing "news" media, painting her as a victim.
Essex Police said “At no stage... was she informed that the report being investigated was being treated as a non-crime hate incident. To suggest otherwise is wholly inaccurate and misleading.”
Pearson, Farage, Musk, Young, Habib, & many other shit-stirrers who shamelessly try to normalize hateful, divisive, provocative & inflammatory rhetoric, often refer to George Orwell's 1984, but Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is much closer to the dystopia we inhabit...
Harassment, malicious communications, incitement, & threatening violence are all crimes in the UK, & have been for a long time.
Print & broadcast media, & online social media are simply platforms on which we behave or misbehave: it's not about the medium, it's about the offence.
The UK is signed up to Article 10 of the #ECHR: everyone has the right to free speech, which may only be qualified in limited circumstances, including: national security; public safety; the protection of morals & of the reputation or rights of others.
"Enoch Powell was a hero of the young Nigel, but at this point he could do without any association with the politician who made the notorious Rivers of Blood speech... the accusation of racism follows Farage & his party around like a bad smell." - Allison Pearson
"Farage has tried for years to shrug off the charge that his parties are more than “the BNP in blazers”... although I don’t think Farage is a racist, it’s a problem that racists attach themselves to Reform." - Allison Pearson
“We’re investigating a report which was passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.” - Essex police spokesman
Not a lot of people know that Oxbridge alumni Fiona Bruce, presenter of 'Fake or (paid a) Fortune?', and since January 2019, the @BBC's interrupting Chair of #bbcqt, was born in Singapore.
One of her first episodes as Chair was the one that made Laurence Fox a household name.
In my widely read & reported February 2023 Open Letter to the @BBC about @bbcquestiontime, one of my concerns was about Bruce’s chairing of #bbcqt which I said was "at best, unacceptably poor."