The right wants us to think Britain is on the verge of ethnic conflict. The truth is worse than that | John Merrick

In blaming problems on migrant ‘outsiders’, prophets of decline are paving the way for harder borders and mass deportationsJune 2025 was a now typical month for the British press. It began when, on Tuesday 3 June, the Telegraph’s Sam Ashworth-Hayes and Charles Hymas worried that white Britons, according to new data published by Matt Goodwin and trailed earlier that day in his column in the Daily Mail, will “become a minority in the UK population within the next 40 years”.There followed a brief calm, interrupted only by the odd article informing us that “London’s decline is now irreversible”, or that “Starmer and Farage have doomed Britain to an endless spiral of decline”. By Friday 13 June, however, things reached a new pitch. That day, former Tory MP Douglas Carswell used his Telegraph column to complain that “low-skilled, non-western immigrants” are a “burden” on the country. We need, he wrote, “a detailed plan to take foreign nationals off the benefit system and remove them from the country”. A day later, the Sun followed up with a report noting that the “majority of Brits say UK ‘is in decline’ and fear civil unrest”. Later, the Telegraph warned the nation of a coming “revolution”, one born from the effects of immigration, state failure and economic stagnation. Here, in full flow, was a new chorus of “declinism”, the fear that the country’s relative global decline is the result of the pathological failings of the British state and society.John Merrick is the deputy editor of the Break–DownDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

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