England is now a sectarian society. As of the Basic Election, on 4th July, some individuals are despatched to parliament by particular non secular and ethnic communities just because they’re members of these communities, not due to the insurance policies they espouse. A system which has lengthy existed in sectarian Northern Eire has now come to the English mainland. The explanation? Mass immigration into England over the past 25 or so years of South Asian Muslims, who’re extremely concentrated in sure areas.
The UK’s Basic Election has led to the utter humiliation of the ruling Conservative Social gathering, which had been in energy for 14 years and accomplished nothing to reverse the method of mass immigration set off by Tony Blair’s Labour Social gathering within the early 2000s. Actually, they’d accelerated it, with greater than 745,000 authorized immigrants arriving in 2022 alone, placing appalling stress on housing and public companies, placing apart what this does to nationwide unity [Net migration to UK hit record 745,000 in 2022, revised figures show, By Patrick Butler and Peter Walker, The Guardian, November 23, 2023]. Led by Rishi Sunak, a second technology Indian immigrant, the get together, which has existed for the reason that seventeenth century, was plunged into its worst defeat ever, gaining simply 121 seats within the 650 seat Home of Commons which, as within the US, is elected by First Previous the Put up. Labour, underneath its moderately boring chief, Sir Keir Starmer, attained the second largest majority in its historical past.
However much more attention-grabbing, and worrying, is the truth that various Labour MPs in beforehand strongly Labour areas misplaced their seats. Particularly, they misplaced them to unbiased Islamist candidates standing on Professional-Gaza platforms. In Leicester South, within the East Midlands, a senior Labour MP misplaced his seat to a South Asian Muslim, who was as soon as a Labour supporter, who declared, upon victory, “That is for Gaza!” and held up a keffiyah; the top scarf which is strongly related to the Palestinian trigger. In Blackburn, within the northwest, the sitting Labour MP was defeated by an unbiased known as Adnan Hussain, a lawyer who declared: “That is for Gaza. I can’t deny that I stand right here as the results of a protest vote on the again of a genocide.” Iqbal Mohammed, an IT marketing consultant and as soon as a Labour supporter, took Dewsbury and Batley, additionally within the northwest, from Labour on a manifesto of preventing for a ceasefire in Gaza. Ayoub Khan, a barrister and former Liberal Democrat councillor, took Birmingham Perry Bar from Labour as a Professional-Gaza unbiased [Who are the pro-Gaza independents who unseated Labour MPs? By Haroon Sidique, The Guardian, July 7, 2024]. As well as, various senior Labour MPs got here near shedding their seats to Professional-Gaza candidates [Labour cannot afford to be complacent over pro-Gaza vote losses, By Josh Halliday, The Guardian, July 5, 2024].
Labour has lengthy taken the Muslim vote without any consideration, however its failure to sentence Israel’s actions in Gaza has led to a political rebellion which the First Previous the Put up System is uniquely set as much as ship. In democratic phrases, the 2024 normal election is an absurdity. The Labour Social gathering took 411 seats (64% of the seats), and a majority over all different events of 178, on simply 33.7% of the nationwide vote. With 12.2% of the vote, the Liberal Democrats took 72 seats, whereas the populist conservative Reform Social gathering, led by Nigel Farage who very a lot spearheaded Brexit, acquired simply 5 seats on 14% of the vote. These have been all seats that very strongly supported Brexit [Wikipedia]. (The Conservative Social gathering: 23.7 % vote share and 121 seats.)
The Reform vote share differed so wildly from the variety of seats received as a result of it was roughly even nationwide; they got here second or third in quite a few seats. Muslims, nevertheless, are concentrated into very particular areas; normally ex-industrial cities. In lots of of those cities, they’ve arrange parallel societies: all people is a South Asian Muslim (as a result of White Flight and folks’s evolutionary need to be with individuals like themselves), the group is centred round various (typically fundamentalist) Mosques, individuals are extremely non secular, and there’s a sturdy feeling of preventing towards the dominant society [see Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain, By Ed Husain, 2022]. It’s situations like this that enable Muslim independents to be elected, as soon as they reject the Labour Social gathering which they’ve accomplished as a result of its stance on Gaza. In that regard, it’s absolutely no coincidence that the seats that despatched Reform Social gathering members to parliament have been overwhelmingly native British and considerably working class.
After all, as soon as this occurs you may have sectarianism and that is the top of democracy, or the start of the top, as a result of individuals are not voting on coverage, they’re merely voting for an individual who represents their ethnic group. Finnish political scientist Tatu Vanhanen spelt this out in his e-book Ethnic Conflicts. Though it’s attainable for multi-ethnic societies to be democracies – India is an instance – generally there’s a detrimental affiliation between ethnic range and the power to maintain democracy. That is mediated by ethnic battle. Actually, Vanhanen discovered that ethnic range explains 66% of the variance in ethnic battle once you evaluate totally different nations. In different phrases, ethnic range may be very more likely to result in ethnic battle and that is, in flip, more likely to result in sectarianism, which can render democracy hole.
India, although it’s multi-ethnic, typically shares a faith – about 80% of Indians are Hindu – and the ethnic teams of which it’s composed are all comparatively related. This isn’t the case within the UK, the place the independents MPs are of a unique race and a unique faith than the native inhabitants. It follows that the UK can’t be in comparison with India and that it truly is seeing – in probably the most stark style with the election of those MPs – what has a protracted been occurring anyway; the break-up of the nation right into a parallel societies; into Muslim and non-Muslim areas.
This shouldn’t be stunning. As I’ve explored intimately in my e-book The Previous is a Future Nation: The Coming Conservative Demographic Revolution, the ethnic range, mass immigration and the splintering of huge polities at all times happens within the winter of civilization and it’s probably occurring within the US as nicely. How deliciously ironic that Labour candidates, who’ve dogmatically espouse mass immigration and condemned critics as “racist,” are actually shedding their seats in parliament as a result of sectarianism that has developed as a result of mass immigration.
