23 Comments
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Trevor Cochrane's avatar

Just imagine if we'd had a government in power for a significant period of time which could have done something about the massive amount of international immigration. All of this could have been avoided. I can't possibly think which financial interests would benefit from a balkanised country.

"You have communities of rural oldies and young urban grads not mingling or meeting up. People start to say things like: “I don’t know anyone who voted for X”

Really? Young people don't speak to their parents or grandparents?

"Family Farm Tax"

Such cloying manipulative language. Britain is not like France, we don't have a very large number of small farm holdings. British agriculture is totally dominated by large agribusiness interests. The NFU is basically a front for Tate and Lyle.

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Christine Robinson's avatar

Why is the title Britain, when you are discussing just England and Wales?

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BobC's avatar

Was wondering exactly the same. Fair enough if he can’t be bothered doing the extra research to include other countries in the UK, but at least label it correctly to save us clicking through before finding out it’s only England and Wales

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texaspete's avatar

Might this be an artefact of new immigrants initially living in deprived parts of large conurbations and then moving out across the country once they are settled?

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Tom McCallum's avatar

This piece is a great example of looking at loads of data sets to see levels of correlation (or not). When I do such analysis myself I also seek (not always successfully) to be aware of and not be lead by my biases. In this case your title "is Britain balkanising?" had me worried that you could have pushed to see a pattern (whether or not it existed) to confirm this hypothesis and so, well, pander to certain balkanised electoral bases. Kudos to you for seeing that the data is unclear, so not making any simplistic conclusion, instead you presented the data and posed several questions for us all to keep in mind.

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Abdul Aziz Hafezi's avatar

As someone having lived in Newham for over 3 decades, ive noticed the white flight. Its a shame as their continued presence would have created a better understanding between us.

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True European's avatar

Using "migration "and" migrants" acknowledges the globalist's agenda of no borders for non whites to enter white heritage countries.

Whatever degree of white flight exists it can be seen as part of the plan because they're certain to be followed by the non whites.

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JoeSeff's avatar

Thanks for a detailed breakdown of stating the obvious. This is what happens when the country is run for an extended period of time by PPE graduates from Oxford with no clue about the real world.

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Trevor Cochrane's avatar

The country is run like the rest of the Western world in the interests of giant investment banks, multinational corporations and the people who own them. Every single country in the West has experienced this.

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JoeSeff's avatar

So what?

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Peter Fearon's avatar

Population redistribution is happening in other countries too even without PPE graduates.

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Overlay_UK's avatar

Neil O’Brien studied PPE at Oxford!

Yes, I was shocked too.

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Trevor Cochrane's avatar

He's a man who decries "welfarism" yet fails to explain how Full Employment could be achieved in the most deindustrialised country in the West, with massive rates of immigration, a central bank which uses unemployment to "manage inflation" and his own political party being implacably opposed to everyone who wants a job being able to have one.

I guess the necessary intelligence to get onto a PPE course just isn't as high as it used to be. Or he's a manipulative liar. He's certainly someone who's never worked outside of the political bubble himself.

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St Ewart's avatar

Seems to have skirted around …crime .any correlation with migration influx? Foreign parent? Eg how could all those ‘heritage’ Americans have just ‘floated away’ from these beautiful walkable cities like Detroit , Baltimore and inner urban zones with classy old buildings throughout the US. They must have really wanted to work 5 jobs, and spend their lives in a car getting obese, to afford a boring , dull characterless exurb (boring = crime free). Maybe they were mad. Can anybody think of any other reasons?

Happening in the U.K. in plain view. But not visible in this academic ghost written study , the writer wouldn’t get another internship if they stated the obvious.

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Peter Fearon's avatar

Between the 1960s and the early 2000s about half the population of Liverpool moved outside the city boundary. This scouse diaspora was not influenced by overseas migration but by vanishing jobs and the social problems associated with it. When I lived there the Liverpool accent stopped at the city boundary but those melodious tones are now present in south Lancashire, north Wales and the Wirral. In general the people who moved wanted to own their own homes and preferred newer houses. They were better off and possibly more ambitious than those who remained. Things have changed. Liverpool is now a thriving city and an exciting place for students.

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St Ewart's avatar

Liverpool just bled into Knowsley and Clwyd. You know this right? A mixture of new town like Kirkby and Runcorn (space city!) emptied the central area out. Not many jobs out there either. Prestatyn and Rhyl are junkie scouse horror stories, for expanding unwanted populations. Re gentrification has reinvented Liverpool as a smaller, theme park tourist destination, for students and deliberately blind middle class types (from middle England…LFC supporters and champagne socialis types..who adoorrre Liverpudlians) . High levels of enforcement protect the Albert docks, cbd and L1 areas and partly beyond. Plenty of desperate hellholes like Kensington and Gramby St for you to visit..don’t stay long.

People like you wont recognise that U.K. is split in to London, a few islands (like Liverpool 1 ) and hunger games people. They don’t see each other much. The hatred is mutual.

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Martin T's avatar

Not sure about all the stats, just travel across London and then from London to say, half an hour away, in Sevenoaks. You wouldn’t know that immigration was an issue. Maybe there’s no harm if we self sort among familiar faces, maybe we just have to stop seeing things in terms of a nation with a national interest and a national story.

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Kat D's avatar

Should not have to be that way though and eventually when the demographics overwhelm the heritage population there will be no escape.

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Martin T's avatar

Or will we just find ourselves in our own little bubbles, rules by our local tribal elders, chieftains and princes. History in reverse could be quite colourful. And what happens when the armies of the Emir of Bradford meet the armies of the Prince Bishop of Durham?

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Neil M's avatar

The armies of the Emir of Bradford will serve the Sultan of al-Biritaniyyah in Londonabad. If there is a Prince Bishop, he will have no army and will instead pay the jizya. Homework for everyone: read about the 'fath al-andalus' (Muslim defeat of the Visigoths and conquest of Spain) and how rural Iberia was Islamified only slowly.

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Martin T's avatar

Will there a mountain redoubt where the Anglii hold out waiting for help from afar?

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Jim Wellard's avatar

Interesting. Living in York I can confirm we had a deluge of London folk moving in post pandemic. The school WhatsApp groups now full of ludicrously pretentious names for their offspring. Local estate agent said he couldn’t believe the number of cash buyers

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Neil O'Brien's avatar

Ha. Seems to have further accelerated things

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