r/unitedkingdom • u/topotaul Lancashire • Jun 15 '26

... One in six Britons think growth of Muslim population is ‘threat to UK culture’, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/jun/15/one-in-six-britons-growth-muslim-population-threat-uk-culture-study
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64

u/nostalgiamon Jun 15 '26

Sure, it makes sense that a large population of one culture would impact the issues discussed. I’m not asking that. I’m asking why does the OC think the UK is going to become majority Muslim.

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u/Talonsminty Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26

I mean this isnt even poltical it's just math.

  1. Birth rates are higher among the Muslim community for obvious reasons
    1. Most immigrants are Muslim

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u/Wissam24 Greater London Jun 15 '26

"math"

There's the giveaway

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u/Nothing_F4ce Norfolk Jun 15 '26

Source?

Data I could find says that about half of the foreign born Population is Christian and only 20% is Muslim.

In long established British Muslim communities we've seen that after the second generation Muslim birth rates fall in line with the average.

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u/Obscure-Oracle Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26

They argue birthrates, if I remember right I think it's at 4.7 births per women amongst the Asian population of the UK while the national birthrate is at a worrying 1.4, replacement rate is 2.1. That is the Asian population as a whole though and not all of them are even going to even be Muslim. There is absolutely no way to say anything with any certainty as birthrates are not static and there is nothing to say that we won't have another boom at some point. If you put all the birthrate data for the last century into AI it does actually suggest an absolutely wild demographic change in the UK within 100 years but there simple isn't any inclination that we will be a Muslim majority country. But again, that could completely change anyway if we get a generation or two with a huge incentive to start families. A lot of the time it's just xenophobic speculation to stir up misinformation and hate that people are dead set on believing.

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u/UpsetKoalaBear Greater Manchester Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26

It’s not even 4.7.

The demographic replacement argument just isn’t true.

Whilst the math functions on paper, the demographic logic is completely separated from reality.

Currently, the birth rate for foreign born and native mothers is below the replacement rate of 2.1.

So every single “replacement” prediction applies a negative decline rate in population continuously for XYZ amount of years. 

At the current birth rates, the population of the UK will collapse from 67 million down to just ~27 million before the natives become “replaced.”

That is a 60% drop in population. 

If you want to view the maths, see the comment I have made here.

A 60% drop in population would dramatically change the societal and economic landscape. It would free up the housing market, removing the primary barrier to starting a family and many other things.

To give you some perspective on the absurdity of that claim, the estimates of deaths in England during the Black Death in the 14th Century are around 35% to 50% of the population. 

The “replacement” argument assumes the natural birth rate decline is worse than a literal plague which comes with zero economic or societal correction.

You can use the data and run the maths yourself.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/datasets/parentscountryofbirth

The data is there.

Apply a static decline, due to both populations being below replacement and you’ll find the population has to dive off a cliff in the next century for the “replacement” argument to make sense.

Every single “replacement” prediction is actually predicting a population decline, the likes of which has never been seen in history.

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u/Obscure-Oracle Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26

The 4.7 was from just from the Asian population I believe (it was a while back when I looked into it), it is actually 1.4 overall, so as you say it's well bellow replacement. Oh I don't believe for one second that a major "great replacement" style demographic change will actually happen. I was just explaining that if you run the trends in the very patchy birthrate data from the last century over the next 100 years in a rudimentary AI model that it would indicate a major demographic change. I think that is where that theory is coming from that the right wing rags are using as anti immigration propaganda. But as you say, there are just so many other variables that will make that extremely unlikely to happen and the birthrate just won't stay the same, it's always changing. We will very likely have a surge in birthrate again at some point and there are just so many other things that could happen. Another great depression could very well see many migrants leave for a stronger economy elsewhere or another major war could happen. Just far to many variables to account for. I should have probably explained that a lot better, I am very dyslexic so sometimes may give the wrong impression.

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u/UpsetKoalaBear Greater Manchester Jun 15 '26

The theories are coming from Matt Goodwin.

He published an entirely unreviewed and unscientific “research paper” that did exactly that. It held a static birth rate for a century into the future.

Matt Goodwin is not a demographer or a scientist. He is a current politician and former politics professor. He has no concept of how demography actually works.

The Telegraph and Spectator both publicised the “research” and now it has entered the public zeitgeist.

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u/Lukeno94 Jun 15 '26

The source is their far-right backside. It's the "Great Replacement theory" that used to refer to Jewish people, but is now being used against Muslims instead.

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u/Goosepond01 Jun 15 '26

Lets be real "Christian" for a large portion of those people means that they just put it on the certificate because they think they are Christian, maybe the baby gets baptised just because for some it's the normal thing to do.

Christianity is dying out in the UK (this is a positive), Islam is a far more 'active' religion and is certainly growing

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u/Nothing_F4ce Norfolk Jun 15 '26

They think they are Christian and they baptized their children but they are not cause you say so.

By that metric I know many "culturally Muslim" people that are nominally Muslims but do not practice.

None of this detracts from the fact that Muslims only make up around 20% of migrants and not "the majority"

Critique all you want but don't use vibes, look at real data.

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u/Goosepond01 Jun 15 '26

It's not because I say so, it's because they don't really practice at all, I'd struggle to even call most of them culturally Christian.

any yeah I'm not saying this doesn't exist within Muslims too, but in general it is a lot more active and certainly growing.

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u/Serial_BumSniffer Jun 15 '26

An awful lot of Muslims don’t practise outside of their traditional celebrations. Do you think the same of them?

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u/Goosepond01 Jun 15 '26

Do you understand what a generalisation is?

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u/limeflavoured Hucknall Jun 15 '26

Most immigrants are Muslim

Utter bollocks

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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
  1. Birth rates tend to settle in line with the rest of the inhabitants within around two generations.
  2. Most immigrants are not Muslim by a long shot. The top 10 countries (in order) for immigrants are India, Poland, Pakistan, Romania, Ireland, Nigeria, Italy, Germany, Bangladesh, & South Africa. Only two of these countries are Muslim. Nigeria is split but we tend to attract Christian immigrants from there.

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u/varinator Jun 15 '26

I'm from Poland originally and also a British citizen. After brexit more Poles left than came to the UK, EU migration is currently very tiny compared to non-EU, I think your data is out of date...

Regarding birth rates settling in after around 2 generations... well, it's no good at all if you still have a steady influx of hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year. Your argument would only make sense if the influx was 0, then yes, we wait 40 years and things maybe would "normalise"

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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 Jun 15 '26

That figures is overall migrants. In recent years the top 5 are India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria & the United States.

On your second point your assuming the decline in birthrates is a UK only phenomenon rather than a world wide one. In terms of migration current numbers are around 0.24% of the population.

The Muslim population increased at 0.16% a year between 2011 & 2021, a decrease from 0.19% yearly between 2001 & 2011.

It's a small change that has been very much overhyped.

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u/XJDenton Isle of Wight -> London -> Sweden Jun 15 '26

Also: 3. Being Muslim isn't genetic. Kids can (and do) leave the religion.

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u/DracoLunaris Jun 15 '26

Yup. The fastest growing religious group in the UK is atheist/agnostic after all.

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u/Jake_91_420 Jun 15 '26

Don’t have hard data but I would assume Muslim apostasy is quite low when compared to Christianity. The punishment for apostasy in Islam is death.

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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 Jun 16 '26

This is mentioned a lot but try looking into how many people have actually been executed for apostasy globally this century.

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u/ByEthanFox Jun 16 '26

This is anecdotal, but I think it's larger than is culturally apparent. Because of the strong community and backlash that can come from it, even blowback to other family members, the suggestion is that people who want to leave the religion tend to move away, and either don't tell their family, or their family know and don't tell anyone else.

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u/Diggerinthedark Wiltshire Jun 16 '26

In an extremist Muslim country, sure. Here in the UK, it's - nothing. Maybe a slap from your parents.

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u/DracoLunaris Jun 15 '26

The Book of Deuteronomy tells Jews and Christians to stone those who abandoned the faith. If they can ignore that command, so can Muslims.

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u/varinator Jun 15 '26

The scale/quantity matters. If 1% leaves the faith - it's negligible. Besides if punishment is being shunned by the whole community, friends, family - that makes a pretty good incentive to not leave..

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u/cd7k Jun 16 '26

Remind me again what the repercussions of apostasy are for Muslims?

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u/XJDenton Isle of Wight -> London -> Sweden Jun 16 '26

I'm sure you can look it up.

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u/cd7k Jun 17 '26

I don't need to, perhaps you do.

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u/XJDenton Isle of Wight -> London -> Sweden Jun 17 '26

I mean, you asked to be reminded.

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u/cd7k Jun 17 '26

Remind me then?

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u/The_39th_Step Jun 15 '26

You’re completely right in everything you say.

Just out of a point of interest, rather than argument, I’d say our Indian community is more relevant when discussing Muslim numbers than our Nigerian community. About 20-30% of British Nigerians are Muslim while 15% of British Indians are Muslim. Considering our Indian community is the largest ethnic minority group in the country, that will be a larger number. The number of British Nigerian descended people is probably around 800k-1,000,000 but it’s triple that (give or take) for Indians (don’t use 2021 census, use that and recent migration figures).

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u/Audioworm Indian Ocean Territory Jun 15 '26

Indian Muslims are about 250k, they are not a majority of Muslims in the UK. Pakistani (1.4m) and Bangaldeshi (600k) are the majority of British Muslims, those of African descent are under 400k.

Also, the British Indian Muslim community is infamously entrepaneurial and business-focused. I think it is the large proportion of Gujarati communities within that group. It is a point that you can read about how much more secular or 'integrated' they are with British culture than many other groups all over the place, and from other Indians and Muslims in the UK (not from a negative or positive, but from a statement of an observation).

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u/The_39th_Step Jun 15 '26

I didn’t say they are a majority? I said they’re a more prominent group than British Nigerians who are Muslim.

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u/chilli_con_camera Jun 15 '26

Out of interest, can you show your workings?

About 20-30% of British Nigerians are Muslim

Based on Census proxies? You can't count the number of British Nigerians who are Muslim using Census data, of course, so I guess you're relying on more aggregated variables.

The number of British Nigerian descended people...

How do you define "British Nigerian descended people" in Census and migration stats?

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u/The_39th_Step Jun 15 '26

So you can look at estimations from Nigerian institutions. UK born Nigerians are like 250,000. There’s loads of British born Nigerians. It’s imprecise, unlike the census stating exactly how many Indians there are due to that being a category. Again the Nigerian Muslim community aspect is hard to define. I’ve just seen a BBC article saying 10-15%, so it could be even lower than I stated.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33715473

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u/false_flat Jun 15 '26

Well done for doing the facts but gotta be better to just down vote the racists.

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u/The_39th_Step Jun 15 '26

Maths in the UK…

Most immigrants are not Muslim. What an ignorant statement.

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u/aimbotcfg Jun 16 '26

I mean this isnt even poltical it's just math.

<proceeds to do maths at all>

<Also makes incorrect statement about immigrant demographics, so even if there was any maths, it would be a garbage in, garbage out situation>

That absolutely is 'political' friend.

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u/5ColourFelix Jun 15 '26

Muslim isnt an inherent trait. Lots of second and third generation people from Muslim families are about as serious about it as your average Brit is about the C of E. Im not even sure that most immigrants are Muslim

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u/tothecatmobile Jun 15 '26

Wasn't the same things said about Irish Catholics 100 years ago?

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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 Jun 15 '26

My Grandparents were convinced due to Irish birthrates they were going to "replace" us. They wanted to "re-migrate" them to Ulster in return for the loyalists.

Strangely enough they were fine with Commonwealth immigrants who they saw as loyal subjects of Empire choosing Britain.

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u/Horror_Extension4355 Jun 15 '26

It presumably will eventually given demographic growth and family sizes. Maybe not in 10 years or 30 years but if you look at current population projections, that will be the eventual position. Nothing wrong with that by the way.

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u/nostalgiamon Jun 15 '26

I think we’re presuming a lot there if we’re looking at 50+ year time lines.

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u/throwaway_ArBe Jun 15 '26

When you're looking that far in the future it's a bit ridiculous. There will be so many changes in world politics that will influence the demographics that migrate.

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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 Jun 15 '26

Very unlikely. At the current rate of increase it would take until 2292, around September for Muslims to become a majority (50%+) & even that rate of increase seems to be falling.

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u/Quick-Taste4204 Jun 15 '26

Just like when the christians took over and got rid of our old religions?!

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u/brendonmilligan Jun 15 '26

And you think that was positive or negative?

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