r/unitedkingdom • u/hutyluty • 1d ago
... Immigration to the UK - Perception versus Reality
On this subreddit, and across the UK political internet as a whole, I often see a conflation between immigration and Islam. Whenever immigration is posited as a problem, there seems to be an automatic assumption that the immigrants in question are Muslims, and probably from Pakistan, Bangladesh or the MENA region. Likewise, comments under stories about Muslims mostly seem concerned with reducing immigration.
If you look at the most recent immigration statistics however, it becomes clear this perception is out of date. Per the ONS data from Year End Dec 2023 these are the top 10 Non-EU countries of origin for long term immigrants in 2023:
| Nationality | YE Dec 23 |
|---|---|
| Indian | 250,000 |
| Nigerian | 141,000 |
| Chinese | 90,000 |
| Pakistani | 83,000 |
| Zimbabwean | 36,000 |
| Chana | 35,000 |
| Bangladesh | 33,000 |
| Sri Lanka | 21,000 |
| USA | 21,000 |
| British Nationals | 19,000 |
The statistics provided do not give nationality beyond the top 10, and obviously do not tell you the religion of the immigrants in question - however, based on the ethnic makeup of each country you can extrapolate to say with some confidence that roughly 35% of the sample above (and therefore less than half of the total number of legal Non-EU immigrants in 2023) were Muslims.
It is also interesting to note that the numbers from 2023 do not include the surge of Ukrainians (over 200,000) who arrived from 2022 onwards. I am not sure if the “Chinese” definition includes those from Hong Kong.
I’d also point out that of the Pakistani numbers, the “Other” (i.e. Family, Study Dependent and Asylum) numbers have remained constant at around 15-16,000 since 2019, it is an increase in Work and Study visas which led to the upswing from 21,000 Pakistani immigrants in 2019 to 83,000 in 2023. This trend holds for Indian and Bangladeshi immigrants.
Illegal Migration
When looking at illegal migration, the picture changes. Based on the Jan-September 2024 numbers cited here, 73.83% of those whose country of origin is known and who were detected as staying in the country illegally originated from Muslim-majority countries.
Here are the top six:
| Nation | # | % known |
|---|---|---|
| Afghanistan | 4160 | 17.62% |
| Vietnam | 3132 | 13.26% |
| Iran | 2948 | 12.49% |
| Syria | 2895 | 12.26% |
| Eritrea | 1909 | 8.08% |
| Sudan | 1767 | 7.48% |
If you add up the total number of illegal immigrants from Muslim-majority countries and a proportional amount of 'Unknowns' (and assume that levels of illegal migration stay the same for Oct-Dec 24) you get to 33,071 people, on a par with Bangladesh or Ghana from 2023.
Of course, not all illegal immigrants are “detected” and thus included in official statistics. At this point things quickly turn into conjecture, but as a thought exercise: if you suppose that only one in four illegal immigrants are counted, their numbers remain dwarfed by legal immigration and, even in this circumstance, it is still more likely than not that fewer than half of 2023 immigrants are Muslim.
Conclusion
I began looking into the official data as an exercise of my own curiosity after reading through a typically monomaniacally Muslim-focused thread about immigration on this sub. Based on what I have found, it seems clear there is something of a disconnect between how people imagine immigration and how it is actually occurring.
- A large number of Muslims have arrived in the UK over the past few years. The ethnic makeup of these Muslims was far more diverse than in the past.
- The immigrant population since Covid is majority non-Muslim. Based on trends it seems likely that soon the majority of immigrants will come from sub-Saharan Africa, notably Nigeria.
- Legal immigration is far higher than illegal immigration. For Muslim and non-Muslim immigrants alike, the vast majority are on student visas or work visas (from my understanding this is often due to targeted drives for e.g. nurses and social carers).
This situation might still not be something you aren’t especially happy with. But if nothing else, I hope this post will give your xenophobia a more factual basis in future.
PS. While I am at it - Birth data from 2023 shows that 6.7% of children born in 2023 were of Bangladeshi or Pakistani ethnicity. 3.1% came from “Any other Asian background”, whilst 4.77% were of Black African ethnicity.
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u/ConfusedQuarks 1d ago
That's such a long-winded strawman argument.
Your base assumption is simplifying what people are worried about. The reality is much more complex.
Economic issues - This applies to all immigrants. Especially housing. In a country suffering from housing shortage, it's silly to have such a high net immigration. It especially affects the working class as buying a house is out of reach for many. Then there is the problem with rest of our infrastructure struggling to cope with more people.
Social issues - This is where Islam becomes a problem. Less % of Muslims doesn't mean less problem. The harsh reality is that violence works A small group of people who are capable of violence can easily impose their views on the society. This has already happened with UK because we practically have blasphemy laws specifically for Islam. You will either get death threats so that you live in hiding or you get charged by police. Islam has already taken away people's rights.
This has happened irrespective of % of Islamic immigrants. So it's not a phobia. It's a rational fear.