to be shocked that less than half of people in London are white

[Ilovecoffeeandchocolate]

I was reading the article below and was shocked to see how much this country especially London has changed over the last ten years and feel concerned that immigration is too high for what is an already overcrowded island especially in the south east!

www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/dec/11/census-2011-religion-race-education?intcmp=239

Ilovecoffeeandchocolate so your mother is an immigrant? Should she leave then? Or just the ones who aren't related to you?

I can't speak for illegal immigration, but my husband is a very legal immigrant and a) the paperwork was incredibly strict, and cost of the visa (over £1000) is a nightmare, add to that he can't claim benefits but works his bum off in a very hard job and pays full taxes.. therefore putting more into the country than most white British (including me at the moment).

Also, this point made me laugh a bit - "in my dd school English only 8 out of 30 pupils has English as a first language." Absolutely does not mean that they can't/don't speak English. My son fitted in to this category when he started nursery, now him and the majority of his classmates are bilingual. Lucky them!

And I'm glad I'm not the only one who struggles with the ethnicity boxes - our family has one white British, one "other" and 2 "mixed other" The poor things don't even get a definition!

Also to pick up on what exexpat said above. My 2 dcs are luckily considered British, but if they were still considered Japanese, we would be in huge trouble as my dh only earns around £19k. If he wanted to stay in the UK with us he would have to earn about £26k (from memory, may not be exact). These rules weren't in place when we moved here, so if we were unable to class our children as british, we would have no option but to either split up the family (heartbreaking and impossible) or go back to Japan, taking away the dcs from their much loved extended family, nursery, their main language - equally heartbreaking and impossible

My heart goes out to all the families who are struggling with this.

Anyone else suspect that person who actually was of Jamaican decent wouldn't be horrified to live in an area that was suddenly looking less white? or just causally mention it after they had already set the trolling post in to motion?

cozy and dinky are sock puppets too right?

Doingitontheroof My mother does not live in this country anymore and at no stage have I ever said anyone should leave just that we should control immigration. Next..

The title of this thread is factually wrong. 45% of Londoners are 'White British', not just 'white'. 59% are 'white'. And if you really want some figures to mess with your head, only 38% identified themselves as 'British' but 63% were born in Britain... www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_290558.pdf
I particularly hate it when people use false statistics to reinforce prejudices.

Your Mum is not a black Jamaican OP.

Stop lying.

I do not think Mumsnet is at all representitive of the majority of mums in Britain. It is overwhelmingly middle-class and PC, probably by design so as to maximise ad revenue.
good grief, is it? i've always found it a bit...common...

I think the amount by which the population of London is out of sync with most of the rest of the UK is interesting. I can understand why it has happened but it does show how non-diverse other parts of the country are too.

I wouldn't want to live somewhere where the population was so heterogenous that my children were the only Muslims in their school or where DH was the foreign chap at No. 30. Yet by not moving because of the lack of diversity elsewhere we are maintaining that status quo.

I think one of the drivers for racism / bigotry is limited experience of people from other cultures which can lead people to believe the stereotypes because they have nothing to test them against. It would probably be better if diversity wasn't so concentrated in a limited number of areas.

London is obviously the most international city in the UK, but I don't think the divide is so huge; other big cities are also increasingly diverse, surely - I just haven't seen as detailed a break-down of the statistics for other places.

I'm in a well-off area of a biggish city and my DCs go to private schools (day schools, not boarding), but in DD's class, I would say at least 25 per cent of the children are not 'white British' - some are British but not white, some are white but not British, some are neither white nor British - but they can all afford the school fees. And fwiw, DD is white and British but was not born here so counted as a 'recent immigrant' as far as the census was concerned.

DD's previous state primary, in one of the most expensive areas of the city, was similarly diverse. Lots of nasty lazy immigrants doctors and academics amongst the parents in both schools.

exexpat
Across the UK as a whole the difference is noticable. These charts shows how London is clearly out of line with the rest of the UK
www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-for-local-authorities-in-england-and-wales/rpt-ethnicity.html#tab-Ethnicity-across-the-English-regions-and-Wales

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-for-local-authorities-in-england-and-wales/rpt-ethnicity.html#tab-Geographic-distribution-for-national-identity-

If you look at the foreign born stats too
www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-for-local-authorities-in-england-and-wales/rpt-international-migrants.html#tab-Regional-geography-of-non-UK-born-and-non-UK-nationals

I was surprised by this. Partly because I regard level of diversity in London as the norm. I do think it is potentially problematic that there are parts of this country where you would be unlikely to have a BME or foreign born neighbour and there may only be a couple of children in the local school who were not white british and/or born in this country.

A few observations:

1. I didn't know until I read dinky's post that the recent floods were due to the number of foreigners. I thought it was rain that was flooding the country.

1. I am the only white person in my household. I had not realised that this was a problem, but will start feeling marginalised from tomorrow.

1. I am genuinely surprised that so many people seem to think London is the only diverse place in the UK. 86% white British is a statistic for the whole country, but many places outside of the capital are very diverse. For example, my nearest city is just over 50% White according to the census results.

1. I live in a very diverse area with a lot of recently arrived immigrants. I see no greater pressure on public services or employment here than I did in the almost exclusively White British town where I lived previously.

1. About half of the children in dd's state school class have English as an additional language. Some arrive with no English at all. The school gets outstanding results in maths and English. Six of the eight children in the top ability group have English as a second language and dd is bilingual. Only one of the eight has English as her only language.

1. It would appear that the people complaining about immigration on this thread have little understanding of our existing immigration rules.

1. Anyone who is concerned about the skin colour of their neighbours is a cunt.

exexpat
My sons go to a private school in one of the London boroughs that are on the list for lowest proportion of white british and the school does reflect the local population. It always makes me a bit when people talk about private schools being white middle class. Middle class - yes; but being middle class is not the preserve of white British people.

Chaz, I think those charts are a bit misleading though. London is a city, so it doesn't make sense to compare it with whole regions. If you looked at the demographics of many cities outside London, the difference would not be so stark.

My nearest city is apparently 45% white British, and nearly 50% of residents are from non-white or mixed backgrounds. It is one of the more diverse cities undoubtedly, but I don't think my smaller town is far behind. However, if you looked at the figures for the region, you could be forgiven for thinking it was predominantly White British.

Jinsei
London is not the only diverse place in the UK but when you look at the figures it is by far and away the largest concentration of diversity and some regions of the country are really not very diverse at all.

Jinsei, I agree - I think it's an urban/rural divide . Obviously the stats for regions outside London cover wider areas including cities/towns/villages, and generally the lower the population density, the higher the proportion of white British residents, I think.

If you just looked at cities, the comparison with London wouldn't be so stark, though London is likely still to have the highest non-British-born population because it has so many international employers, as well as the capital-city-effect in attracting migration in general (from elsewhere in the UK as well as overseas).

x post
True London is a city but over 10% of the UK population live in London so it is comparable with regions. I take your point that within regions there are some very diverse cities and towns and I suspect that the level of diversity outside of urban areas is lower.

I totally agree that some regions are not diverse, I have lived in them. But, according to the census, my local city has a similar percentage of White British residents as London, so I disagree that London is far and away the largest concentration. It is broadly comparable in my view.

I know that my area isn't typical of the whole country, but can't help getting irritated when people assume that London is the only place where this level of diversity is normal. It isn't. :)

X post again!

Oh, and the population of London may be comparable with that of whole regions, but the experience of the people living in those regions will differ hugely depending on where they live, so I think the comparison becomes a bit meaningless!

The detailed figures for my small town have not been published yet but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd estimate the White British population here being at around the 60% mark.

Jinsei
I meant largest concentration by number rather than %, sorry should have been clearer.

Ah ok. Obviously that's true.

Oh, and one more thing that I meant to add earlier.

I used to live (as an immigrant ) in one of the most densely populated regions of a country that is more densely populated than the UK. There was lots of beautiful countryside and the quality of life there was better than it is here. Our island is not overcrowded, whatever the scaremongerers might want us to believe.

Jinsei, the UK is becoming overcrowded due to the 3 million people entering the UK. School spaces are limited as are hospitals and jobs where do you think we will be in another 10 years if another 3,4 or 5 million people arrive?

Dinky, what about the effect of the numbers leaving, already referred to a number of times in this thread? Surely net migration, not just incoming people, is the relevant figure?