Britain: ‘Sleepwalking Into Segregation?’ New Study Reveals ‘White Flight’ Rise

In Britain, a new study has revealed that the numbers of white Britons leaving areas where they are in the minority is on the rise.

The phenomenon has long been described as ”white flight,” but a leading think-tank says the figures indicate Britain is “sleepwalking into segregation.”

According to a new study by the Demos think tank, the white Britons who leave former areas, are being replaced by immigrants and other ethnic minorities.

As a result, nearly half of the ethnic minorities in the UK — over 4 million — now live in areas where white people make up less than half of the population.

Demos says areas where whites are now a minority have become populated by new British minorities like Somalis, as more established ethnic minorities like Afro-Caribbeans move on.

In 2001, census figures showed one million ethnic minorities lived in the UK. Numbers have now jumped to 4.6 million — about 45 % of the UK’s Black and Asian population, who now live in areas where white people make up less than half the total.

The study’s findings appear to show more ethnic minority families are moving into city areas previously occupied by a majority white demographic.

In 2001, in what are called council wards in the UK — equivalent to a borough in the US — 5,000 council wards had a 98 per cent white population. Today, only 800 wards out of 8,850 have less than a 2 per cent ethnic minority base.

Trevor Phillips, former Equality and Human Rights Commission chairman, told UK media outlets that the figures were “not good news for integration,” adding that they should make us “a little anxious.”

His words, echo his observation back in 2005 that Britain was “sleepwalking into segregation.”

The UK’s immigration policy substantially opened up after the second world war to help with rebuilding Britain and throughout, before another major push in 1997 when the incoming Labour government relaxed immigration rules to open up the economy.

According to on record statistics, more than 600,000 white British Londoners left the capital in the last ten years. Meanwhile, London’s immigrant population rose by more than a million to 8.2 million, over the same period.

David Goodhart, the director of Demos told the UK’s Daily Mail:

“The greater concentration of the ethnic minority population means there is less opportunity for interaction with the white mainstream,” which would lead to ‘limited familiarity with majority cultural codes.'”

The study is seen as significant because the patterns it reveals suggest ethnic minorities and whites are separating from each other in British life rather than becoming more integrated in a “multi-cultural” Britain.