Britain is in decline and its people are becoming strangers in their own land. This isn’t poetic exaggeration, it’s the lived experience of millions of people out there in our country.
A staggering 43 per cent of Britons, according to a recent poll, say they sometimes feel like strangers in their own country. Among those who plan to vote for Reform at the next election, that number rockets to over 70 per cent.
Well, what does it say about the state of our nation when its people no longer feel at home, when they no longer feel that they recognise the country that surrounds them? Keir Starmer was recently widely criticised, and even compared to Enoch Powell by some on the left, for calling Britain an island of strangers. Yet for once, the data backs him up.
Net migration has soared in recent years, leaving us with the astonishing fact that one in every 25 people now living in Britain arrived in the last four years. Just think about that.
‘Well, what does it say about the state of our nation when its people no longer feel at home?’
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And even more shockingly, of the nearly 800,000 people who migrated into the country from outside of Europe last year, only 14 per cent, came primarily to work in this country.
Disconnectedness is now part of our national identity. According to another pollster, More in Common, 62 per cent of Brits now think that the country is becoming more divided, and not even a third of our young, 18 to 24-year-olds, think that most people can be trusted. Our social fabric appears to be giving way, and the economics behind all of this are pretty grim too.
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The Centre for Research and Social Policy shows that 24 million people in this country, over a third of the population, now live below the minimum income standard.
That’s the worst figure since records began. And Britain has suffered, don’t forget, the sharpest decline in living standards since the Second World War. Two-thirds of all households are now living below the minimum income standard.
And this, indeed, is cause for concern. We are now a country where our wages are not covering our rent, where food banks have become normalised, and where nearly half of our children are living in households without enough to meet basic needs. And this despair is not just economic. As I’ve said time and time again on this show, it is becoming existential.
Even a Hope Not Hate poll, backed by Labour groups and trade unions, recently found that the most common word Brits used to describe their own country is “declining.”
One quarter of British people think that Britain is now weak, and another quarter say that our country is directionless. The institutions that once brought us together, our public services, our high streets, our local associations, are crumbling around us. Community organisations appear to have vanished. Owning, or even renting, your own home has become an unrealistic fever dream for many, especially our young people.
Indeed, just today, the Office for National Statistics found that average rent in England is unaffordable and is at its worst in parts of London. As the Adam Smith Institute’s Maxwell Marlowe has put it, the time to build was yesterday, is today, and will be tomorrow.
Take a look at this story. If this doesn’t exemplify Britain in decline, if this isn’t a powerful symbol of what on earth is going on in our country, then I don’t know what is.
As Labour’s re-nationalisation of some railways comes into force, The Telegraph today revealed that Britain’s first renationalised train will be a rail replacement bus service. A replacement bus service from Surbiton all the way to Woking on the Waterloo line, slap in the middle of the London commuter belt.
‘One quarter of British people think that Britain is now weak’
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Is it any wonder that we cannot stop the small boats in the Channel? Meanwhile, Hope Not Hate, though apparently unwilling to recognise or address whether there is any sort of problem surrounding mass immigration, shares the same finding. People in this country feel ignored, disconnected, forgotten. Yet they seem unwilling to name one of the big drivers of this fragmentation, the repercussions of record levels of migration and the erosion of our national culture.
This is a hard truth. Our economy is failing, our social fabric is fraying, and our identity appears to be dissolving before our very eyes. And the rest of the world is starting to notice. American political commentator Charlie Kirk visited London earlier this week, and here’s what he had to say:
“If you want to renew your love of America, spend three days in the UK. You will kiss the ground when you get back home.”
Britain is becoming disconnected from its people. The numbers are clear. The question is, will we keep pretending this is normal, or will our leaders finally take the bold action that is needed to reunite a country that is now at risk of losing itself?
