Things are not looking good in England. A number of protests and riots have been riling the country. Christopher Rufo has been in London observing the unfolding situation.

“I haven’t been to London since I was a student,” I told a group of British journalists. “What the hell happened?” “The fact that you would ask such a question,” one responded, “is an act of racism." The others laughed.

The unstated premise of the joke was that everyone knows what the hell happened — mass immigration — but no one is allowed to speak about it. The statistics reveal the general trend. Since my last visit nearly two decades ago, the white British population of London has declined from 60 percent to 37 percent. Meantime, the Muslim population of London has nearly doubled, and migrants from South Asia and Africa have entrenched themselves throughout the city.

London, England’s capital and largest city, is no longer majority English.

Anglos have been a minority for more than a decade. What I’ve observed in the city this week has amazed me. Women’s eyes peering through the slit of black niqabs. A procession of sub-Saharan Africans traversing Westminster Bridge, waving the flags of their homelands and demanding reparations. Street corners that could be confused for Peshawar or Islamabad. Districts in which one could pass an entire day with barely a glimpse of an Englishman.

These are facts. There is nothing inherently racist or antiracist about them. The question is one of perspective. England’s progressives would have one believe that these snapshots represent the triumph of diversity. But this position appears increasingly untenable.

But England, unlike the U.S., is not a land of immigrants.

From a critical perspective, the history of mass migration in Britain is a history of civil tension, punctuated by violence: riots, terrorism, murder, rape. Events of this week have brought this suppressed conflict to the surface once again.

The day after my conversation with the British journalists, England broke out in another round of riots. A first-generation Rwandan teenager had stabbed three young girls to death, prompting British nationalists and Muslim counter-protesters into the streets. The resulting clashes led to significant property damage and nearly 400 arrests. The country’s left-wing prime minister, Keir Starmer, has signaled his support for suppressing the nationalists.

What is being exposed is the myth that mass migration results in the migrants naturally assimilating into a new culture.

The predominant theory among Western elites is that the content of mass migration — the particular people, and the culture they bring — is irrelevant. All groups are equal. Individuals are interchangeable. To think otherwise is to engage in bigotry.

What is happening in London now is proving this liberal utopian ideal to be a myth.

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