ENGLAND’S white majority has fallen by more than a half in some cities over the past 20 years a new study reveals.
The report describes a society increasingly segregated along racial lines as ethnic populations in urban areas grow.
The research, published by Open Democracy, calls on the Government to do more to promote mixed communities, especially in light of the spike in hate crime reported since the Brexit referendum.
The study, conducted by integration experts Professor Ted Cantle and Professor Eric Kaufmann, shows that, while England as a whole is more ethnically mixed, white and minority groups are now more isolated from each other.
It describes the pace of change in some urban areas as “striking”, with a decrease in the white population of more than 50 per cent between 1991 and 2011.
The report says many towns and cities, such as Birmingham, Leicester, Slough, Luton, Bradford and London, have seen areas develop where the white British population is “increasingly dwindling” as minorities increase.
Prof Cantle said: “The antipathy towards some communities may have been much less if we were more integrated and actually lived in mixed areas – all the evidence suggests that prejudice and intolerance is broken down by contact.
“This research shows what is happening on a local level and that is that there is increasing polarisation between the white majority population and minorities across England, particularly in our urban areas.
“This research shows what is happening on a local level and that is that there is increasing polarisation between the white majority population and minorities across England, particularly in our urban areas.
“This research shows that there is increasing polarisation between the white majority population and minorities across England, particularly in our urban areas.
“This has gone under the radar, but it is time this became a national priority because cohesion is at stake.
“The focus of policy needs to shift, this is not just about minorities. Politicians and policy-makers need to encourage white British residents to remain in diverse areas; to choose, rather than avoid, diverse areas when they do re-locate, encouraging similar choices with respect to placing pupils in diverse schools; in other words to create a positive choice for mixed areas and a shared society.
Labour’s Chuka Umunna, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Integration, said: “”During a year in which our country has seemed more divided than at any point in modern history, there are few questions which require investigation more urgently than the matter of how well we are living together.
“It’s clear that, whilst the UK is becoming increasingly diverse, levels of integration are not keeping pace.
“This has real implications for community cohesion – with social segregation having been shown to undermine trust between neighbours, to grow the fear of crime and bolster the prejudice which fuels the politics of recrimination and blame.”
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