You can prove anything with facts

The future of Reality-Lite politics in Britainis the issue of Multiculturalism/Immigration. The conservative demographic is declining in so many ways. Only the power structure in Britaintruly upholds the hegemony of bourgeois, white, Christian, heterosexual men any more. The ruling class is always searching for a popular connection. With the right issue, a touch of demagogy, a touch of mobilisation, soon the Sans Culottes will be marching to restore the monarchy; that's the theory of right-wing populism.

The Multiculturalism/Immigration is of course a means of smuggling racism into popular discourse. No one ever is racist, at least no one ever admits to it; but once the debate starts out comes the code words and the dog whistles. There is no practical way to win an argument as things presently stand because reality has been replaced by ‘legitimate concerns’. 

No doubt the Reality-Lite will grow in leaps and bounds with further published statistics from the 2011 census (notice how news stories now unquestioningly group statistics about religion with statistics about immigration). There was a net increase in the number of foreign-born residents in Englandand Walesbetween 2001 and 2011 of 2.9 million. Foreign born residents now make up almost one in eight of the population of Englandand Wales, around 7 million people by my reckoning. That’s probably enough to make the defensive white nationalists peal with anger, but is that really evidence of ‘uncontrolled immigration’ as it’s so often called?  

The number of people identifying themselves as Muslim has risen over the same period from around 3% to around 5%, compared to a fall of 4 million in the number of people identifying themselves as Christian. That’s a 2% increase relative to the overall population, 60% relative to the previous percentage. By my reckoning, if that trend continues, we’re looking at 8% by 2020, 12% by 2030, 18% by 2040. Even on their own deranged, racist terms, the anti-islamicisation crowd have nothing to worry about for at least fifty years. 

But that won’t stop them.  The basis for, what we will loosely call, progressive politics is growing. The working class is growing. That’s why the right, and the far right in particular, are so agitated right now. Britainis more and more becoming multiracial, multicultural and secular. At all times immigration is overwhelmingly linked to work. Immigrants are a crucial part of the working class. The demographic is changing in our favour.

To win the argument means returning it to reality, no pandering to ‘legitimate concerns’, calling out racism at all times and dealing in facts.