The ‘Islamification’ of Britain: Fact or Fiction?

There has for centuries been grave mistrust in Britain of foreigners belonging to religious minorities. The suggestion made about such people from time to time is that they are likely to be terrorists, or perhaps even part of a conspiracy to change the essential nature of the country. In 1666 a French Catholic called Robert Hubert was tried, sentenced to death and hanged for starting the Great Fire of London with an incendiary device. There was a fear at that time that a plot existed to reintroduce Catholicism as the state religion and that the Great Fire had been part of a Catholic conspiracy, engineered by foreigners.

Most readers will have come across the expression ‘Londonistan’, which is meant to convey the notion that London is now a city dominated by Muslims. The election of a Muslim Mayor of London served to cement this idea in the minds of some people. Readers may also have heard of the controversy when it has been revealed that many hospitals and schools serve only halal meat; that is to say, meat procured in the manner acceptable to the followers of Islam. There are also periodic rumours that Sharia Law, Islamic religious law, is now accepted by the British legal system. With increasing levels of immigration in recent years and the opening of more mosques, three popular conspiracy theories have emerged in Britain.

The Great Replacement is an idea which has its origins in late-nineteenth-century France, although the phrase was coined more recently by French author Renaud Camus. The essential idea is similar to that of the infamous The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in that a mysterious elite is engineering the destruction of European civilisation and culture in order to seize control. This is to be done by the mechanism of mass immigration, which will obliterate the white peoples of Europe by interbreeding with and dominating them. Muslims are often a feature of this theory because they tend to have larger families than the average white European and so will, in theory, be able to increase their numbers rapidly. Although it is only thirteen years since the phrase was devised, the ‘Great Replacement’ theory has become enormously popular. The elite often charged with organising this ‘replacement’ is usually understood to be ‘The Jews’.

Another very popular theory when people are discussing the supposed ‘Islamification’ of Europe is the Kalergi Plan. Also known as the Coudenhove-Kalergi Conspiracy, it is named after the man who is said to have come up with it. Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi was partly Austrian and partly Japanese and in 1925 he wrote a book called Practical Idealism. Perhaps because he was himself of dual ethnicity, Kalergi suggested that the future would consist of a new ethnic group, of mixed black, white, and Asian ancestry. He felt that this would prevent future conflicts on racial lines, and he had a vision of Europe as the homeland for this new ethnic group. Typing ‘Kalergi Plan’ into a search engine will bring up any number of sites which advance the idea that immigration to Europe from Africa and Asia is, far from being a random and haphazard process, part of a carefully coordinated project to destroy Europe.

The role played by Muslims in these conspiracy theories varies. In the ‘Great Replacement’ and the ‘Kalergi Plan’ they are often seen as the pawns of the Jews. For others though, Muslims are thought to be playing their own, long-term game. In Britain, the animosity towards Muslims and claims that they are in some sense ‘taking over the country’ focuses on the supposedly pernicious influence of Islam, rather than ideas which rely upon a Jewish masterplan for the world. This leads us to the third of the conspiracy theories, which is that there is a long-term plan, inextricably bound up with the very nature of Islam, to occupy and subdue Britain in a process sometimes referred to as ‘Islamification’.

Militant Muslims have, in the past, tried to conquer Europe by armed force. After invading and occupying Spain early in the 8th Century AD, Muslim armies crossed the Pyrenees into France. They were driven back at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 AD. In 1529 and 1683, Muslim armies reached Vienna, before they too were defeated and forced to retreat. It is claimed that the conquest of Europe has remained an ambition of militant Muslims. Finding that they were unable to achieve this aim by force, they have turned instead to infiltration and are building a fifth column inside Britain. When the time is right, the borders will be opened, a flood of Muslims will enter the country and by a natural, demographic process, Muslims will soon outnumber the indigenous inhabitants of Britain. According to this reading of the situation, the small boats crossing the English Channel with ‘asylum-seekers’ are part of what is, in effect, an invasion force.

The supposed Islamification of Britain is often mentioned on certain internet sites, from where it finds its way into the real world. Complaints about halal food in schools, for instance, tend to have their origins in the general fear that Islam is becoming too powerful in this country. As was remarked earlier, this idea of foreigners with an alien religion taking over is an old fear in Britain. Sometimes it is Jews, at other times Catholics, but Islam is now the major strand of this anxiety. It is perhaps significant that in some versions of Muslims overrunning the country, it is the Jews who are masterminding the whole process. This means that we can be fearful of not one, but two non-Christian religions, and a little anti-Semitism is often a good thing when whipping up fears of this kind.

If unrestricted illegal immigration to Britain continues, then it is likely that more and more people will be attracted to conspiracy theories of the kind outlined above. For now, such beliefs are very much on the fringe; the fear is that over time they may become more widespread until they are seen as acceptable, or even respectable, views to hold.