Number of UK Muslims Exceeds Three Million for First Time
Lexi Finnigan, Telegraph, January 31, 2015
Britain is home to more than three million Muslims for the first time ever with more than half born outside the UK, according to new figures.
The number has doubled in just over a decade as a result of soaring immigration and high birth rates.
In some parts of London, almost half the population are now Muslims, according to analysis from the Office for National Statistics.
And if current trends continue, the areas could become majority Islamic within ten years.
Half of those following Islam in England and Wales were born abroad while one in four are under ten years old–indicating a high birth rate within the community.
According to these figures, Muslims now make up one in every 20 people in the country.
The highest percentage of Muslims is East London’s Tower Hamlets, with 45.6 per cent while neighbouring Newham has 40.8 per cent.
Outside the capital, Blackburn, in Lancashire, was highest with 29.1 per cent of the city made up of followers of Islam.
And in both Slough and Luton over a quarter of the population is now Muslim with Birmingham and Leicester coming in at over a fifth.
A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said: “This statistic highlights the diversity in modern Britain, and the need that this is reflected in all spheres of life, from top management opportunities to political representation.”
But Lord Green of Deddington, the former diplomat who chairs Migration Watch UK, told The Mail on Sunday: “This is clear evidence of the way in which mass immigration is rapidly changing the nature of our society. The Home Secretary was right in her conference speech to point to the potential pressures on social cohesion.”
Across the country there are now 3,114,992 Muslims with 1,554022 born overseas and they now make up 5.4% of the population of England and Wales.
In 1991 it stood at just under one million–950,000–representing 1.9 per cent of the total.
The Muslim population is set to rise further as a result of the unprecedented surge in refugees from Middle Eastern and North African countries trying to reach Western Europe in the past year.
A record 5,095 asylum applications were made to the UK in October 2015, latest figures show, with one in ten made by Syrians.
