Muslims in UK top 3million for first time

One in four Muslims in England and Wales while more are under ten years old than in any other age group indicating a very high birth rate within the community.

Followers of Islam now make up one in every 20 people within the country.

Last night, 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.’

The rapid growth of the Muslim population of England and Wales is revealed in unprecedented depth by the new ONS figures.

In 1991 it stood at just under one million – 950,000 – representing only 1.9 per cent of the total. At the time of the next Census a decade later, there were 1,546,626 Muslims in the country – three per cent of the total.

But by 2011, the Muslim population of England and Wales was 2,706,066 – representing 4.8 per cent of the overall number. As the ONS noted, this represented a 75 per cent jump in the space of a decade.

New figures published for the first time this month show that the rise has continued, with a record 3,046,607 Muslims across England and Wales in 2014 – representing 5.4 per cent of the population.

The Muslim population will 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. 

As of April, police will be required to make detailed records of Islamophobic attacks amid concerns that the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes is on the rise in the wake of terrorist attacks by Islamic State.

Concerned about the integration of communities in the UK, Baroness Cox, who is trying to push through a Bill that would outlaw gender discrimination in Sharia courts, said, “Other communities that have come to this country have assimilated, but there is a real concern about these closed communities.”