The Muslim population of Europe and the BBC

The Telegraph has as one of its lead stories this morning the prediction from the US Migration Policy Institute that Muslims will make up 20% of the EU population by 2050. Beneath this headline are some even more worrying predictions such as Muslims could outnumber non-Muslims in France by 2050. Muslims already comprise 25% of the populations of Rotterdam and Marseilles , 20% of Malmo, 15% of Brussels and Birmingham and 10% of London, Paris and Copenhagen. This 20% prediction does of course exclude the possibility of Turkey becoming a member of the EU in which case all bets are off. In 2007 France already had a Muslim population of 9% which will come as no surprise to anyone who has visited Paris in recent years, areas of which now seem closer to Islamabad than the Paris of 30 years ago.

The story on language is also a great worry to me as it makes creating an educated society even harder than it would be after 12 years of a Labour anti-proper education government. In 2007 54% of children in London had at least one foreign born parent and in 2008 14.4% of children in primary schools had a language other than English as a first language.


This is a big news story so what do I find about it on the BBC? Nothing, not a word on the report; just this debunking of a YouTube video on what seems like a similar topic. According to the BBC the video is misinforming people and all is lovely in multicultural Europe. A nice selection of comments appear at the end of the BBC piece, the vast majority supportive of the BBC line and against the video. What is striking is that the BBC do not link to the video "Muslim Demographics". So I will... You can watch it here or below...

The BBC's "don't scare the children"/"don't rock the boat" outlook on multiculturalism scares me; this sort of refusal to engage with views different to their own may lead to more extremism rather than less as people fell that their views are not being represented.