Britain’s Surrender to Islamization and Illegal Immigration: A Defence of Melanie Phillips’ Argument, By Richard Miller (Londonistan)
In her July 20, 2025, New York Post opinion piece, Melanie Phillips argues that Britain, under Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour government, is surrendering to Islamization and unchecked illegal immigration, eroding its cultural identity and security while fostering a toxic culture. She contends that Britain's failure to address the influx of over 170,000 illegal migrants across the English Channel, coupled with appeasement of Islamist influences, signals a capitulation to forces hostile to its traditional values. This blog piece defends and elaborates on Phillips' position, arguing that Britain's policies reflect a dangerous surrender driven by misguided liberalism, demographic shifts, and institutional cowardice, threatening the nation's cohesion, security, and democratic ethos.
Phillips highlights the staggering scale of illegal immigration, with over 170,000 migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats over the past decade, a crisis successive governments, including Starmer's, have failed to curb. This is not merely a logistical issue but a national security emergency. Phillips cites MI5's warnings of Iranian terrorism risks, with three Iranian men arrested in May 2025 for spying after arriving via small boats, and a pro-Hamas Gazan jailed for illegal entry after posting antisemitic content online. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Courage Media further reports credible intelligence that smuggling gangs use ISIS recruitment videos to market their services, facilitating the passage of trained militants and arms into Britain.
This unchecked migration undermines Britain's traditional identity as a cohesive, high-trust society rooted in shared values of law, liberty, and cultural integration. Phillips notes that while most UK Muslims adopt Western values, a significant minority, evidenced by 90% of MI5's 43,000 active terrorist cases being Muslim, despite Muslims comprising only 6% of the population, refuse to integrate, fostering "parallel communities." A 2021 Census shows the Muslim population at nearly 4 million, projected to reach 8% soon, with concentrated settlements in London, Birmingham, and Manchester. This demographic shift, coupled with practices like nepotistic hiring and ethnic lobbying, as seen in Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, challenges Britain's civic unity. Starmer's "one migrant in, one migrant out" deal with France, limited to 50 migrants weekly, is laughably inadequate, as 573 migrants landed the day it was signed, producing public fury over a betrayed national sovereignty.
Phillips argues that Britain's response to growing Islamist influence is one of "craven surrender," exemplified by the government's refusal to acknowledge Islamist terrorism explicitly. The 20th anniversary of the 7/7 London bombings in 2025, which killed 52 people, was commemorated without mentioning their Islamist nature, with Starmer claiming the attacks aimed to "divide" rather than murder in the name of Islam. This denialism, Phillips contends, is part of a broader effort to stifle criticism of Islam through proposed "Islamophobia" laws, which could criminalise legitimate concerns about cultural erosion. A 2024 Guardian report notes a 40% rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes, but British Muslims themselves express concern about extremism, with 63% worried about radicalization, suggesting the issue is not merely prejudice but a real security threat.
The government's handling of grooming gangs, predominantly Pakistani-heritage Muslims, further illustrates this surrender. Phillips highlights the case of Muhbeen Hussain, awarded an MBE for "integration" despite leading a boycott of South Yorkshire police for admitting failures in addressing these gangs due to fear of racism accusations. This honours a figure who deflected accountability, signalling institutional prioritisation of appeasement over justice. A 2023 GB News report notes over 80 Sharia councils operating in Britain, suggesting parallel legal systems that undermine the rule of law, a cornerstone of British identity. These actions betray the traditional British commitment to fairness and accountability, replacing it with a politically correct refusal to confront cultural incompatibilities.
Phillips' argument aligns with a broader critique of liberalism's self-destructive tendencies, as seen in the "tragedy of the commons" framework. Britain's universalist values, openness, fairness, and trust, have created a high-trust society, but these are exploited by groups that adopt in-group loyalty, as argued by Ricardo Duchesne in a July 21, 2025, Council of European Canadians article. Illegal migrants and non-integrating communities drain resources like welfare and housing, with a 2022 UK report noting higher welfare costs for some immigrant groups. Meanwhile, Starmer's policies, such as extending settled status from five to ten years and raising visa thresholds, fail to address the root issue of uncontrolled borders, as criticized by Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp.
The government's anti-extremism program, Prevent, perversely labels concern about mass migration as "cultural nationalism" akin to terrorism, chilling free speech while ignoring Islamist threats. A 2024 Hoover Institution report warns that Britain's shift from civic integration to identity politics fuels ethno-sectarian divides, with riots and Islamist-led violence in 2024 highlighting this fracture. Liberalism's refusal to defend British values, rooted in Christianity, common law, and individual liberty, against incompatible ideologies risks cultural dissolution, as Phillips asserts.
Critics, like John Merrick in a July 14, 2025, Guardian article, argue that fears of "Islamization" are exaggerated, driven by Right-wing myths of "white replacement" rather than evidence. They point to the economic contributions of migrants, with international students bolstering universities, and claim integration is progressing, with 55% of Pakistanis born in the UK. However, Phillips counters that economic benefits are overstated when non-integrating communities strain public resources, and demographic data, Muslims rising from 3% in 2001 to nearly 8% projected, supports concerns about cultural shifts. Merrick's dismissal ignores MI5's data on disproportionate Muslim involvement in terrorism, which cannot be waved away as mere rhetoric.
Others, like Bishop Mark Seitz, argue that harsh immigration policies dehumanise migrants, and Britain should embrace its immigrant heritage. Yet, Phillips argues that the issue is not migration itself but the failure to enforce integration and borders, as seen in the 24% increase in enforced migrant returns under Labour, still insufficient against 12,000 Channel crossings in 2025. The cultural and security threats posed by a minority of non-integrating migrants outweigh sentimental appeals to diversity.
Melanie Phillips is right: Britain is waving the white flag to Islamization and illegal immigration, sacrificing its security, culture, and white British community on the altar of liberal appeasement. The unchecked influx of 170,000 illegal migrants, coupled with institutional denial of Islamist extremism, signals a surrender of the values, liberty, fairness, and cohesion, that define Britain. Starmer's feeble policies, from token migration deals to silencing critics through "Islamophobia" laws, betray the public's demand for control, as seen in X posts expressing outrage at "bogus barber shops" and Sharia councils. To preserve its identity, Britain must enforce borders, demand integration, and confront multicult/Leftist extremism without apology. Failure to do so risks not just cultural erosion but the collapse of the nation itself, as Phillips warns, leaving a fractured society where traditional British values are but a memory.
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