More than a million Muslims have migrated to Britain because it is more sympathetic towards Islam than other European countries, a study has found. There are now some 1.1million Muslim immigrants in the UK, according to the report by IPPR, the Blairite think tank. It means around 46 per cent of Britain’s 2.4million-strong Muslim population were not born in this country.
The IPPR report found that over the past decade, there has been an increase of 275,000 in the number of British residents born in Pakistan or Bangladesh – twice the population of Oxford. The number of Somali-born residents has also shot up, from fewer than 40,000 in 1999 to 106,700 this year.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, said: “The rapid rise in the Muslim population is just one way in which mass immigration promoted, even encouraged, by this Government has affected the whole nature of society.”