The Unspeakable Truth About Mass Migration

COMMENTARY Border Security

The Unspeakable Truth About Mass Migration

Sep 5, 2025 5 min read
COMMENTARY BY
Simon Hankinson

Senior Research Fellow

Simon is a Senior Research Fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.
A member of the Worcester Patriots ties a Union Jack flag onto a streetlamp in Worcester, north west England, on September 3, 2025. PAUL ELLIS / AFP / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

In Australia, Canada, and Europe, free speech on asylum, migration, and national identity is increasingly being curtailed by law.

The U.K.’s left-wing national broadcaster, the BBC, hints that anyone raising the English or British flags must be a right-wing extremist.

Opposing mass migration is now an ineffable political position in the left-wing dominated academia, civil service, and media. But it is perfectly understandable.

George Carlin had his seven words you can’t say on TV, but today there is only one ineffable (un-sayable) word in American public life. You all know what it is. That one-word ban is due to the unique history and politics of the United States.

Are there any ineffable political beliefs?

In America, not yet. The Constitution’s First Amendment allows us to speak our minds. Other than calling for violent overthrow of the government or the immediate commission of a crime, we can say what we want. That includes bizarre, unpleasant, or even insane beliefs.

But in Australia, Canada, and Europe, free speech on asylum, migration, and national identity is increasingly being curtailed by law.

Western countries are undergoing massive, and often unpopular, demographic change. In democracies, the people have the right to discuss all political issues and decide what their own future should be. Yet increasingly, speech is prescribed, especially in the English-speaking world.

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The news site Axios recently statistics that show nationals of some countries commit violent crime at rates many times that of natives. Citing studies that show low-skilled migrants actually take more in benefits from the fiscal pot over their lifetime than they put in. All these can land one in hot water in some supposedly free countries that are close U.S. allies.

The most toxic topic is the war in the Middle East, which has little connection to the lives of everyday Westerners but inspires demonstrations from Washington, D.C. to Wellington, NZ.

A two-tier attitude to free speech is rapidly developing across the Anglophone world, where provocative behavior is tolerated from supporters of Palestinians that would have been unimaginable only a generation ago.

In Australia, thousands of protesters took to the streets recently “demanding that the Australian government take action against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza,” according to AP News. They chanted “free, free Palestine,” as they waved a Palestinian flags.

In Canada, the group Montreal4 Palestine has held public Muslim prayers outside the Basilica of Notre Dame. Quebec is a French-speaking province and heavily Catholic. The symbolism of Muslim prayers in front of a prominent Catholic church, under flapping Palestinian flags, is powerful. Montreal4 Palestine protesters held a banner saying “we fight, we liberate, we return,” a slogan echoing the goals of Hamas. An opposing group of counter-protesters carrying Quebec flags and playing patriotic songs was much smaller.

Meanwhile in England, indigenous people are flying the English flag, a cross of St. George on a white background. Some are doing so spontaneously, and others as part of Operation Raise the Colours. Critics try and tie it all to far-right extremism, but there is a groundswell to this movement that exceeds the tiny numbers of the radical right in Great Britain.

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The London borough of Tower Hamlets and the City Council of Birmingham tore down English flags that had been hung in the streets. The symbolism is clear there too. In Tower Hamlets, Bangladeshis outnumber indigenous (white) British, and the non-English reportedly dominate government-subsidized housing.

Birmingham, a town in the middle of England, was 99.6% indigenous in 1951, but a decade ago, the Daily Mail reported that “a child in Birmingham is now more likely to be a Muslim than Christian.” Since then, the country has seen mass migration from countries including Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Somalia. Today, indigenous British in Birmingham are under 50%.

The U.K.’s left-wing national broadcaster, the BBC, hints that anyone raising the English or British flags must be a right-wing extremist. The left-wing newspaper the Guardian predictably claims that putting up English and British flags “may offer cover for far-right agendas.” By “far-right,” they include opposition to mass migration, concern about increased sexual violence against girls and women, and fear of cultural disintegration.

Opposing mass migration is now an ineffable political position in the left-wing dominated academia, civil service, and media. But it is perfectly understandable and legitimate reaction to enormous demographic change across the Western world.

If current policies and trends continue, that change will make indigenous British a minority in their land within a few generations. Other countries like France and Germany are not far behind. This fate is not inevitable, it is a choice. It will only happen if the people accept it and elect governments accordingly. Putting out more flags perhaps signals that they won’t.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Wire

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