Boris Johnson appeared to take aim at the US vice president today, branding his comments that immigrants are erasing British civilisation as ‘b******s’.
The former prime minister said: ‘The population of New York that was born abroad is virtually identical [to London].
‘I think in America, about 30 per cent of people are either first or second generation immigrants. The statistic I used to cite was that 40 per cent of our population was born abroad.
‘So all these raving about civilisational erasure, “Britain’s going down the tubes” – I think it’s b******s.’
According to the 2021 census, around 41 per cent of London residents were born outside the UK, while the average for the rest of England was about 17 per cent.
Meanwhile, around 37 per cent of New Yorkers are foreign-born.
Mr Johnson – the former mayor of London – seemed to be referencing comments made by the Trump administration in recent months, and in particular, vice president JD Vance.
As early as last year, Mr Vance declared that Europe was teetering on ‘civilisational suicide’.
Boris John branded claims about civilisational erasure ‘b******s’ during a Sky News interview
US vice president JD Vance has frequently criticised European immigration policies
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Just before the US celebrated 250 years of independence on July 4, he spoke about his ‘special affection for Britain’, but added that the country was ‘very broken’.
And last month, he sparked controversy by linking the murder of Henry Nowak by Vickrum Digwa to an influx in immigration.
He said Mr Nowak’s death would not have happened ‘if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it’.
This drew backlash from Downing Street, which hit out at ‘people trying to interfere in our democracy and stir up division on our streets’.
The vice president has also aligned himself with Britain’s far-Right, urging anti-immigration activists who attended a protest led by Tommy Robinson in May to ‘keep on going’ and prepare for the ‘battle of Britain’.
Addressing reporters at the White House then, he claimed that ‘all over the West’ there is ‘this idea that the way to generate prosperity is to bring in millions and millions of unvetted people and drop them into your neighborhoods’.
‘And we simply reject that idea,’ he said. ‘To everybody in the UK who rejects that idea, I’d encourage them to just keep on going. It’s OK to want to defend your culture. It’s OK to want to live in a safe neighborhood.’
It is a rhetoric he has repeated many times, including at the Munich Security Conference last year, where he spoke not about defence, but about Europe opening the ‘floodgates’ to migrants while hollowing out core democratic values.
Speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sky News yesterday, Mr Johnson branded comparisons between the make-up of the UK and US as ‘b******s’, but said Britain had been ‘far too limp wristed in insisting people conform to our ideals’.
‘We haven’t been tough enough in insisting on basic British norms of behaviour,’ he said. ‘I think a lot of political correctness has prevented that.
‘The grooming gangs, all this sort of stuff. I think it is totally unacceptable that you should have populations of women who don’t speak English. That’s absolutely appalling.’
