Nigel Farage sparks backlash over false 'minority white' London comments

Nigel Farage is facing a backlash for incorrectly stating that the three largest UK cities have a majority non-white population.

Speaking on Tuesday – the day that data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) outlined the ethnic make-up of the country – Farage tweeted a video where he spoke of the "massive demographic change" taking place.

He said: "The ONS are out today showing that London, Birmingham and Manchester are all now minority white cities...

"There is a massive change in the identity of this country that is taking place through immigration."

However, Farage's claims about the ethnicity of some major cities are "wrong", according to Sunder Katwala, the director of British Future.

He outlined how the true figure of British and non-British white people is more than the former Brexit Party leader claims.

Katwala tweeted that Farage was conflating "white" and "white British" to say "minority white" for cities with a white majority.

He wrote: "London is 53-54% white in the 2021 census, but 37% white British."

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The data shows that 54% of the population of the capital is white – 37% white British, 15% white other and the rest Irish, gypsy and Roma.

In Manchester, the total figure in all categories who identify as white – whether British or non-British – is 56.9%.

Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics at King's College London, broke down the figures further, saying that a minority (46%) of London's population identify as non-white.

Daniel Knowles, a correspondent for The Economist, also tweeted the true figures, while former rugby player Brian Moore tweeted that the ethnic mix in London "isn't a problem".

Leicester, Luton and Birmingham are among parts of the country where people identifying as white now form a minority of the population, with the largest ethnic group in Leicester (43.4%) coming from an Asian background – a rise of 6.4% since 2011.

However, Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said he was "very pleased and proud" of the figures, saying that it shows "the diversity of its communities who contribute so much to every aspect of our lives".

Farage said that the ONS would not ask for the birthplace or nationality of those taking part in the census in future, claiming it was because "they want to hide the true figures from you".

But Katwala described that as a "false conspiratorial point", tweeting that Farage "wants his listeners to think there will be future censuses – but foreign birthplace and nationality are not asked deliberately".

Farage has no yet responded to criticism he got the figures wrong.

The census showed that one in 10 households in England and Wales contain people of two or more ethnicities.

Around 2.5 million households (10.1%) contained members from at least two different ethnic groups in 2021, the ONS said – an increase from 8.7% in 2011.

It also showed that 81.7% of residents in England and Wales described themselves as white on the day of the 2021 census, down from 86.0% a decade earlier.

Within this group, 74.4% (44.4 million) identified their ethnic group as "English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British" – down from 80.5% (45.1 million) in 2011, and from 87.5% (45.5 million) in 2001.

The second most common ethnic group was "Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh" at 9.3% – up from 7.5% in 2011.

Among the three largest changes was the rise in the number of people identifying as "white: other white", which stood at 3.7 million (6.2%) in 2021, up from 2.5 million (4.4%) in 2011.

The largest groups in this category include "white: Polish", with 614,000 (1.0%) of the overall population identifying this way, and "white: Romanian", with 343,000 people (0.6%) identifying as such.

The ONS said many factors may be contributing to the changing picture, including differing patterns of ageing, fertility, mortality and migration.

In London, which remains the most ethnically diverse region of England, 3.2 million people (36.8%) identified as "white: English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British" in 2021, down from 3.7 million (44.9%) in 2011.