by Kyle Roln

I went shopping yesterday afternoon at the Bullring in Birmingham, the 6th largest shopping centre in the UK with Katie and Petra to buy Katie business attire for Sixth form. First time shopping in central Birmingham for me in 20 years. Just 48 minutes drive away, door to door.

Nothing wrong with the facilities, parking or shops although Selfridges is a mess, a literal waste of space.

But the people ! Both in the Bullring and the street!

I was in Westfield shopping centre in London a few weeks ago with Nick, (largest in UK) and perhaps half the faces were white. ‘Tsk, tsk’, I thought, ‘London has fallen’ etc, ‘well, they are attracted to blingy shops, like magpies, that must explain it’ etc. and most were dressed in London chav bling, white trainers and white puffy jackets (in August) gold rimmed sunglasses etc.

But Birmingham ! But… but…

The stores were full of pushy women in headscarves frantically manhandling the goods as if they were in downtown Bangalore, perhaps 10% in full face covering.

To escape the retail atmosphere for a bit, I waited outside in the High St for 20 min while the ladies were in M&S and ‘people watched’.

White faces were less than 20%, the remainder 20% black and 60% Asian. The key differences between Westfield and Birmingham being that most were in full on religious garb, and in London most spoke English (well at least some bastardisation of English) whilst I heard little English spoken during my 20 minutes on the High St. in Birmingham.

There was even some amplified wailing voice quoting the Koran and a massive stall dishing out free copies of the Koran in English.

Katie is forever tutting and rolling her eyes at my ‘boomer racism’. A few weeks ago we walked past a black guy (the first I have ever seen in the village) and well out of earshot I made a joke that he was probably an advance scout/spy from Birmingham. Katie was naturally absolutely mortified with me, as she should be.

Over an early dinner in Birmingham yesterday I asked Katie whether she would consider living in Birmingham. No, never. She replied. I asked why and she said ‘It has a menacing atmosphere and doesn’t feel as if we are in England anymore.’

The tipping point has been well and truly tipped. There is no coming back from this. You can move to parts of the North, the South West or the countryside to temporarily hide, but these people are here to stay and multiply.

I used to hope that assimilation would occur, as happens in the US, but instead we are the ones being assimilated.