Maybe so. That too needs debating.
It is true, after all, that birth rates are falling in most parts of the world, including many Muslim countries. According to the biologist Matt Ridley (The Rational Optimist), one of the most curious and beneficial facts of recent world history has been demographic transition, the fall in birth rates as societies become more and more affluent.
All of that is true, and might be a reasonable objection to the calculations presented above. So might the possibility that non-Muslim British birth rates could rise, thus more than off-setting any Muslim increase. Indeed, there is some evidence that this might be happening in some European countries.
However, for a high immigration country such as Britain, it’s a matter of when that British Muslim demographic transition happens.
At the moment there is little sign of British Muslim birth rates significantly falling. According to the Office for National Statistics, Pakistan-born women in Britain have an average of 4∙7 children, while Bangladeshi women in Britain have 3∙9, both significantly above that average British birth rate of 1∙6 children.
Furthermore, as Britain continues to attract a high number of relatively poor Third World immigrants, inherited cultural patterns of large families could remain an enduring feature of Britain’s immigrant community.
In those circumstances, the demographic transition date could well be indefinitely postponed.
There is no suggestion here of any problem with Muslim or non-Muslim birth rates. There is no essential optimum birth rate and in a free and democratic society we are free to have as many or as few children as we wish. The purpose here has been simply to attempt to take the MCB reportBritish Muslims in Numbers to one possible logical conclusion.
On that basis it seems reasonable to conclude that, if immigration policies continue as they are and demographic transition does not happen for fifty years or more, then the Muslim population projection of 26 million by the year 2051 can be rationally defended.
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