IN recent years there has been a huge amount of attention on the great migratory shifts that are transforming the demographics of Western nations.
Unsurprisingly, this has concentrated on international flows from the Third World, but latterly there has also been increasing focus on the phenomenon of large-scale intra-national migration, as the young and affluent escape the great, decaying metropolises to more hospitable jurisdictions.
Although Covid and the subsequent quantum leap in working from home have put rocket boosters on such trends, in fact they existed long before the pandemic.
To an extent these appear to be a consequence of the ‘Liberal Locust’ effect: Having turned once dynamic and creative economies into high-tax, high-crime social dystopias such as California, with self-indulgent, narcissistic political policies, well-heeled liberals then hypocritically migrate to areas of high social capital such as Texas – whose more traditional conservative leanings they supposedly despise.
Some even blame this effect on Donald Trump losing once ‘Red’ states such as Arizona or Georgia and consequently his presidency. Similarly, in this country the loss to the Liberal Democrats of previously true-blue seats in the Home Counties on very big swings may point to a similar trend.
However, what if under the radar a similar conservative migration is under way? I have just come back from Northern Ireland, where an Ulsterman who had recently returned after building a career in England said that many people like him are now moving back, and often bringing English spouses with them.
The man was a Unionist, so it occurred to me that, painfully aware of the demographic decline of his community, this may well be wishful thinking. However, by strange coincidence, the day we got back we heard that a Northern Irish friend, settled in England for several years, has just moved from London to Belfast with her English husband and their young daughter.
It is generally bad practice to base your arguments on a couple of anecdotes, but not too long ago such a move would have been regarded as not just unthinkable but stark-staring mad.
Now, looked at dispassionately it just seems logical, especially if you were a reasonably conservative couple wanting to grow your family, priced out of the English housing market but with jobs that allow you to work remotely.
Ulster has beautiful countryside, traffic-free roads, very cheap housing and very good schools. Ah, you say, but what about the violent sectarianism, fire-breathing fundamentalist preachers and cultural bigotry?
I agree – thanks to the import of savage and backward Third World cultures, largely associated with the religion of you know what, those are excellent reasons for shipping out of England.
Just last week, a poor young woman was found burning to death on a public street in Bury. Whatever the facts of the case, it is noticeable that the media hardly batted an eyelid, the BBC for instance burying the report here. Again and again in our so-called civilised society, indescribable barbarism on one side is balanced by the cowardly decadence of the elites on the other.
For this reason, I see no reason why such trends should not accelerate throughout the Western world, as disillusioned and sickened conservatives flee their decaying societies and try to rebuild from scratch in the last bastions of hope, whether it is Ulster, Central Europe or ‘Red State’ America.
In this fascinating exchange with Tucker Carlson of Fox News, the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbàn – who years ago prophesised that Frau Merkel’s insane asylum polices would one day lead to Western refugees fleeing to Hungary – states that conservative Germans are now indeed settling there.
Likewise, according to Right-wing commentator Elijah Schaffer, conservative Americans longing to escape Covid authoritarianism are migrating to more liberty-loving Red States, reversing recent ‘liberal locust’ trends.
Of course all this amounts to no more than a few straws in the wind, but nonetheless I’ll make a prediction: If things continue as they are, and social and human capital continues to be stripped from the West, economies and cultures will plainly follow.
Assuming Orbàn et al can hold the line, then the societies they have heroically safeguarded will in the not too distant future be vibrant, happy and stable, looked upon with envy by a ‘liberal’ but stagnant West racked by ethnic and sectarian violence, and the phrase ‘Eastern European migration’ will mean a very different thing than it does today.
