Do you think that Britain is heading towards civil war? If you spend too much time in certain nooks on social media, you are most likely to answer resolutely in the affirmative. Yet this common refrain is not only heard from outlandish elements on the alt-right. It is a worry voiced by many mainstream conservatives who fear the recent, palpable growth of inter-ethnic tensions and mistrust in this country – and wonder where it will all end.

It’s a view shared by Elon Musk, who in 2024, responding to a Tommy Robinson video on X depicting scenes of urban unrest in the UK, simply replied: ‘Civil war is inevitable’. Asked in an interview for the Economist this week to elaborate on that remark, the founder of SpaceX and the boss of Tesla clarified: ‘If you have a large and growing, rapidly growing, group of people whose beliefs are antithetical to western beliefs, at some point there will be a reckoning.’

There has been a growing sentiment that unprecedented levels of immigration, combined with a multicultural model that has emphasised difference rather than unity, have both destabilised and radically altered British society for the worse.

There has been a growing sentiment that unprecedented levels of immigration, combined with a multicultural model that has emphasised difference rather than unity, have both destabilised and radically........

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