The British Exodus

According to this article in the Telegraph UK, Britain is undergoing an exodus on the scale of one British citizen emigrating every three minutes (some 400,000 annually) at the same time that more than half a million foreigners arrive in a single year. Such a large exodus of British citizens has not occurred there in almost fifty years.

Are these emigrants fleeing? If so, from what?

My UK friends are increasingly telling me, "Britain doesn't feel like home any more." Some might write off their comments as racism. But is the basis of my friends' concerns racism? Maybe, but I don't perceive my British friends as racists. Instead, their concerns seem rooted in the concern that they are losing their British culture.

According to the article, despite the increased rate of emigration, the population of Britain is increasing every year, to the tune of the size of the city of Bristol.

Furthermore, as the population grows, pressures on the UK system of public services are increasing:

In a bid to deflect criticism and fulfill Gordon Brown's controversial conference pledge to create "British jobs for British workers", the Government will today announce plans to create millions more adult training places to ensure that people living in Britain have the skills to compete for jobs with immigrants.

Read the entire article.

Recently, this article appeared in the Evening Standard. Excerpt:

Women are being given controversial "virginity repair" operations on the NHS [National Health Services], it emerged last night.

[...]

Doctors said most patients are immigrants or British of ethnic origin.

The trend has been condemned by critics as a sign of social regression driven by Islamic fundamentalists.

Apparently, this surgical procedure is gaining in popularity (connection to the above-cited figures on immigration?), even though, so far, such surgeries remain small:

...Dr Hend [a gynecologist at the Regency Clinic in London] said he was surprised by the "very good response" to the service and said there is "big competition on the market".

"They might be British of ethnic background, they might be immigrants, or some people come from abroad, Asia, Middle East, the Gulf, and they don't want to have it done back home," he added.

Dr Hend said demand is increasing, particularly from UK residents....

Labour MP Ann Cryer stated the following:

"It is a form of abuse of women and it may be that the woman who is asking for the operation to be done does not recognise the abuse that is taking place against her, but in later life she certainly will.

"We have to also ask whether our National Health Service should be providing this sort of facility. I don't think it should be available on the NHS."

Tory health spokesman Mike Penning also weighed in:

"If there is any cultural or other pressure being put on the women from any source to have this done, that would be a very retrograde step.

"If a woman has been violated or raped and lost her virginity, clearly everything possible should be done to assist her.

"But what nobody would understand is if taxpayers' money is being used to fund operations of this kind for cultural or cosmetic reasons."

Read the entire article. Talk about a bizarre procedure, with even more bizarre motivation!

In a posting entitled "Hip or Hymen: Let the NHS Decide," Raven contrasts the virginity-repair surgeries with NHS's denial of surgery to Mrs. Kinley-Manton, a British woman who needed hip-replacement surgery:

What should concern people is the stark reality of a culture that disregards a real medical condition vs. a politically correct and religiously based “demand”.

Muslim non-virgin women should be the ones going to other countries and paying for their own non essential surgeries with their own money; not slightly to moderately overweight women who could very well end up living in nursing homes for the lack of a simple and very effective surgery. Of course Mrs. Kinley-Manton could claim herself a Muslim, demand a hymen repair and perhaps as an added benefit ask for the hip replacement surgery: She would probably have a good chance of getting both.

As the demographics of the UK undergoes more changes, as mentioned in the first-cited article here, will the NHS be required to adapt to the religious demands of Muslims? And will similar adaptations occur here the United States?