An email from England shows how that country has declined

(See also, “Britain accepting ‘record-breaking’ arrivals of third world foreigners” by Olivia Murray.)

An indigenous British friend of mine (yes, her forebearers go back more than 1,000 years) sent me a disheartening email about a recent visit she made to Gloucester, a small city in Southwest England. It’s worth reading her message to understand what has happened to the United Kingdom.

You don’t have to know anything about Gloucester to know that it was originally a Roman fort. That’s because the “cester” in the name comes from the Latin word “castrum,” meaning a “fortified place.” In the case of Gloucester, it was one of the first places the Romans established, way back in 48 A.D. It’s been continuously occupied since then and has played a significant part in British history.

In the next thousand years, Gloucester shuttled back and forth between the Romans, the Celts, the Angles, and the Saxons. After the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Gloucester barony was a major player in the massive mid-12th-century civil war between the Norman royal family. Fortunately, the barony picked the winning side, garnering a lot of grace and favor in the coming decades. By 1216, King Henry III was crowned in Gloucester Cathedral.

Oh, and about that Cathedral, it’s gorgeous. Its location as a holy site goes back to the seventh century, and it has been a place of worship since then. Construction on the present building began not long after the Norman Conquest, although the most recognizable parts date to projects begun in the 13th century and carried on for the next several hundred years.

So it goes through British history, with Gloucester repeatedly playing a featured role. It was a major medieval wool processing center; Parliament met there for decades around the turn of the 15th century; the Tudors were frequent visitors; and it played a significant role in the Roundhead (Parliamentarian) victory in the English Civil War in the 17th century, an victory that led to many of the ideas about liberty that we Americans once believed.

After its role as a power player in early British history, Gloucester subsided gracefully into being a nice place to live and, because of its gorgeous location, buildings, and the Cathedral, a major tourist hub. It’s also a big aerospace hub, as well as being a banking center. So, all in all, a nice place with a storied history.

According to the Office for National Statistics, 82% of the Gloucester population was born in England, although that doesn’t actually tell you how deep their roots in England are. The real information lies in the “ethnic groups” data, which says that 6.5% of Gloucester residents say that they’re “Asian,” which means Muslim. The website adds that “Asians” generally are growing rapidly as a percentage of the population in Southwest England. In addition, the percentage of people identified as black is growing rapidly, too.

So, Gloucester in a nutshell went from a Roman fort, to an important historic city, to a quiet tourist, aerospace, and banking area. And slowly, slowly, its population is changing.

And that gets me to my friend’s recent visit:

Yesterday I was in Gloucester which is a historic city and could be a real go-to destination if the local council spent some money on it. It has a fine cathedral, interesting old docks with a waterways museum, shops and restaurants, and Roman and medieval remains.

However, it’s the sort of place where you always have to keep looking over your shoulder, and I don’t like being there after dark (which is unavoidable on an autumn or winter afternoon).

Okay—here I’m going to be racist and judgmental: At a guess, getting on for half the people on the streets are not indigenous British (that doesn’t mean that they are elegant French women or hunky Icelanders. Most of the males have beards and a good proportion of the females are in head-to-toe black.) The Italian café on the waterfront which I used to love is now run by someone called Mohammed and the clientele are a mix of sub-Saharan Africans, Iraqis or Afghans, and Albanians or Rumanians.

As for the other people in Gloucester, they’re divided pretty equally into those verging on the insane, those who are grossly obese, and those who go in for alcohol or substance abuse. I do occasionally spot someone, like myself, who still appears to be reasonably normal.

Having described in grim terms a city that she’s visited regularly for thirty years, my friend had a further comment about life in Britain generally for those who remember it before Britain’s open-door policy to the Muslim swath of the Middle East and Africa:

There’s much about the UK which is depressing, and it’s galling to be told constantly that our lives are being enriched by diversity and that newcomers have so much to offer. I suppose that my reaction is just to get on with my life as best I can, and I’m lucky to live in what is still a relatively safe and pleasant part of the country, although how much longer it will remain like that is anyone’s guess. I still haven’t given up on the idea of moving abroad permanently, though. I don’t mind being a second-class citizen in someone else’s country, but I do object to being one in my own!

Historic England was flawed, as all countries are, since humans are flawed. However, over the centuries, sometimes through bloody warfare (e.g., the Magna Carta), sometimes to avoid bloody warfare (e.g., the English Bill of Rights), and sometimes because of brilliant men who synthesized their culture, the Bible, and the philosophers of the ancient world—men such as Adam Smith, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Thomas Paine—it is the country that, more than any other, gave the world the idea of liberty. It is tragic to witness its fall.

 https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/08/an_email_from_england_shows_how_that_country_has_declined.html