Last week, a self-published book reached number one in the British paperback book charts. Professor Matt Goodwin’s Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity argues that Britain is undergoing a series of demographic shifts that challenge the continued existence of the nation itself.
Reviews in the left-wing press have been remorselessly negative, with many focusing on claims that the book was written with the help of ChatGPT. Professor Goodwin even took part in a fiery live debate with one of his main detractors on GB News, Britain's main right-wing news channel.
Once known for the academic study of the radical right in Britain, he has increasingly become a dissident professor in the aftermath of Brexit. He first emerged as an explainer to Middle England of the populist revolt against the liberal elite consensus, before gradually joining that revolt himself. His Substack, where he regularly attacks shibboleths on immigration and Islam, has grown to nearly 100,00 subscribers in a few years, showing that his polemical turn has struck a chord.
Critics have claimed that as his audience has grown, he has become more inflammatory. Supporters, however, argue that he is articulating concerns that are widely felt but too often ignored by the political mainstream.
Demographic Doom and AI Hallucinations
Matt Goodwin argues that Britain is undergoing a rapid and historically unprecedented demographic transformation, driven by sustained high levels of immigration since the late 1990s. Drawing on his own modelling of data from the 2021 census and the Office for National Statistics, he shows that the country is moving towards a future in which no single ethnic or cultural group forms a clear majority.
At the centre of his argument is the claim that the white British population, as categorized in the census, will fall below 50 per cent within a few decades, potentially by the early 2060s. That shift will occur even earlier among younger generations, meaning that by 2050 they will be a minority among those under the age of 40. He links this to broader demographic trends already visible in Britain’s major cities and schools where diversity is markedly higher than in the population as a whole.
As this growth is driven by immigration, foreign-born residents and those descended from recently arrived migrants will make up 61% of the population by 2100. To give a sense of the scale of that change, between the 1800s and 1921 the foreign-born share of the population was 2.5%. It stayed below 8% until 2001, showing how quickly this change is now occurring.
If Goodwin's model is right, the Muslim share of the population will rise to 19%, or nearly one in every five people in Britain. Among those under 40, the figure would be one in four. He argues that these demographic changes will have far-reaching consequences for national identity, social cohesion and political life.
Critics have attacked his book as having supposedly been written with the assistance of artificial intelligence, including quotes that appear to have been hallucinated by AI. Certainly, some footnotes show that ChatGPT was used to collect material, and Goodwin has admitted that he analyzed some of the data using AI. However, he says that he always checked this against official data sets.
Provocateur or Savvy Politician?
For Goodwin, the book’s success is likely to be seen as vindication. In recent years, he has become increasingly aligned with Reform UK, the right-wing party currently leading the polls. Just six weeks ago, he moved from analyzing politics to participating in it.
As Reform’s candidate, he stood in the Gorton and Denton by-election. Although he lost to the Green Party candidate, he still came second in a seat that has always voted for the left-wing Labour Party. The collapse of Labour’s vote and the failure of the mainstream Conservatives to win enough votes to retain their deposit show that British politics is becoming increasingly febrile.
Much of this is driven by the demographic trends which Goodwin's book explores. Indeed, in the by-election, it was the defection of many Muslim voters from Labour to the Greens over the issue of Palestine which led to their victory. The aftermath was even marred by accusations of family voting from election observers, although a police investigation failed to find any evidence for the simple reason that cameras are not allowed in polling stations.
The success of the book, therefore, bodes well for Reform, who can hope that their very similar criticism of mass immigration will help them to win the upcoming local elections in May. Polls suggest that they and the Green Party are likely to be the big winners.
Whether one views Goodwin as a truth-teller or a provocateur, his latest work has ensured that the once taboo subjects he covers will be at the centre of the political debate.
