White Britons 'will be minority' by 2066, says professor

A large influx of immigrants has given the UK the fastest-rising percentage of ethnic minority and foreign-born residents of any Western nation, David Coleman’s report concluded.

The country is likely to overtake America as the Western world’s greatest ethnic and cultural melting pot if current migration trends continue, he suggested.

By 2040, the number of foreign-born and non-white residents will double, meaning they will account for a third of the population, he predicted. By 2066 they will outnumber white Britons.

Prof Coleman, a professor of demography, drew his findings from research on international population forecasts carried out for the Migration Observatory.

He said: “On current trends European populations will become more ethnically diverse, with the possibility that today’s majority ethnic groups will no longer comprise a numerical majority.”

In the study, “minorities” are defined as being non-white or people who class themselves in the census as Irish or another nationality.

Alongside migration, falling birth rates among white Britons were also said to account for Britain’s shifting demographic composition.

The report said that a quarter of babies in Britain had foreign-born mothers. The calculations of future demographic trends are based on the current net rates of immigration.

Andrew Green, from campaign group MigrationWatch, said the findings of the study were “important”. He said: “It brings out the consequences if the mass immigration triggered by Labour is not rapidly brought under control.”

Under European “freedom of movement” rules, 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians will gain the right to live and work unrestricted in Britain from next year.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has insisted the number of migrants coming to the UK from these countries in 2014 will not be “anything like” the influx of Poles seen nearly a decade ago.