More than 600,000 white British Londoners have left the capital in a decade

Census figures show that between 2001 and 2011 the level of white flight reached 620,000. It is the equivalent of a city the size of Glasgow – made up entirely of white Britons – moving out of the capital. The figures mean that for the first time white Britons are now in a minority in the country’s largest city. At the same time, the census shows, some rural areas have seen a rise in the proportion of people who describe their ethnicity as white British. Some 3.7 million Londoners classified themselves as white British in 2011 – down from 4.3 million in 2001 – despite the city’s population increasing by nearly one million over the decade to 8.2 million. White Britons now make up 45% of the population, compared with 58% in 2001. London’s population has been boosted by immigrants. Three million foreign-born people now live in the capital. Behind white Britons, the largest ethnic group in London is now Asians – including those born here and those arriving from overseas – who make up 18% of the population. Black Londoners – including Africans, black Britons and those from the Caribbean – make up 13%. The census shows that the population of England and Wales was swollen by nearly four million immigrants in a decade of sweeping social change. In 2011 there were 7.5 million people who were born abroad living here, of whom more than half had arrived since 2001.