Welcome to the road with the fewest English speakers: Residents
reveal what they really think of their neighbours... and why some
critics are 'unfair'
The long rows of tiny Victorian terraced
houses are like hundreds of others around the Midlands, the North and
any of the towns and cities whose occupants powered Britain's industrial
past.
But Mornington Street, in St Matthew's, Leicester, can 'boast' something the others cannot.
It
is, according to official statistics, the road with the lowest
proportion of English speakers in the UK. It's hardly a surprise to find
that dubious title is claimed by a street in Leicester.
After all, according to the 2021 Census, only 57 per cent of the city's residents were born in England, down from 65 per cent in 2011.
Over the decades, Leicester has been the destination of choice for generations of incoming Bengali, Indian, Pakistani and Somalian migrants, along with many others, each finding groups of their own people, already settled in particular areas of the city.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer rattled many of his own Labour MPs this week with his 'Island of Strangers' speech, compared by many to Enoch Powell's infamous 'Rivers of Blood' oratory, delivered in Birmingham in 1968.
No doubt Starmer had in mind areas like Mornington Street and the pocket of streets around it where the Census found that 43 per cent of the over-16s speak little or no English.
And although he refused to put a cap on the number of migrants coming to Britain, the PM was adamant about the need for those who do come to assimilate.
Acknowledging the 'massive contribution' made by migrants today, he added: 'When people come to our country, they should also commit to integration, to learning our language.
'And our system should actively distinguish between those that do and those that don't. I think that's fair.'
Starmer's new hard line on immigration received a mixed reaction from fellow politicians. Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK taunted him in the Commons: 'You seem to be learning a great deal from us', while it was condemned by left-winger Diane Abbott as 'shameful'.
Yet in Mornington Street and the surrounding area, most people agree that migrants should be encouraged to learn English. This part of Leicester is largely populated by Muslims of Indian origin, mainly from the western state of Gujarat.
Made up of just a dozen roads and around 2,000 people, the pocket of North Evington is home to two mosques and a Hindu temple. The terraced Mornington Street is the main thoroughfare in the community, located just over a mile west of the city centre.
It is at the heart of an enclave of 34 districts, known as LSOAs, stretching through Leicester where at least a fifth of the population speak little to no English.
Many of the non-English speakers are new arrivals or perhaps elderly relatives who depend on younger members of the family to navigate the complexities of the English language.
Walking around the streets, where Palestinian and Indian flags abound, it would be easy to imagine you're in a foreign country. Business is brisk at the Islamabad cash and carry, women in burqas are everywhere you look, and there's a 50 per cent off sale at the Shaikha sari shop.
In some households where up to three generations are living cosily together it is the younger ones who act as translators for their parents and grandparents, local primary school worker Ruki explained.
(Continue)
PS: Rivers of Blood becoming reality...
