Finally, twenty months and 1.5 million migrants after the Census date last year, here is what the ONS has to say:

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On Census Day, the size of the usual resident population in England and Wales was 59,597,300.  The population of England was 56,489,800.  The population of Wales was 3,107,500.  This was the largest the population has ever been.

About the natives it has this to say:

In 2021, 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents in England and Wales identified their ethnic group within the high-level “White” category, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in the 2011 Census ...

Within the “White” ethnic group, 74.4% (44.4 million) of usual residents in England and Wales identified their ethnic group as “English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British”. This was a decrease from 80.5% (45.1 million) in 2011, and a continued decrease from 2001, when 87.5% (45.5 million) identified as “White: British”.

There was a decrease in the number of people identifying their ethnic group as “White: Irish”, from 531,000 (0.9%) in 2011 to 507,000 (0.9%) in 2021.

So according to the ONS, in the decade to March 2021we have declined by 700,000 or 1.55%.  We are 73.9% of the total population (my finger-in-the-air estimate, in the run-up to this release, was 72%, so naturally I am concluding that the Establishment is playing things down!).

On the colonising groups the ONS had this to say:

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•  The next most common high-level ethnic group was “Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh” accounting for 9.3% (5.5 million) of the overall population, this ethnic group also saw the largest percentage point increase from 2011, up from 7.5% (4.2 million people).

•  Across the 19 ethnic groups, the largest percentage point increase was seen in the number of people identifying through the “White: Other White” category (6.2%, 3.7 million in 2021, up from 4.4%, 2.5 million in 2011), this response option allows people to specify their ethnic group through writing it in; the increase may be partly explained by the new search-as-you-type functionality introduced for Census 2021, making it easier for people to self-define when completing the census online.

•  Large changes were also seen in the numbers of people identifying their ethnic group as “Other ethnic group: Any other ethnic group” (1.6%, 924,000 in 2021, up from 0.6%, 333,000 in 2011), and “Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African: African” (2.5%, 1.5 million in 2021, up from 1.8%, 990,000); both ethnic groups had the option to write in their response.

•  In England and Wales, 10.1% (2.5 million) of households consisted of members identifying with two or more different ethnic groups, an increase from 8.7% (2.0 million) in 2011.

In terms of significant milestones the Census reveals that “two-thirds of Londoners now identify as being from an ethnic minority, with just 36.8 per cent of people identifying as “white English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British”.  The natives are also now a minority in Birmingham, England’s second city.

A reminder of what the Oxford demographer David Coleman wrote in Standpoint Magazine in June 2016:

Even without migration … the White British population would cease to be the majority in the UK by the late 2060s. However, should current high levels of immigration persist for any length of time, that date would move closer to the present. Britain would then become unrecognisable to its present inhabitants. Some would welcome a brave new experiment, pioneering a wider world future. Others might say Finis Britanniae.