Do you think that Britain is heading towards civil war? If you spend too much time in certain nooks on social media, you are most likely to answer resolutely in the affirmative. Yet this common refrain is not only heard from outlandish elements on the alt-right. It is a worry voiced by many mainstream conservatives who fear the recent, palpable growth of inter-ethnic tensions and mistrust in this country – and wonder where it will all end.

It’s a view shared by Elon Musk, who in 2024, responding to a Tommy Robinson video on X depicting scenes of urban unrest in the UK, simply replied: ‘Civil war is inevitable’. Asked in an interview for the Economist this week to elaborate on that remark, the founder of SpaceX and the boss of Tesla clarified: ‘If you have a large and growing, rapidly growing, group of people whose beliefs are antithetical to western beliefs, at some point there will be a reckoning.’

There has been a growing sentiment that unprecedented levels of immigration, combined with a multicultural model that has emphasised difference rather than unity, have both destabilised and radically altered British society for the worse.

Although Musk admitted in the interview that he hadn’t been to the UK for ‘a few years’, the feeling that we are due ‘a reckoning’ is not uncommon. Certainly, there has been a growing sentiment that unprecedented levels of immigration, combined with a multicultural model that has emphasised difference rather than unity, have both destabilised and radically altered British society for the worse.

A survey by More in Common last year found the nearly half of white Britons – 44 per cent – sometimes now ‘feel like a stranger in their country’. Significantly, that figure rose to 47 per cent for British Asians, which illustrates how the alienation and suspicion is mutually felt.

Whether we are headed for that endgame envisaged by Musk is moot, but there is an apprehension that this country is on the point of disintegration. This feeling is not merely supported by the growing militancy displayed by some sections of the Muslim community, who harassed Labour MPs in the 2024 general election, the year sectarian politics arrived in this country in earnest, or in their successful attempt to have Israelis banned from an Aston Villa versus Maccabi Tel Aviv football match last November. This fragmentation can be also witnessed in the growing, parallel unrest among the white population.

That capitulation by West Midlands Police in the face of threats by members of Birmingham’s Muslim population only added ammunition to the narrative that Britain had effectively become a ‘two-tier’ state. This is the belief that the white working-class populace in this country are now treated as second-class citizens by a liberal establishment, its members blinded by multiculturalist dogma and terrified of being called racist.

That narrative began to gain traction as the horrors, negligence and cover-ups of the grooming gang scandal emerged. And since the summer of 2024, when some white working-class responded with violence in the aftermath of the Southport murders, our country’s widening racial divisions have become impossible to ignore. Last year’s Operation Raise the Colours, which saw St George and Union Flags hoisted on the streets and lampposts of England – often in response to the Palestinian flags that adorn majority-Muslim enclaves in our urban areas – was but further proof of this.

The unduly harsh sentence handed out to Lucy Connolly added fuel to the fire. So has been the response, in turn, by many in the ruling classes, who dismiss and deride complaints of ‘two-tier’ policing, or the flying of English flags, as ‘far-right’ or ‘racist’. Not even the events surrounding the murder of Henry Nowak have jolted them from their dogmatism or complacency. They show few signs of realising quite how destructive the ideology of ‘anti-racism’ has been. Conservative voices have for decades warned of the potentially disastrous consequences of endorsing identity politics. Its only major legacy today is the growing accusation that ‘anti-white racism’ is endemic in the police and elsewhere.

When it comes to race, much of our country’s problems have been caused by well-meaning liberals. Yet they then have the gall to accuse the populist right of ‘stoking’ trouble when they point to the havoc they and their policies have caused.

Furthermore, the lazy accusation of ‘far right’ is grimly ironic. The policies, dissimulation and authoritarian conduct of the left – unsustainable immigration, multiculturalism, cowardice in the face of Islamist intimidation, the muzzling of dissenting voices – has now resulted in the rise of the actual far right, of genuine ethnonationalists and racists. Their numbers are not merely legion among Restore supporters, but as the Telegraph reported last week, separatists are now making plans for ‘whites only’ communities in this country – the first is set to be established in rural Wales.

Maybe Elon Musk has been away too long from this country. Perhaps he is ‘stoking’ trouble. But we would be unwise to ignore or dismiss the warning signs.