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~Well, it's that time of year again, when the media run their annual stories from Japan about the biggest yearly population fall since records began. From the BBC:

Almost a million more deaths than births were recorded in Japan last year, representing the steepest annual population decline since government surveys began...

Yeah, I already said all that. As I've been writing for twenty bollocking years, the demographic death-spiral is the biggest story of our time. So just give us the sodding numbers:

Japan recorded 686,061 births - the lowest number since records began in 1899 - while nearly 1.6 million people died, meaning for every baby born, more than two people died.

That said, the good news is that in the Dutch province of Limburg there's a bit of a baby boom:

Twee woningen in Weert voor Somalisch asielgezin met vijftien kinderen: huis vinden voor grote families is hels karwei voor gemeenten

Which means, more or less:

Two houses in Weert for a Somali asylum-family with fifteen children: finding a home for large families is a hellish task for municipalities.

Indeed. As any young newlyweds who've tried to find a fifteen-bedroom studio apartment can tell you, it isn't easy. Fortunately, as the second half of that headline informs us, it's no longer your problem, at least if you're an "asylum-family". The Dutch state will provide two houses for you, free of charge.

The Japanese are among the smartest people on the planet - average IQ 106. The Somalis are among the dumbest - average IQ 67.7. Yet being super-clever isn't preventing the Japs from Darwin Award-level self-extinction, while the Somalis are smart enough to fleece Dutch taxpayers for the costs of their fifteen inbred moronic kids. Yes, I'm aware there are persons who dispute the reliability of national IQ measurements, and I'm not unsympathetic: it might be more useful to develop an IQ test that's also capable of measuring the survival instinct.

At any rate, hands up if you'd like a Somali flying your 'plane? Or taking your appendix out? Or making a passable Hollandaise sauce for the eggs Benedict at your favourite upscale Minneapolis brunch spot?

Tough. 'Cause on the fifteen-kid two-house model you're not going to have any choice in the matter. In England, for example, simple demographic arithmetic is already having implications for available child minders:

As I wrote - here it comes, folks! - twenty years ago:

In Japan, the demographic crisis exists virtually in laboratory conditions... the demographic death spiral in its purest form. It's a country with no immigration, no significant minorities and no desire for any: just the Japanese, aging and dwindling.

In the Netherlands and the rest of western Europe, it's all a bit more complicated - if by "complicated', you mean rapes and stabbings and rampant paedophilia, which, when it's happening on a daily basis, is really pretty simple for everyone except the intellectual class.

You can't lose a million people a year for very long without noticing it. So, by mid-century, Japan will be down below eighty million, most of whom will be pretty wobbly on their feet. On the other hand, the Netherlands will have been transformed into something other. In 2063, Japan, diminished as it is, will still be recognisably Japan. By that year, however, in the United Kingdom, native Anglo-Celts will have become a minority of the population. As everyone knows, the Great Replacement is a racist conspiracy theory, but has mysteriously happened anyway.

So, if the choice is between the nation as an old folks' home with robot nurses or as Gangrapeystan, you may be looking for the "Neither of the above" box. Well, here it is, courtesy of a headline in The Times:

Half of Britons back ending immigration and deporting recent arrivals

The second half is vital: Simply pulling up the drawbridge will not prevent the UK - plus France and Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands - becoming within a generation majority-minority. Which, as noted above, is a euphemism for majority-moronic. So "half of Britons" now back mass deportations.

So, in nothing flat, the "immigration debate" has achieved the same condition as Brexit did - as an indictment of the west's contemporary pseudo-democracy: a polity where half the population favoured leaving the EU, but none of their parliamentary parties did. Likewise, "half of Britons" want mass deportations, while their political parties are trying to out-Muzzie the Muzzies. Here, for example, the Chancellor of His Majesty's Exchequer decides it'd be totally cool to be the only covered woman in a room full of uncovered women:

Ah, but that's just the poufter parties; what about the butch boys at Reform? From a cooing piece on Nigel Farage's strategic genius in The Spectator:

Senior figures in the party believe that [Laila] Cunningham would be a formidable candidate for mayor of London in May 2028. 'A moderate Muslim mother who can communicate very effectively and talks sense,' one says. 'She could win.'

So in the capital city of England a "moderate Muslim" mayor would succeed a hardcore Muslim mayor, who himself succeeded a Turk posing as Billy Bunter (at birth "Boris Johnson" was named after his famous paternal grandfather, Mustapha Kunt). So much for the far-right fascists of Reform.

My problem with Farage is that, even as the public discourse is expanding week on week, he's one of those seeking to shrink the politics of it. Granted, there's a lot of that about. Speaking of mayoral elections:

AfD mayoral candidate Joachim Paul denied his right to run for office because he likes Tolkien and criticises migrants

So in Germany the principal political concern of the German people is increasingly beyond the bounds of permitted politics. That's sure to work out well.

To be honest, I prefer municipal politics in Jumilla:

Outrage as Spanish town bans Muslim religious festivals from public spaces
Conservative People's party in Jumilla votes to stop civic centres and gyms being used for activities 'alien to our identity'

The notion that Islam is "alien to our identity" - and thus has to rolled back in the west - is closer to where half of those UK poll respondents are than Reform is. Robert Tombs, the eminent historian of the English people, has a truly godawful piece in the Telegraph, on how anybody can become English as long as they "integrate" - by learning a little Kipling to recite from under their hijab. Tombs misses the basic arithmetic: Nobody needs to "integrate" with a people going out of business. In case you haven't noticed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is already integrating with the incomers.

The Japanese may have given up on babies, but they are not prey to Tombs's pathetic visions of a land where body-bagged Islamocrones swap amusing Oscar Wilde bons mots over the Ramadan baklava. There will be no Kipling in tomorrow's England: you're standing in the road looking at the oncoming Berlin Christmas Market vehicle and wondering where the poetry recital is. On the EU, the "conservative" David Cameron promised the shimmering mirage of "reform" when half the country just wanted out; on migrants, the "conservative" Tombs and "conservative" Farage fantasise about "integration" and "moderate Muslim mayors" when half the country wants to buy them one-way tickets back to Hoogivsastan.

It's an existential battle now, and Eva Vlaardingerbroek and Connor Tomlinson, who are each a third of Tombs's age, understand that better than the political class. The public discourse has moved on; the cobwebbed "right" has not.

Besides, I doubt Robert Tombs reads much Kipling:

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And, guarding, calls not Thee to guard;
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

You can see me doing Recessional here.

~The most important, critical element of The Mark Steyn Club is its members - and I'm very touched by all those who signed up in our first month and who are still with us in our ninth year. It means an awful lot to me to know you value what we do here, whether Deep State machinations, transient politics, big-picture civilisational collapse, audio fiction, video poetry, or live music. If you've become a bit jaded by all that and want something new for Year Nine, well, I hope to see many of you on our sixth annual Mark Steyn Club Cruise from Quebec City to New York. For more information on the Steyn Club, see here - and don't forget our limited-time Gift Membership.