As Islam rapidly grows in Britain, the country’s future may be best envisaged by a city thousands of miles away.
Hamtramck is a tiny city in the United States that recently elected a full Muslim council and a Muslim mayor.
Since their takeover in 2021, the council has dramatically transformed the town.
I went to Hamtramck to make a film documenting how Muslims have changed the historically Polish American city.
Palestine Avenue in Hamtramck,
First they banned the LGBT flag from flying from government buildings, leading to a backlash among local gay activists and left-wing voters.
You may or may not agree with this decision, however, their legislation didn’t stop there.
A law was passed last year allowing for animal sacrifice in people’s gardens or on residential property, leading to in at least one cast a goat carcass being found in a local’s bin one day.
The call to prayer blasts from local mosques speakers’ twice a day, while women and girls walk the streets fully covered in black Islamic dresses.
One local told us she was shocked to see mothers sit in the back of cars while their young sons are in the front with their father.
She also told us fathers are present during intimate medical exams with their daughters.
Such practices are un-American. In fact they derive from the conservative Islamic culture in Yemen, where many of the local Muslims originate from.
Britain’s Muslim population has grown from 2.7 million in 2011 to 3.8 million in 2021 according to the census.
To put this in context, Hamtramck’s total population (including non-Muslims) is around 27,000.
If just thousands Muslims can radically change a town in three years, imagine what millions could do to a country over the next decade.
Politically the Muslims in Hamtramck are important too.
A Muslim mural in Hamtramck, Michigan
The city is in the state of Michigan, an important swing state in the upcoming Presidential election.
In 2016 Donald Trump won the state by just 10,000 votes; it is estimated there are more Muslims in Hamtramck itself than that number.
Since Hamas’s terrible massacre of Jews on October 7, American Muslims have reacted with fury. Such is the mood in Hamtramck that locals have even renamed a street to Palestine Avenue.
Much like in Britain, anti-Israel protests have sparked throughout the country.
In America, many Muslims have turned on Joe Biden following his military aid package to Israel.
In fact, not one Muslim we interviewed around Hamtramck supported the Democrat President, and many praised his rival Donald Trump.
One resident of Hamtramck told us that a rally was held for Hamas in the city a day after the attacks on Israeli civilians last year.
Such a shocking display of support for a terrorist group is highly concerning, particularly in the context of the series of attacks against Western civilians in the last 20 years from Islamic extremists.
Added to the mix is the recent chant heard in Dearborn, just down the road from Hamtramck, where Muslim protestors were heard shouting “Death to America”.
This radicalism is not confined to American Muslims.
A recent poll found British Muslims are more likely to have a positive than a negative view of Hamas, despite its official designation as a terrorist group.
Nigel Farage’s recent warnings of those who do not support British values (a rather fickle concept) were received with outrage by the mainstream media and among the political class.
Yet objectively the evidence shows Mr Farage is right: The same poll, conducted by J.L. Partners in April, found 32% of British Muslims favour the implementation of Sharia Law, and the same number the declaration of Islam as the national religion.
To continue importing people from conservative Islamic countries, as America and Britain continue to do, one cannot discount the different political and philosophical views they hold.
Mass immigration from such nations means radical change, and as locals in Hamtramck found particularly when Muslims take political power.
The Muslim vote is equally important in Britain too, with Labour relying on their support in the upcoming election.
A video emerged recently of Angela Raynor practically begging Muslims for their votes, showing how concerned Labour is about this section of the population.
While in America the Presidential election could actually be decided by the Muslim vote.
This is concerning for many, for their votes seem to be determined by events in Gaza, not their host nations.
The domination of elections in the West by issues in the Middle East could be common in the coming decades.
As Britain continues with its mass migration experiment, it must look to Hamtramck to understand the consequences of its open-borders policy.