NO-GO BRITISH AREA 1:

TOWER HAMLETS, LONDON

ALONG with Birmingham’s Sparkhill district, the East London borough of Tower Hamlets was one of the places listed by MP Paul Scully as a ‘no-go area’ earlier this year. A quick glance at the neighbourhood’s Wikipedia page tells me that it boasts a large Bangladeshi and Muslim population, and I want to see if I – as a member of easily the most oppressed minority in ‘Woke Britain’ – a straight white man – will still be made to feel welcome here.

Spoiler alert: Don’t fucking count on it!

Having adorned myself in a proudly native British outfit consisting of a black bowler hat, bowtie, Union Jackembossed trousers and a T-shirt with Laurence Fox’s face on it, I disembark the Tube train at Tower Hamlets station.

Instantly, I feel isolated, frightened and painfully alone. With horror I realise that mine is literally the ONLY white face on this platform. Technically speaking, it’s the only face on the platform full stop, as it’s 7am on a Sunday, and there’s no-one else here. But still, the experience leaves me feeling shaken and disturbed, like being a stranger in my own country.

And this sensation is only heightened when I step onto the main road. Having read on various ‘dark web’ forums that Sharia Law is strictly practised in Tower Hamlets, I have decided to test the water by sipping an alcoholic beverage while I explore – as is my God-given right as an Englishman.

I stride purposefully down the street, guzzling from a bottle of methylated spirits, and it’s no surprise when I start attracting stares from a group of elderly Asian gentlemen. One of them even has the gall to ask if “everything is OK” when I pause briefly to vomit into a litter bin. Clearly he’s bewildered and enraged to see an indigenous Brit enjoying an early morning tipple on ‘his’ turf. He probably thinks I’ve wandered into this no-go zone by mistake. But tough titty, old son: last time I checked the Magna Carta, this was a FREE COUNTRY.

Having polished off the meths, I crack open a 2-litre bottle of white cider and stagger into the nearest shop. Yet again, I feel a sharp pang of panic – there must be TWENTY people in there, and once more, mine is the ONLY white face among them (if you don’t count two of the shop assistants and nine of the customers). Taking a glug of cider, I clear my throat and cry: “I’ll have roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with two veg, please!” The cashier – a young Asian woman – looks bewildered. “We don’t do that here, I’m afraid,” she says.

Unbelievable.

Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with two veg is the bedrock on which this great country was founded. But here in the East London ‘caliphate’ they’ve apparently never even heard of it. Granted, this shop is a newsagents – selling magazines, papers and sweets – but this lady’s sour-faced dismissal of our national dish still leaves me feeling like an alien on some godforsaken planet.

Overcome by the horrifying realisation that my oncebeloved country is slipping from my grasp – or perhaps just overcome by the combination of methylated spirits and cider – I begin vomiting again. The cashier rushes out from behind the till, and pats me gently on the back. “Oh dear, are you all right?” she seethes, clearly fuming at having a true-born Englishman set foot in her roastbeef-loathing establishment. Guiding me gently towards the door, she says: “We’ll clean this up, but first let’s get you some fresh air, eh?”

Even in my horrified state, I can’t help but emit a hollow chuckle. I know exactly what this lady is REALLY saying: Your kind is not welcome here. It’s time for you to leave.

Here I am – a decent, upstanding British citizen, being literally manhandled off my own soil. Soil that my own ancestors literally tilled with their own hands. Suddenly fearful for my life, I take off, running in the direction of the Tube station. The cashier begins yelling what I assume are Islamic curses at my back, although they do sound a bit like “Do you need an ambulance?” and “Are you OK?”

And truthfully: No. I am not OK. I am a hard-working, occasionally-tax-paying, born-and-bred Englishman being CHASED out of my own country.

But that’s just how it goes here in NO-GO BRITAIN.