First, the question you ask in the title: Should we be as frightened as the Mail wants us to be? I have no idea how frightened the Mail wants us to be, but in my opinion there certainly is a problem, and the best thing to do would be to address it and not spin the facts. And critics of the critics of migration are often just as guilty of this crime.

If I were to describe your argument, I would use the word “quibbling”. Allow me to summarise:

1, The UN doesn’t know for certain if the UK will have Europe’s biggest population by 2050; this is a projection.

I haven’t seen the data that you’re referring to here (see previous comment), but IIRC correctly in the UN’s favoured population growth scenario all populations eventually converge on a total fertility rate of 1.85. In fact Germany’s TFR has been below 1.5 for the last 35 years. Obviously, to replace the population, every woman needs to average about 2 births. A TFR of 2.1 is commonly referred to as the “replacement rate”. So Germany’s German population has been declining for some time (quite a long time). If our population continues to grow and their population continues to decline then it is an obvious mathematical fact that we will overtake them at some point. The only question is when.

Now, it’s true that this is a projection. And it’s true that the UN doesn’t know anything for certain. That follows directly from the fact that this is a projection. More properly, the second statement is redundant. The UK’s population might vanish overnight, or up sticks and move to Germany, and both the Mail and the UN would have a lot of egg on its face. However, if current trends continue, then what?

Consider this analogy: You’re at the wheel of a car, accelerating. At current rates of acceleration, you will pass the speed limit in 2 minutes. “Ah, but,” you say, “anything could happen in the next two minutes—my rate of acceleration might change; I might even slow down.” Er, yes, you might. And are you slowing down?

“Wheeeee!”

After all, why worry? Anything could happen.

2, The article uses a sleight of hand technique to shift between UK population size and English population density. UK population density is less than English population density.

I don’t know about this—moving between the UK and England seems pretty reasonable to me. I think that England’s population density is a useful stylised fact that makes the data a bit easier to comprehend.

But look, if the Mail is spinning here, then so are you, in exactly the same fashion but in the opposite direction.

The UK is a densely populated country. England in particular is very densely populated. Perhaps it is a bit more densely populated than Belgium, but a bit less than the Netherlands. Or perhaps something else. Whatever the case, the comparison is only a measure; the objective fact of its true density is not affected by changing the measure, e.g. to different country comparisons. However you slice the top few countries, England is still very densely populated. If you add less densely populated countries to England (e.g. Scotland, Wales and NI), then of course the average density of the whole area goes down. That’s a just basic arithmetic. However (as you note), most of us live in England! And the population density of England is unchanged by this.

If the population continues to grow in line with current trends, will this density increase or decrease? I’m guessing that it will increase.

I have two further “meta-criticisms” (sorry) of your post.

1, Why should we care if UK population is greater in size than Germany? Why should we care if England’s population density is greater than the Netherlands? There is an inherent contradiction at the heart of your criticism of the Mail. Regardless of its relative position, the facts are the facts. Whatever the population size and population density are, that’s what they are. If you think they are acceptable in absolute terms, then it’s kind of irrelevant what their relative sizes are. Likewise if you think they are not acceptable. In your footnote you write,

I worked this out by taking the UK’s population for 2005 and calculating what 83% of that would be to give England’s population in 2005 (50,016,630). I then worked out the total rise in the UK’s population between 2005 and 2050 (using the medium fertility projection that would be 12,104,000) and added it to England’s 2005 population to give a total of 62,120,630. Germany’s medium fetility population projection for 2050 is 70,504,000. Even with a low projection it is 62,633,000.

To me, that seems like a strange point to make. Not just on its own terms—Although the fact that, under this scenario, England’s projected population is under ten million less than Germany’s is not at all something that is going to make people approaching this in a dispassionate fashion, and who are uninterested in reading/bashing the Mail, feel reassured—But in terms what it represents for your argument.

Most people aren’t interested in the question, “What year will Germany have a smaller population than the UK?” Most people, to the extent that they worry about it all, are more worried about how big the population is and how fast it’s growing, full stop. If you were to conclusively prove to me that what the Mail claims is going to happen in 2050 is actually going to happen in 2051, or 2055, or 2075, or wouldn’t happen at all because Germany’s population growth is about to go exponential, I would probably say, don’t give a fsck mate, and continue to be worried about the same things I’m worried about now.

Or look at this:

The UK’s population, even projected with the highest fertility rates, is lower in 2050 than Germany’s current population.

Germany’s current population is over 80 million! The UK will also have a lower population than any number of other places: India, China, Argentina… ¿Y qué?

2, Which brings me what I think is a second fundamental problem with the OP: Can you actually approach this issue with the seriousness it deserves, or is it simply about proving the Daily Mail wrong about some ultimately trivial fact? Say that they were completely correct on all points; would this actually make you take this issue seriously? Or say the figures are all wrong—are the figures irrelevant at every population size, rate of growth, and density?

If not now, when? Inquiring minds want to know