One of the most alarming sights on Britain’s streets today has been the open display of support for the violent Islamist terrorists Hamas, the blatant antisemitism and the visible disdain for British institutions, values, and ways of life.
Ever since the hideous attacks on Israel, on October 7th, we’ve been forced to watch a toxic alliance of radical Islamists and woke left activists take to the streets to voice their virulent antisemitism, support for Hamas, and hatred of the West.
At the same time, many people in the new ruling elite —the Luxury Belief Class—have fallen over themselves to downplay, if not ignore, these glaring problems.
Routinely, we’ve been assured these radicals and fanatics —along with their pro-Hamas, antisemitic, and anti-democratic views— only represent a fringe minority.
They certainly do not reflect the views of ordinary British Muslims and especially the younger Muslims among them who, we’re told, have successfully and fully integrated into everyday British life. Just look at Mo Farah.
But is this really true? Are these views really confined to a fringe minority?
Not so, according to a new and unique survey of British Muslims, which compares the attitudes of 1,000 British Muslims to 2,000 members of the British public.
The results —put simply—are deeply shocking.
They not only reflect the extent to which millions of British Muslims—millions of our fellow citizens— hold views that are fundamentally opposed to British values and ways of life but point to the longer-term problem facing Britain, a country that will experience the largest increase in the number of Muslims in Europe in the next twenty years, a number that will soon reach nearly six million.
The results, in short, should be compulsory reading for anybody and everybody who has a serious interest in the future of Britain and the West more generally.
The survey, which was undertaken by JL Partners for the Henry Jackson Society, paints a depressing and alarming picture of what’s unfolding in Britain today.
Contrary to all those who deny we have a problem, who would rather look the other way, the unique and alarming findings suggest the following:
More British Muslims than not reject the suggestion Hamas committed murder and rape in Israel on October 7th. Overall, some 40% of British Muslims reject the suggestion Hamas committed murder and rape, compared to only 19% who think Hamas did commit these acts.
As with many other issues we are about to explore, this puts British Muslims firmly at odds with the wider British public, with 62% of Brits believing the fact Hamas did murder and rape Jews on October 7th.
Even more worryingly, it’s actually the youngest British Muslims, 18-24-year-olds, who are even more likely to reject the suggestion Hamas committed murder and rape, with nearly half of them, 47%, holding this view.
It’s certainly true that we should take all polling, including smaller groups within polling, with a pinch of salt. But nonetheless —the fact that only about one-quarter of young British Muslims believe Hamas committed these hideous acts raises big and profound questions about what is, or what is not, happening in Britain’s schools, mosques, and local communities.
And this picture becomes even more striking when we look at some of the other remarkable findings which are just as worrying, as well as my own view about what this means and what we might do about it going forward …
Nearly half of all British Muslims (46%) and nearly six in ten of the youngest British Muslims (58%) say their sympathy is either “definitely with” or “leans towards” Hamas —compared to only 16% of the wider British public. British Muslims, in short, are overwhelmingly more likely than the average British person to sympathise with Hamas —a violent, Islamist, terrorist group.
While only 8% of the British public say they hold a positive view of Hamas, this rockets to 29% among all British Muslims and to an even higher 34% among the youngest Muslims. While nearly 60% of all Brits say they have negative views of Hamas, only one-quarter of British Muslims do. Once again, they are firmly at odds with the rest of the country, holding far more favourable views of Hamas and being much less willing to express negative views toward the group.
British Muslims also have a very different view when it comes to why they think Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th. When asked why Hamas attacked Israel, more than half of all British Muslims, 52% , say it was “because Hamas wanted to forward the Palestinian cause”, while only 11% think it was “because Hamas wanted to kill Jews and is set on the destruction of Israel”. Among the British public, however, more people think Hamas committed the attacks simply because they wanted to kill Jews (40%), rather than advance the Palestinian cause (26%).
Turning to Israel’s right to exist, a plurality of British Muslims think “Israel does NOT have a right to exist as a Jewish homeland”, with 49% taking this view, compared to only 24% who believe Israel DOES have a right to exist (the rest say they don’t know). This too puts them firmly at odds with the British public, with almost six in ten Brits believing Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish homeland and only 12% thinking it does not (the remainder don’t know).
Once again, contrary to the popular claim, heard among the chattering classes, that young Muslims are more tolerant and open-minded than their older and more traditional counterparts, the polling suggests an even higher 65% of 18-24-year-old Muslims reject the idea Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish homeland, compared to 40% of the over-55s. Opposition to Israel’s right to exist, in other words, is most strongly concentrated among younger not older Muslims.
Nearly three-quarters of all British Muslims, some 72%, believe “Israel is a racist endeavour”, which jumps to 80% among the youngest 18-24-year-old Muslims. Only a very small minority of British Muslims, 10%, reject this suggestion.
Nearly 80% of all British Muslims believe “Israel is committing genocide on Palestinians”, while only 5% disagree. And, once again, young Muslims are especially likely to think this way, with 85% believing Israel is committing genocide on Palestinians, compared to 76% of older Muslims.
Large numbers of British Muslims also endorse various antisemitic tropes about the supposed power and influence of Jews, and are far more likely to do so than the British public. Nearly half of all British Muslims, 47%, think Jewish people have “too much power” over US foreign policy, compared to 20% of the British public, while 46% of British Muslims think the same about UK government policy, 41% think this about the media industry, 39% the financial system, 32% the global entertainment industry, and 30% the pharmaceutical industry. Consistently, British Muslims are more likely to endorse these antisemitic tropes than everybody else, suggesting antisemitism is rife in Muslim communities.
Nearly one-third of all British Muslims, 32%, believe the implementation of Sharia Law in Britain over the next twenty years would be “very” or “somewhat” desirable, a view shared by 32% of the youngest Muslims who are, once again, more likely than the oldest Muslims to think this way. Only 9% of the British public think the implementation of Sharia Law is desirable.
More than half of all British Muslims, 52%, also think it’s desirable to make it illegal to show a picture or cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed—like the schoolteacher in Batley did— compared to only 16% of the British public. This figure, again, jumps to a noticeably higher 59% among the youngest Muslims.
When it comes to homosexuality, British Muslims are relatively evenly divided between the 27% who think "outlawing homosexuality” would be desirable and the 28% who think it would not be desirable (a further 25% think it would be neither desirable nor undesirable). Again, British Muslims are considerably more likely to oppose homosexuality than the British public.
More British Muslims (29%) than not (27%) think it would be desirable to outlaw gay marriage in Britain in the next twenty years, with a further 25% thinking this is neither desirable nor undesirable. Young Muslims, again, are noticeable more likely to favour outlawing gay marriage (29%) than not (23%).
And, lastly, turning to politics, nearly 40% of all British Muslims and nearly half of young British Muslims, 46%, think the formation of a Muslim political party would be desirable, compared to just 12% of the British public. This suggests there is considerable potential and appetite for a more Muslim-focused, sectarian politics of the kind recently re-introduced to Britain by George Galloway. This would also cause serious difficulties for the Labour Party, not least given the fact that upwards of 60% of British Muslims plan to vote Labour this year.
And in terms of the recent harassment and intimidation of British Members of Parliament, and our political institutions, it is both telling and shocking that nearly one-third of all British Muslims, some 31%, think it is acceptable to protest outside the home of a Member of Parliament if that MP holds a different stance on the Israel/Palestine conflict, rising to 34% among the youngest Muslims. Only 16% of the British public would endorse this kind of action against an MP.
So what are we left with?
Well, contrary to what we’re often told by the new elite, that Britain’s pursuit of mass immigration and a policy of multiculturalism have been an unalloyed success story, that everybody is successfully integrating into wider British society, when we look past this rhetoric at the actual evidence, drawn from reliable surveys, we find more than a few serious problems.
Alarmingly large numbers of British Muslims today—including young Muslims who have come of age in the 2000s and 2010s, during concerted efforts by Western leaders to integrate newcomers and build “social cohesion”— express views which are very clearly and firmly at odds with views held by the wider British public.
While we hear much about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred we hear much less about what these surveys point to —significant if not large numbers of British Muslims, including larger numbers of young Muslims, who openly voice sympathy for Islamist terrorists, hold a positive view of Hamas, reject the fact Hamas did commit murder and rape on October 7th, reject Israel’s right to exist, support crude antisemitic tropes, and harbour a desire to pull back and withdraw from integrating into British society —whether by implementing Sharia Law, clamping down on free speech and free expression, opposing same-sex relationships, supporting the emergence of a separate political party for Muslims, and thinking it’s somehow acceptable to intimidate MPs outside their homes.
As you can see above, we’re not talking about small minorities here; we’re talking about a sizeable share of Britain’s rapidly growing Muslim community, including large numbers of young Muslims who were born, raised, and socialised in Britain’s schools, universities, communities, and national life. Something, in short, has gone fundamentally wrong and it’s about time we had leaders in our politics, media, culture, and elsewhere who were at least open and honest about this fact.
What these results underline, in my view at least, is the urgent need for Britain to get real about the very serious challenges we now face as a country. As I’ve written before, we need to bring about a very different conversation and a very different kind of politics. We need to openly and repeatedly challenge the bizarre notion that you can build a successful, united, and fully integrated society while simultaneously pursuing mass immigration, having no serious strategy for integrating newcomers, and also failing to ensure there are serious consequences for those who do violate British laws and ways of life —from protestors shouting antisemitic slogans to radical activists intimidating if not murdering MPs in Westminster, from the rise of Sharia courts in British society to disgusting attacks on young girls and women, who are very clearly viewed in some areas of British life as second-class citizens.
We need, in short, to get real about what’s happening in Britain today; why so many British Muslims think this way, why our institutions are clearly failing to have much of an impact on recent generations, how and why these views and beliefs are rapidly seeping into our politics, cultural life, and national identity, and what might happen to Britain if we do not begin to address these challenges head-on.
And we need to start doing these things now, before looming demographic trends and a more radical, younger generation continue to push these ugly views from the margins to the mainstream and, ultimately, transform our entire way of life.
As a further thought, its ot just Muslims, but young white middle-class socialists who alos engage in intimitdation ad other ati-democratic activities. Just look at JSO, extinction rebellion or the bunch trying to use the ECHR to dictate policy on climate change. The young geerally seem to embrace fascism. attacks on Jews are often led by the white middle-class, even middle-aged middle-class.
Islam is a massive problem but democracy as a whole has a major problem now - increasingly large powerful sections of society seem to have given up on it.
It would be interesting to have the same survey among young British non-muslims. broken down by ethnicity, age group, and social class. See how many youngsters have been brainwashed. A lot of the worst antisemites seem to be socialists, often middle-class. The kind who say that Hitler was right for example. Far-left extremists seem to be very antisemitic. A few months back I chatted to a very left-wing Waitrose driver, who assured me Zionists control the country.