Highlights
- Report finds 42 per cent of Britons believe Muslims cannot integrate into society
- 55 per cent believe Britain's national identity is disappearing because of diversity
- Report co-authored by Sara Khan, former UK counter-extremism commissioner
- 85 per cent of Muslims surveyed say they support integration
TWO in five Britons believe Muslims cannot integrate into society, and more than half think the country's national identity is disappearing because of diversity, a report by a former government adviser on extremism has found.
The report, titled "Britain Under Strain: The Broken Social Contract, Democratic Distrust and the Mainstreaming of Extremism," was authored by Sara Khan, who stood down in 2024 as the UK's first counter-extremism commissioner.
Khan said the findings, which showed 42 per cent of respondents believed Muslims cannot integrate into British society, contrasted sharply with separate polling showing that 85 per cent of Muslims favour integration.
According to the report, extremist views were being encouraged by hostile states and domestic groups. Researchers had logged 1,784 far-right offline events and 225 Islamist events over 12 months, it added.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Khan warned that there was a "vanishingly small" window in which a new prime minister could act to address the division.
The polling, carried out by More in Common among 4,094 adults this spring, found that 28 per cent of those surveyed believed people should ignore rules and institutions that stood in the way of change, while 61 per cent believed the "social contract" through which the public trusts UK institutions had broken down.
Khan said: "The challenge now facing us is more serious, and more deeply rooted, than when I was counter-extremism commissioner. This is not a passing dip in confidence but a structural crisis as a result of a chronic erosion of trust in institutions."
She added that the incoming prime minister needed to address these issues before concerns over the social contract damaged the country's democratic values.
Khan, who also served as the government's independent adviser for social cohesion and resilience between 2021 and 2024, said what it means to be British had become a genuine dividing line, not limited to any single political group, generation or region, and that concern over diversity eroding national identity was now a view held by most Britons.
Views on diversity
According to the report, 55 per cent of people believe Britain's national identity is disappearing because of diversity. Meanwhile, nearly a third of respondents said they were open to the view that non-white people would never be considered as British as white people.
The report, due to be published ahead of the launch later this year of the UK Extremism and Democratic Resilience Centre, found that 33 per cent of people support remigration, and 42 per cent believe Muslims cannot integrate into British society, with the figure rising to 71 per cent among Reform UK supporters.
Separate polling of British Muslims found a different picture, with 85 per cent in favour of integration, 88 per cent said they mixed comfortably with people of other faiths, and 85 per cent felt free to practise their religion.
However, the same polling found that 64 per cent of British Muslims believed white people were working against Muslims, 56 per cent believed the same of Jewish people, and 27 per cent said they believed the Holocaust had been invented or exaggerated.
Co-authored by Dr Matthew Godwin, who had worked at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change's extremism policy unit, the study pointed to a breakdown in respect for norms and institutions.
Iman Atta, director of Tell Mama, an organisation that supports victims of anti-Muslim hate, said the findings were "deeply, deeply troubling."
She said: "The language of remigration is being used by anti-Muslim and far-right groups to suggest that British Muslim citizens should ultimately be part of the remigration process."
She added that this went against the country's core values of the rule of law and fair play, and warned of a turbulent time ahead unless the government addressed the depth of the problems.
