Two in five Britons think Muslims cannot integrate in UK, poll finds

Government’s former extremism adviser sounds alarm as idea that diversity is harmful becomes ‘mainstream view’

Two in five Britons believe Muslims cannot integrate into British society and more than half believe the country’s national identity is disappearing due to “diversity”, a report authored by a former government adviser on extremism has found.

Sara Khan, who stood down in 2024 as the UK’s first counter-extremism commissioner, said such views contrasted sharply with accompanying findings that showed 85% of Muslims “favour integration”.

Extremist views were being exploited and promoted by hostile states and malign domestic actors, it was said. Researchers logged 1,784 far-right offline events and 225 Islamist events over a 12-month period.

At the launch of the report – titled Britain Under Strain: The Broken Social Contract, Democratic Distrust and the Mainstreaming of Extremism – Khan warned there was a “vanishingly small” window in which a new prime minister might act effectively to deal with the division and hate.

More in Common’s poll of 4,094 adults this spring found that 28% of those surveyed believed individuals should ignore rules and institutions that got in the way of change. Nearly two in three (61%) believed the “social contract” through which the public put trust in UK institutions and norms 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.

“The window to grip this is vanishingly small. The incoming prime minister must address these issues before our social contract anxieties shred away our democratic values.”

Khan, who was also the government’s independent adviser for social cohesion and resilience between 2021 and 2024, added: “What it means to be British, and who that identity belongs to, has become a genuine fault line, not confined to any one political tribe, generation or region. Concern that diversity is eroding national identity is now a mainstream view, held by a majority of Britons.”

According to the findings, 55% of people believe Britain’s national identity is disappearing because of diversity. Nearly a third (31%) of respondents described themselves as open to the view that non-white people would “never be as British” as white people.

The report, published before the launch later this year of the UK Extremism and Democratic Resilience Centre (UKEDRC), found that 33% of people support remigration and 42% believe Muslims cannot integrate into British society. The proportion rose to 71% among Reform UK supporters.

Polling of British Muslims told a contrasting story, with 85% in favour of integration, 88% saying they mixed comfortably with other faiths and 85% saying they felt free to practise their religion.

However, 64% of British Muslims said they believed white people were “working against Muslims”, while 56% said they thought Jewish people were. And 27% said they believed the Holocaust had been “invented or exaggerated”.

The report, co-authored by Dr Matthew Godwin, who worked at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s extremism policy unit, also warns of a breakdown in respect for norms and institutions.

According to the polling, 80% of Britons say political violence is never acceptable, but 29% of 18- to 34-year-olds do consider it acceptable.

Iman Atta, the director of Tell Mama, an NGO that supports victims of anti-Muslim hate and measures and monitors violence, 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.

“This prejudicial and bigoted perspective goes against the core values of our country of the rule of law and fair play. There are real fractures buffeting a number of communities and their relations towards each other today and we have a turbulent time ahead unless the government gets really serious about the depth of the problems.”