The Guardian Spins British Islam Poll: ‘Most British Muslims Feel Strong Sense of Belonging’

A poll revealing the deep discord between British Muslims and the British people at large has been reported by the Guardian under a headline which suggested unity between the two groups. The headline was later altered, but the article itself continues to emphasise that Muslims feel at home in Britain.

Revealing the results of a poll undertaken for a Channel 4 documentary to be aired later this week, the former head of Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Trevor Phillips, warned that Muslim immigrants were creating a “nation within a nation” by segregating themselves from mainstream British culture and adhering to their native values.

Half of Britain’s Muslims believe homosexuality should be illegal, while four in ten British Muslims think that wives should always obey their husbands (compared with a national average of just five percent).

But while much of the media, including Breitbart London, has reported Phillip’s stark warning, the left’s media mouthpiece, The Guardian, has given the poll a wholly different spin.

That paper ran the poll under the headline: “Most British Muslims feel strong sense of belonging.” By midmorning it had been changed to reflect the results on homosexuality.

The article itself promotes the aspects of the poll which suggest community cohesion between Muslim immigrant families and British society, reporting: “Extensive polling conducted by ICM suggests that in most cases attitudes held by the British Muslim population do not broadly differ from those held by the population at large,” although it concedes: “there are significant differences when it comes to some issues such as homosexuality and women’s rights.”

And it promoted findings within the poll that a higher majority of Muslims feel “a strong sense of belonging” in Britain and in their local communities than the population at large.

“Of those questioned, 88% said Britain was a good place for Muslims to live in, and 78% said they would like to integrate into British life on most things apart from Islamic schooling and some laws,” the Guardian said, ignoring the fact that at the top of the polling, the numbers revealed that almost equal numbers said they felt they belonged to their [foreign] country of birth, or their parents’ country of birth, as they did to Britain.

Britain’s state broadcaster, the BBC, for its part appears to have ignored the poll entirely.

Writing for Breitbart London, the UK Independence Party deputy leader Paul Nuttall has said: “There is no getting away from it, no matter how the BBC or the Guardian try to pretend otherwise.

“There absolutely is a cultural divide in this country thanks to parts of the Muslim community, but no one wants, or seems able, to talk about it.”

Follow Donna Rachel Edmunds on Twitter: Follow @Donna_R_E or e-mail to: dedmunds@breitbart.com