Research commissioned by the Tony Blair institute has found that 15 per cent of young Muslims in Britain believe “People should be prepared to go out and fight to defend their religion or culture with force”.
The research, based on polling of 1,011 Muslims and 1,011 white non-Muslims (WNM) aged 18 to 30 in May 2019 by Savanta ComRes, also found that found that 9 per cent of young Muslims believe that “Engaging with non-Muslim institutions, like UK politics” means you are “a traitor to Islam” and “not a true believer”.
A slightly higher 11 per cent agreed that such engagement “undermines the Muslim community”.
A lower 9 per cent of white non-Muslims (WNMs) felt that “People should be prepared to go out and fight to defend their religion or culture with force”, with 17 per cent agreeing that “British culture is under threat from invasion”.
The number of young Muslims and white non-Muslims who believe that “There is an unresolvable conflict between Islam and the West” was tied at 19 per cent each — although more than twice as many young Muslims believe “Conflict between the West and Islam would be a good thing”, at 9 per cent to 4 per cent for WNMs.
Perhaps surprisingly, the researchers noted that, “as opposed to the two-fifths of [white non-Muslim] respondents who have negative attitudes about Islam, only a small minority stray into clear white supremacist views such as that all Brits should strive to ensure our country is white (7 per cent) and that you are not truly British unless you are white (6 per cent).”
On this basis, they conceded that what they described as “far-right sentiment” among young white Britons ” is framed around culture rather than race.”
Curiously they also found that significantly more white non-Muslims “Feel discriminated for their race” (37 per cent) than Muslims (28 per cent).
However, 34 per cent of young Muslims said they “are systematically targeted in the UK and globally” for their religion, while 18 per cent alleged that “British society is intrinsically anti-Muslim”.
It may the case that young Muslims who approve of cultural conflict and the use of force feel more strongly than their white British contemporaries, given there have been many more terror attacks by Islamists in Britain than attacks associated with the far right, in addition to hundreds of people defecting to jihadist enterprises such as the Islamic State.
This was not measured by the study, however.
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