Yahoo News Almost half of Conservative voters think Islam is a threat to the British way of life, poll claims
Almost half of Conservative voters think Islam is incompatible to the British way of life, an anti-fascist group has claimed.
Hope Not Hate’s ‘State of Hate’ report claims that 49% of of Tory voters don’t believe Islam is compatible with life in Britain, and 22% of Labour voters agree, while 47% of Tory supporters, and 32% of those polled, believe there are ‘no go’ areas in Britain operated under sharia law.
Overall 35% of the 10,000 people surveyed said they don’t believe Islam is compatible with life in Britain.
Hope Not Hate found young people were far more likely to see the benefits of multiculturalism than their parents and grandparents.
Some 76% of 18 to 24 year olds felt that diversity was integral to British culture – less than half of those aged over 65 agreed.
The report also claims that 68% of people believe there is no longer a political party that speaks for them, with 55% of people agreeing the political system is “broken”.
Five out of the 10 far-right activists with the biggest number of social media followers are British, and 55% of the public have heard of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson but just 37% have seen his videos and only 6% of those surveyed have a positive impression of the former leader English Defence League leader.
Nick Lowles, chief executive of Hope Not Hate, said: “We are facing a crisis of political mistrust across all sections of the population. Politics is failing to overcome a disconnect driven by people’s anger and by their economic pessimism.
“A mistrust in political representatives adds potency to a mix of unmet expectations, broken promises, and possible further decline and anger.
“With some of the largest far-right street protests in decades coalescing around far-right figures such as Stephen Lennon [Tommy Robinson], we are also witnessing a worrying narrative of ‘betrayal’ and ‘traitors’ which is increasingly dominating the far right’s discourse, heavily focused on MPs – and women MPs in particular.
“Our latest polling also reveals a disturbing level of anti-Muslim prejudice and discourse running through society, with a third of people saying they believe there are Muslim-run ‘no go’ zones, and rising antisemitism on the Left which we have exposed in a new investigation.
