Written submission from British Futures (HCL0039)

1. About British Future: British Future is an independent non-partisan think-tank and charity that works for a confident and inclusive Britain. This submission draws on original research into social norms on prejudice, race and integration, carried out by British Future in the West Midlands, alongside national polling of majority and ethnic minority attitudes to change in the 50 years since the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech[1], reported in the ‘Many Rivers Crossed’ report (2018) and extensive public engagement in 60 locations across the UK carried out by British Future and Hope Not Hate in the ‘National Conversation on Immigration[2]’, which was also an input to the Home Affairs Committee’s own inquiry[3], as well as on other attitudes research by British Future over the last five years.

What is the current level of anti-Muslim prejudice in British society?

2. There is clear evidence that anti-Muslim prejudice in the UK is more widespread and has more ‘mainstream’ reach than most other forms of racism or prejudice against ethnic and faith minorities in the UK today. A 2018 Survation poll for British Future asked people if they would be comfortable or uncomfortable if a range of social roles were filled by somebody of a different ethnicity, or by somebody of the A broader group of the population express discomfort towards contact with Muslims than with members of an ethnic minority group in each of the professional and social contexts.

3. A quarter of people would be uncomfortable with their local MP being of the Muslim faith (compared to 13% for an MP from an ethnic background), rising to over a third in the case of the Prime Minister being Muslim (compared to 21% for an ethnic minority Prime Minister). Over a third of people would not want their child to marry somebody who was Muslim. 21% would be uncomfortable with a next door neighbour who was Muslim, compared to 12% for a neighbour of a different ethnicity. A table illustrating the gap between anti-Muslim prejudices and those for ethnic minorities is included as an appendix below.

4. There was a significant generation gap in some (but not all) of these responses. Close to half of the over 65s (48%) say that they would be uncomfortable with a Prime Minister who was Muslim. (This may not prove indicative of how people would respond to a real world example; the idea of a hypothetical “Muslim Prime Minister” could trigger associations with an Islamist government, for some respondents). Older respondents, over 65, were twice as likely to express discomfort about a child’s school-teacher being Muslim (31% of the over 65s) than other professional roles, such as police officers (14%) or doctors (10%) or your own boss (11%). This may be indicative of some of the types of suspicions and fears about Muslims that underpin discomfort and prejudices.

5. Though there is inter-generational progress in reducing anti-Muslim prejudice, the pace of generational change appears to be somewhat less pronounced than for racism in general, or for social attitudes towards gay people. One in five of the youngest adults (18-24 year olds, born between 1994-2000) expressed discomfort about contact with Muslims, or Muslims holding senior roles in society in this. This appears likely to reflect the much increased public and media salience of Islam and Muslims in society, particularly since 2001 and 2005.

6. There is also broad public recognition that anti-Muslim prejudice is a significant issue. When asked by Survation to assess levels of prejudice against a full range of ethnic and faith groups in British society. 56% of respondents said that Muslims face ‘a lot’ of prejudice in Britain today, with 8 out of 10 people recognising the existence of anti-Muslim prejudice. (7% say there is hardly any prejudice against Muslims, and 4% that there is none at all). There were very minor differences between white British and ethnic minority responses: 58% of ethnic minority respondents saw ‘a lot’ of prejudice against Muslims; 12% saw ‘hardly any’ or ‘none at all’. The findings indicate a widely shared public perception that there is rather more prejudice against Muslims than against other minority groups (with the partial exception of prejudice against gypsy and traveller groups: 50% perceive a lot of prejudice).  For comparison, 13-14% of people perceive ‘a lot’ of prejudice against Hindus or Sikhs, and 14% perceive a lot of prejudice against Jewish people; 20-21% of people perceive a lot of prejudice against black and Asian people (rising to 30% and 38% among ethnic minority respondents). This finding indicates that it should be possible to secure broad public understanding of why tackling anti-Muslim prejudice requires sustained action.  A comparative table is included below on public perceptions of levels of prejudice against different groups.

Different forms and expressions of anti-Muslim prejudice

7. Different forms that prejudice against Muslims can take were exemplified by the 60 local citizens panel discussions held by the National Conversation on Immigration. The National Conversatation citizens’ panel discussions were, for the most part, open, decent and constructive, with participants able to discuss areas of common ground and their differences in a civil way. One exception was that casual prejudice towards Muslims was a recurring feature in several of the citizens panel discussions, alongside generalised stereotypes of some other minority groups (particularly  Roma, and sometimes East Europeans). It was common for this to be voiced by those who appeared to be conscious of anti-prejudice norms, but who sometimes did not apply these when discussing specific groups.

8. Anti-Muslim prejudice takes different forms. Virulent rejection of and hatred towards Muslims were not expressed in our citizens panels, though very strong prejudices did feature in the online survey research, a self-selecting survey in which the research analysis showed that those with both the most negative and the most positive views were significantly over-represented.  Those giving the lowest score of 1 out of 10 (on a 1-10 scale in assessing the positive/negative contribution of immigration made up 31% of the open online survey respondents, compared to 8% in a nationally representative poll for the project. About a third of this segment (one in ten of all online survey respondents) made overtly prejudiced or racist remarks, often targeting Muslims, such as:

‘Ban Islam, mosques and burqas’

‘You do not seem to comprehend that Muslims have one aim and that is total world sharia law. Ever since Islam was created they have been on one long jihad, be it by arms or by out-breeding the native population. By Islam’s very nature, integration is impossible’

9. The stark contrast in the balance of responses between the open self-selecting online survey and a nationally representative attitudes survey suggests that it is very likely that those who hold the most overtly prejudiced views about Muslims have a much larger ‘share of voice’ in online discussion than they do among the population generally. The role of social media companies in policing agreed guidelines – and ensuring those policies get the boundaries right between debate and prejudice - has a particularly important role to play.

Mainstream prejudices: Muslims as different

10. Participants in the citizens panels discussions felt that they held decent anti-prejudice norms – and sought to maintain decent boundaries in discussions – but some participants struggled to apply those norms when talking about Muslims.  Participants did not believe that large proportions of British Muslims supported extremist views, such as groups like Isis or Al-Qaeda. When there was explicit discussion of terrorist incidents, such as shortly after the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, there was a broad consensus among participants that a small minority were either involved in or supportive of such actions. A national conversation discussion in Bolton happened to take place 48 hours after the Manchester bombings. A Muslim participant said “Its really hard for me as a Muslim now, because every time we feel like we are getting a step closer to being properly integrated, some stupid person does something that puts us ten steps back”.

11. Considerably more prevalent in the National Conversation discussions was a tendency to stereotype Muslims as a homogenous community whose values are incompatible with the British way of life. Perceptions of cultural differences relating to language, types of address, religiosity, halal food, gender relationships and attitudes towards sexuality highlighted the challenges in defining a clear boundary between debates on integration and the stereotyping of Muslims as a monolithic group.

12. The sexual abuse of girls and young women in Rotherham and Telford were often raised spontaneously. In contrast to the discussion of terrorism, participants who spoke about this could tend to characterise this behaviour as being widely prevalent within Muslim communities, rather than to regard it as the action of a small, criminal minority, alongside the very widely held view that ‘political correctness’ had impeded effective responses by Rotherham Council and the police against those who broke the law in exploiting children and vulnerable women.  This theme discussed in citizens panels in Yorkshire, but came up frequently in citizens’ groups across the country.

‘Unnamed communities’ and casual anti-Muslim stereotypes

13. In a number of citizens panels, participants did not specify Muslims as a group that were not integrating, talking more generically about “communities” or not integrating. Invariably, the examples given were places identifiable for having significant Muslim populations: most often Rotherham, Bradford, Birmingham, Luton, Rochdale and Tower Hamlets. These types of associations of areas of high Muslim populations as examples of national failures of integration was often commonplace in citizens panels across the country. Those citizens panels (Bolton, Bradford, Enfield, Leicester, Preston and Wolverhampton) which did not do this were usually locations of high ethnic diversity, in which most members of the citizens panels were considerably more likely to discuss examples of everyday social contact, so that there was a more nuanced account of integration successes and challenges.

14. This example from a female participant in Kidderminster encapsulates this ‘unnamed communities’ phenomenon whereby some citizens’ panel participants tried not to talk specifically about Muslims, but struggled to work out how to express their anxieties and fears about integration in ways that would not transgress anti-prejudice norms.

‘I see why people get upset, they come from a country, I don’t want to pick on a country, let’s say somewhere in Asia, and they come over and they don’t make an effort to learn the language, they dress in their own way, which is okay, it’s fine, but it alienates themselves a little bit.....Well some are very nice but others do keep themselves to themselves, speaking their own language when it suits them. Sometimes I’m terrified because I wonder what they are saying, on a train or something. You know, are they going to bomb us? It’s terrifying walking around Birmingham, around Christmas time. I’m far from racist, but I just don’t know.”

15. The most anxious or fearful attitudes about community relations were often expressed in areas of lower diversity, about 10-15 miles away from areas of high diversity, reflecting both the high visibility of difference and little contact with it. Here, anxieties about integration challenges could spill over into casual stereotypes of Muslims in general. This geographic pattern highlights a significant national challenge for efforts to tackle anti-Muslim prejudice. There has naturally been a significant focus on efforts to promote good local relations in schools and between faith groups and communities in diverse areas. Local anti-prejudice activity in areas of high diversity has an important role to play – and we heard examples of how this has been successful, in the more confident attitudes in more diverse areas, and of younger people. So it is important to think about anti-Muslim prejudice as a national challenge, which can not be addressed by local engagement alone. This research shows how distant perceptions of the successes and failures of integration in big cities – driven by perceptions from the national news media and politics – has a significant impact on attitudes right across the country, and on the general public reputation of Muslim communities and citizens, especially in areas of low diversity where personal contact is less likely to mitigate these perceptions. It is challenging for those working to challenge prejudice to reach either tougher or more distant audiences.

16. Sustained integration strategies could reduce mainstream prejudices, particularly in greater social contact for those who see Muslims as a distant ‘out group’.  In the short-term, political leadership and media content can play important roles in reinforcing these more ‘mainstream’ prejudices – perhaps rather more so than compared to prejudices which have shrunk to a narrower core group. For example, the salience of the Burqa in British and European political and media debate deepens misperceptions it is widely worn: why would so much time be spent on something worn by fewer than 1% of Muslim women? That misperception deepens anxieties about self-segregation of Muslim communities, reinforcing a sense of social distance that can drive a corrosive “them and us” framing of debates about integration.

Thinking strategically about reducing anti-Muslim prejudice

17. The pattern of public attitudes show why anti-Muslim prejudice merits a high priority within strategies to tackle racism and prejudice in Britain today. Though casual anti-Muslim prejudice, effective leadership on this issue should be able to unlock broad public support for why this is a significant challenge which merits attention and action.  The government should adopt a clear definition of anti-Muslim prejudice (or Islamophobia) as an important foundation for an effective strategy to tackle anti-Muslim prejudice.

18. The most important strategic goal in seeking to reduce prejudice against Muslims would be to seek to close the gap in perceptions of Muslims, compared to other ethnic and faith minority groups, by reducing prejudice against Muslims, and by challenging and changing the broader sense of ‘othering’ and social distance against Muslims. Given that goal, it is important to seek to give tackling anti-Muslim prejudice a high priority in ways which reduce social distance, rather than increase it.

19. The debate about getting the foundations right on anti-Muslim prejudice (or Islamophobia) will be at least as contested as on other strands of prejudice – and quite probably somewhat more so. The challenges and potential controversies over getting these boundaries right strengthens, rather than weakens, the case for adopting a clear definition. It may be useful to identify the tests which an effective definition of anti-Muslim prejudice or Islamophobia should seek to meet.

• Legitimacy among Muslim citizens, as the group targeted by this prejudice
• Capable of securing a broad civic and political consensus, across mainstream politics
• Accessible and comprehensible to the general public, so it can be entrenched as an anti-prejudice norm.
• Capable of being operationalised practically, by those seeking to maintain anti-prejudice boundaries in a range of settings – from discourse in media and social media, to civic groups, political parties and others.

20. What’s in a name? Are “anti-Muslim prejudice” and “Islamophobia” defined or understood differently? “Anti-Muslim prejudice” and “Islamophobia” are used by several civic society and public policy actors as synonyms. Others express a strong preference for one label over the other, both ways around. Ultimately, definitions and how they are used practically should more than labels – but labels will always have a much greater public reach than definitions, so public perceptions of labels could well prove important in underpinning perceptions of whether the boundaries are in the right place.  The choice of label also appears to be of some considerable importance to elite actors with different positions in the debate, in politics and civic society, but it is rarely clear as to whether this is a ‘brand’ issue or a content issue, reflecting different conceptions of the boundaries.

21. Recent definitions of Islamophobia – such as the Runnymede Trust’s (2018) review of its coining of the phrase, have sought to define Islamophobia in ways that align more closely to definitions of anti-Muslim prejudice, as a way of addressing concerns that the term risks being too expansive. As Omar Khan of the Runnymede Trust has written: “many critics or sceptics are concerned that Islamophobia is a term that’s used to shut down legitimate debate about ideas or beliefs (notably about Islam). Many of these same critics would, however, probably agree that discrimination is wrong, and that it is unfair for people to be disadvantaged or harmed simply because of who they are. Focusing on anti-Muslim discrimination or racism foregrounds the experiences and concerns of individuals, or people, and makes it clear that Islamophobia is not about limiting free speech. Criticising ideas is the hallmark of a free society, but discriminating against people on the basis of their background – for example, because they are Muslims – is instead a marker of an unjust one”.

23. These are important distinctions. This could be one way to continue to use the term ‘Islamophobia’ while trying to address issues about getting the boundaries right.  While it is possible to pursue a redefinition while preferring the label which contains the word ‘Islam’ rather than the word ‘Muslim’, it may then be necessary to work that bit harder to establish that it has got the boundaries in the right place, in enabling the critique of ideas and theology while drawing the line against prejudice against people. If people are confused about that, or think that it is doing the opposite, that is partly that is because the intuitive signalling conveyed by using ‘Islam’ over ‘Muslim’ goes in the opposite direction.

24. The process by which a definition is reached and adopted could have an important impact in establishing the legitimacy, reach, ownership and practical utility of a future definition. There are some significant barriers to overcome in creating an effective process, including relationships of low trust between government and British Muslim civic society groups, and a polarised political, media and civic discourse about anti-Muslim prejudice.

25. Direct public engagement of British Muslims, alongside citizens from all ethnic and faith backgrounds, alongside political and civic society engagement, would play a useful role in a process towards an effective definition, with sufficiently broad support to be widely used and understood. Whether or not the label is important to the general public, both Muslim and non-Muslim, is a matter of conjecture and debate. There is currently very little evidence to support competing claims about this in either direction. There are often significant gaps between civic society stakeholder and public understandings of terms used in debates about identity, integration and prejudice, for a range of reasons. These can reflect substantive differences. This can also arise from the public inaccessibility of terminology which is in widespread use in policy, civic society and academic circles. For example, the Cabinet Office conducted public research in the race disparity audit and adopted terminology that was more comprehensible and accessible. The research found very low public awareness of the term ‘BME’, for example, and so did not use it. The debate about definitions and anti-prejudice norms has benefitted from the expertise of those with a sustained interest in this topic. There has not yet been any sustained effort to sense-check potential definitions for their accessibility to citizens, whether from Muslim or other backgrounds. If a definition is to help entrench a social norm, it will need to be accessible and comprehensible to general public audiences, both Muslim and non-Muslim.

26. A definition will be a useful foundation if it forms part of a broader strategy to act upon it. There will be particular value in an effective strategy to tackle anti-Muslim prejudice (or Islamophobia) being one important flank within a broader strategy towards tackling hate crime, racism and prejudice, which continues to erode and reduce prejudices against all groups, while recognising that anti-Muslim prejudice can be particularly prevalent today. Recent civic society efforts to tackle anti-semitism and anti-Muslim prejudice together offer useful insights into how to do this effectively. Strategies to tackle Islamophobia and anti-Muslim prejudice which are not embedded in a broader strategic framework may run risks of increasing controversy and polarisation about the role of Muslims in British society. A polarised debate about anti-Muslim prejudice would risk fuelling the ‘them and us’ attitudes that underpin casual prejudices, at the same time as reinforcing frustrations at the failure to give sufficient priority to anti-Muslim prejudice to date.

‘How would you feel if the following positions were filled by someone of a different race to you/ by somebody of the Muslim faith/?’ (All UK respondents)

Survation for British Future (2018)

Who faces prejudice in Britain today?

For each of the following ethnic and religious groups, how much ethnic or religious prejudice do you think there is against them? (All GB respondents/BME respondents in brackets)

Survation for British Future. Representative sample of 2000 people, plus 1000 ethnic minority respondents.

January 2019