A new survey suggests a growing number of Britons believe their country’s national identity is weakening, while trust in public institutions continues to erode and concerns over immigration and social cohesion remain deeply divisive.
The polling, conducted by More in Common as part of an upcoming report for the UK Extremism and Democratic Resilience Centre (UKEDRC), surveyed 4,094 adults across Britain and found that 55 percent believe Britain’s national identity is disappearing. The report attributes much of the public debate to concerns surrounding immigration and demographic change.
The findings also revealed sharp differences in attitudes toward integration. According to the survey, 42 percent of respondents said they do not believe Muslims can be successfully integrated into British society. That figure rose to 71 percent among supporters of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, according to reporting by The Guardian.
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The survey found that 31 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that non-white people could “never be as British” as the native white population, while 33 percent expressed support for the idea of “remigration,” a term generally used to describe encouraging or requiring immigrants to return to their countries of origin.
At the same time, the survey found that Muslims in Britain expressed overwhelmingly positive views about integration. Eighty-five percent said they support integrating into British society, while 88 percent said they mix well with people of other faiths.
However, the poll also highlighted significant distrust. Sixty-four percent of Muslim respondents said they believed the white British population was “working against Muslims.” That figure exceeded the 56 percent who said they believed Jewish people were working against Muslims.
Beyond questions of identity and immigration, the report paints a broader picture of declining confidence in Britain’s institutions. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed said they believe the country’s “social contract” between the public and its institutions has broken down.
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Although 80 percent of respondents said political violence is never acceptable, attitudes were noticeably different among younger adults. Twenty-nine percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 said political violence could be acceptable in some circumstances. Meanwhile, 28 percent of respondents said they would accept politicians they support breaking rules if it helped achieve their political goals.
Sara Khan, the former UK counter-extremism commissioner and a co-author of the report, warned that Britain is facing a deepening crisis of public trust rather than a temporary decline in confidence.
“The incoming prime minister must address these issues before our social contract anxieties shred away our democratic values,” Khan said.
She argued that the challenge facing Britain today is more serious than during her time in government, describing it as “a structural crisis as a result of a chronic erosion of trust in institutions.”
