The study found concerns about immigration, integration and national identity are becoming more widespread, while also highlighting troubling attitudes among sections of both the wider public and British Muslims…reports Asian Lite News Desk
A new report by former counter-extremism commissioner Sara Khan has warned that Britain is facing a deepening crisis of social cohesion, with growing distrust in institutions, widening divisions over national identity and increasing support for extremist narratives.
The report, Britain Under Strain: The Broken Social Contract, Democratic Distrust and the Mainstreaming of Extremism, found that two in five people in Britain believe Muslims cannot integrate into society. It also found that more than half of respondents believe the country’s national identity is disappearing because of diversity.
The findings stand in contrast to polling of British Muslims, with 85 per cent saying they support integration into wider society.
Khan, who stepped down in 2024 as the UK’s first counter-extremism commissioner, said extremist narratives were being amplified by hostile states and malign actors operating within Britain. The report recorded 1,784 far-right events and 225 Islamist events across the country over 12 months.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Khan said there was a “vanishingly small” opportunity for the next prime minister to tackle growing division and hatred.
“The challenge now facing us is more serious and more deeply rooted than when I was counterextremism commissioner. This is not a passing dip in confidence but a structural crisis as a result of a chronic erosion of trust in institutions,” Khan said.
“The window to grip this is vanishingly small. The incoming prime minister must address these issues before our social contract anxieties shred away our democratic values.”
The report also drew on polling conducted this spring by More in Common involving more than 4,000 adults. It found that 28 per cent of respondents believed people should ignore rules and institutions if they stand in the way of change. Another 61 per cent said they believed Britain’s social contract, which reflects public trust in institutions and shared democratic norms, had broken down.
The research also found that 31 per cent of respondents were receptive to the view that non-white people would “never be as British” as white Britons. A further 33 per cent expressed support for remigration.
Among supporters of Reform UK, the proportion who believed Muslims could not integrate into British society rose to 71 per cent.
Khan said: “What it means to be British, and who that identity belongs to, has become a genuine fault line, not confined to any one political tribe, generation or region. Concern that diversity is eroding national identity is now a mainstream view held by a majority of Britons.”
The report also highlighted significant differences in attitudes among British Muslims. It found that 88 per cent said they mixed comfortably with people of other faiths and 85 per cent said they felt free to practise their religion.
At the same time, 64 per cent said they believed white people were “working against Muslims”, while 56 per cent said the same of Jews. The report also found that 27 per cent believed the Holocaust had been “invented or exaggerated”.
Iman Atta, director of Tell Mama, an organisation that supports victims of anti-Muslim hate and monitors Islamophobia, described the findings as “deeply, deeply troubling”.
“The language of remigration is being used by anti-Muslim and far-right groups to suggest that British Muslim citizens should ultimately be part of the remigration process,” she said. “This prejudicial and bigoted perspective goes against the core values of our country of the rule of law and fair play. Real fractures are buffeting several communities and their relations toward each other today, and we have a turbulent time ahead unless the government gets really serious about the depth of the problems.”
