We Can See What British Muslims Really Think - And It Should Worry The Hell Out of Us

As we await the airing tomorrow of the Trevor Phillips documentary "What British Muslims Really Think", which has already gained a lot of publicity in the press, I have been perusing through the full survey produced by ICM, which can be read here, and thought I would just briefly share some results that stood out to me. Please note that I have tried to avoid stats that I have already seen discussed online elsewhere, and which I have already Tweeted about.

• Page 91 – 47% of British Muslims disagree with gay teachers being allowed to teach in schools
• Page 132 – 39% “don’t feel favourable or warm" towards Jewish people - the most unfavourable rating towards any religious group in the survey
• Page 200 – Perversely / extremely tellingly, 44% also think antisemitism is not a problem in the UK!!!
• Page 262 – 24% sympathise with those who commit violence to protect their religion / 18% support those who commit violence against people who mock Muhammad
• Page 287 – 78% say that no publication should be allowed to publish pictures of Muhammad
• Page 351 – Most Muslims get the majority of their news and current affairs information from television, of which 72% rely on the BBC (Page 353 adds the caveat that 53% of such Muslims implicitly trust the Beeb to give them a balanced view)
• Page 378 – 53% of adult Muslims in this country do not have a job (granted, some are - or claim to be - disabled or retired)
• Page 403 – 13% described themselves as "sympathetic to violence".

Overall, it is quite clear that that many of these statistics paint a very disturbing picture of attitudes in the British Muslim community - and one that is not at all surprising to anyone who actually knows anything about Islam. Trevor Phillips is on record as saying: “For a long time, I too thought that Europe’s Muslims would become like previous waves of migrants, gradually abandoning their ancestral ways, wearing their religious and cultural baggage lightly, and gradually blending into Britain’s diverse identity landscape. I should have known better.”

Indeed he should have, but at least he has the courage to admit that he "got almost everything wrong" about Islam in Britain.

One final thought: If this is what the situation is like in the UK now, do you think that after Britain has taken in thousands more Muslim immigrants over the next ten years, the situation will be better or worse?