Muslims Voice Alarm After Survey Reveals Scale Of Islamophobia In UK

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th January, 2022) The Muslim community in the UK on Tuesday voiced their concern after a survey published by the University of Birmingham found that they are second only to Gypsies and Irish Travellers as the 'least liked' group in the country.

According to a study published on Monday by the University of Birmingham, 25.9% of the British public have negative feelings toward Muslims, compared with 8.5% for Jewish people, 6.4% for black people, and 8.4% for white people. Gypsies and Irish Travellers are viewed negatively by 44.6% of people in the UK.

"The findings from the University of Birmingham demonstrate how pervasive Islamophobia is in Britain today," the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Zara Mohammed, said in a statement.

The report on Islamophobia, which is based on a survey commissioned by the YouGov polling firm, showed that the non-Muslim British public is three times more likely to hold prejudiced views of islam than they are of other religious faiths.

In addition, 36.3% of the public, and a majority of Conservative voters (57.3%), also agreed that 'Islam threatens the British way of life', while people from middle and upper-class occupation groups are more likely to have prejudiced views of Islamic beliefs than people from working class occupation groups.

The publication of the report comes shortly after Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered an investigation into claims from Muslim Conservative lawmaker Nusrat Ghani that she was sacked as a junior minister in 2020 because her faith made other Cabinet members uncomfortable.